法華傳記 3.30

3.30

Shi Huisi's secular surname was Li; he was a native of Wujin in Xiangcheng. As a child, because of a dream in which an Indian monk exhorted him to enter the Buddha's way, and another dream in which several monks instructed him in the fasts and precepts to eat only one meal a day and not accept separate offerings, he would at that time see his peers reciting the Lotus Sūtra and developed deep joy and heavy devotion. Having never recited it before, he borrowed the sūtra daily from others, and within empty tombs he read it by himself. With no one to teach him, he wept day and night. Tombs are dwellings of non-humans, and his terrors were not just one. He moved and lodged in an ancient city, digging a cave to reside in. By day he begged for food, and by night he did not sleep; facing the sūtra he shed tears and made obeisance without rest. That year, the summer had much rain; the rain made the cave damp and stifling, so that his whole body swelled with edema and he was unable to move about. Yet with an urgent mind before the sūtra, the strength of his resolve grew ever sturdier. Suddenly he realized it had cleared away, and he was fully healed as before. He dreamt that Samantabhadra, riding a six-tusked white elephant, came, rubbed the crown of his head, and departed. Though he had never before recognized the text of the entire Lotus Sūtra, he naturally understood it. The place where his head had been rubbed naturally rose slightly like a uṣṇīṣa. Throughout ten years in all, the sound of his reciting the Lotus Sūtra never ceased. Moreover, he awakened to the Great Vehicle teaching of the Lotus Samādhi; the realm was clearly understood, and he attained the level of purification of the six sense faculties (from his biography).