天台九祖傳 1.10

1.10

七祖天宮尊者。諱慧威。姓留氏。東陽人也。𩭳角之年。露其舊習。抉開愛網。徑入空門。不滯一方。仍參三益。聞縉雲大威禪師盛行禪法。裹足造焉。刻志忘勞。覩威牆奧。一日千里。罔不推稱。至有成業。時謂小威。然其樂靜居山。罕交人事。指教門人不少傑出者。左谿一人而已。師甞修止觀。匪棄光陰。說與行而並馳。語將默而齊貫。落然汪汪然。人無德而名焉。

The Seventh Patriarch, the Venerable Tiangong. His taboo name was Huiwei, and his surname was Liu. He was a man of Dongyang. At the age when his hair was tied in tufts, he revealed his past habits, broke through the net of attachment, and went straight into the gate of emptiness. Not lingering in any single place, he continually visited the three kinds of beneficial friends. Hearing that the Great Wei, the meditation master of Jinyun, was widely promoting the meditation methods, he bound up his feet and went thither. Striving resolutely and forgetting fatigue, he gazed into the innermost chambers of Wei's gate; making progress of a thousand li in a single day, all praised and commended him. When his achievements were accomplished, he was called Little Wei at the time. Yet he delighted in dwelling quietly in the mountains, rarely mingling in worldly affairs. Among the disciples he instructed, those of outstanding caliber were not few, but Zuoxi alone stood supreme. The master once cultivated calm abiding and special insight, never wasting his time; his teaching and practice galloped together, his speech and silence were harmoniously unified. Vast and profound, men found no words adequate to praise his virtue.