[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Indian literature](https://indike.org/pramana/in) › [Buddhist Literature](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha) › [Taishō Tripiṭaka (Chinese Buddhist canon)](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho) › [天台九祖傳](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2069) › 1.12 # 天台九祖傳 1.12 天台九祖傳 1.12 - **Language:** Classical Chinese ### [1.12](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2069.1.12) 九祖荊谿尊者。諱湛然。姓戚氏。世居晉陵之荊谿。則常州人也。家本業儒。師獨有拔俗之志。童𮯁邈（上初謹切。毀齒也。下亡卓切。遠也）焉異於常倫。年二十餘。受經於左谿。左谿與之言大駭。異日左谿謂曰。汝何夢乎。對曰。疇昔之夜。夢披僧服掖二輪。遊大河之中。左谿曰。噫汝當以止觀二法度群生於生死淵乎。乃授以本師所弘之法。師德宇凝粹神鋒爽拔。其密識深行冲氣慧用。方寸之間。合於天倪。至是始以處士傳道。學者悅隨。如群流趣於大川也。天寶初年。解逢掖而登僧籍。遂往越州曇一律師法集。廣尋持犯開制之律範焉。復於吳郡開元寺。敷行止觀。無何左谿捐代挈密藏。獨運於東南。謂門人曰。道之難行也。我知之矣。古先至人。靜以觀其本。動以應乎物。二俱不住。乃蹈于大方。今之人或蕩於空。或膠於有。自病病他。道用不振。將欲取正。捨予誰歸。於是大啟上法。旁羅萬行。盡攝諸相。入於無間。即文字以達觀。導語默以還源。乃廣祖師所傳章句。凡十數萬言。心度諸禪。身不踰矩。三學俱熾。群疑日潰。求珠問影之類。稍見罔象之功。行止觀之盛始師之力也。天寶末大曆初。詔書連徵。辭疾不就。當大兵大飢之際。揭厲法流。學徒愈繁。瞻望堂室。以為依怙。然慈以接之守之。大布而衣。一床而居。以身誨人。耆艾不息。建中三年二月五日。示疾佛隴道場。顧語學徒曰。道無方。性無體。生歟死歟。其旨一貫。吾歸骨此山。報盡今夕。要與汝輩談道而訣。夫一念無相。謂之空。無法不備。謂之假。不一不異。謂之中。在凡為三因。在聖為三德。爇炷則初後同相。涉海則淺深異流。善利利人。在此而已。爾其志之。言訖隱几泊（白各切。揚雅草玄曰。自守泊如也）如而化。春秋七十有二。法臘三十四。門人號咽。奉全身起塔。祔（音附）于智者大師塋兆西南隅焉。入室弟子吳門元浩。可謂邇其人近其室矣。然平日輯纂教法。明決前疑。開發後滯。則有法華釋籤法華疏記各十卷。止觀輔行傳弘訣十卷。法華三昧補助儀一卷。方等懺補闕儀二卷。略維摩疏十卷。維摩疏記三卷。重治定涅槃疏十五卷。金錍論一卷。及止觀義例止觀大意文句十妙不二門等。盛行于世。述三部記成。師親書寄姑蘇開元寺大藏。語刊小石碑。至今存焉。亦錄於此。庶見慈悲為人之心也。其又曰。開元十六年首。遊浙東尋師訪道。至二十年。於東陽金華。遇方巖和尚。示以天台教門。授止觀等本。遂求學於左谿大師。蒙誨以大旨。自惟識昧。凡所聞見。皆紀於紙墨。暨至德中。移隸此寺。乾元已來。攢成卷軸。蓋欲自防迷謬。而四方道流。偶復傳寫。今自覺衰疾。諸無所任。留此本兼玄疏兩記共三十卷。以寄此藏。儻於先師遺文。碑補萬一。則不負比來之誠。幸眾共守護。以貽後學。大曆十二祀孟秋。沙門湛然記。 > The Ninth Patriarch, the Venerable Jingxi. His taboo name was Zhanran, and his secular surname was Qi. His family had resided for generations at Jingxi in Jinling, so he was a man of Changzhou. His family originally followed Confucianism, but the master alone had the aspiration to transcend the mundane. In his childhood he was conspicuously different from ordinary folk. In his twenties, he received the scriptures from Zuoxi. When Zuoxi spoke with him, he was greatly astonished. Another day Zuoxi asked him, "What did you dream?" He replied, "On a recent night, I dreamt that I put on monastic robes, carried two wheels under my arms, and roamed in the midst of a great river." Zuoxi said, "Ah! You shall ferry all living beings across the abyss of birth and death by means of the two dharmas of calm abiding and special insight!" He thereupon imparted to him the teachings propagated by his own master. The master's moral presence was solid and pure, and his spiritual sharpness was distinct and lofty. His hidden insight and profound practice, along with his harmonious spirit and wise function, conformed in his heart with the natural order. From this point he first began transmitting the Way as a retired scholar, and learners gladly followed him, like various streams coursing into a great river. In the early years of the Tianbao reign era, he took off his wide-sleeved scholar's robes and entered the monastic register. He then went to the Dharma gathering of Vinaya Master Tanyi of Yuezhou, extensively investigating the vinaya models of upholding and transgressing, permissible exemptions and prohibitions. Again, at Kaiyuan Monastery in Wujun, he expounded and practiced calm abiding and special insight. Before long, Zuoxi passed away; \[Zhanran\] took up the secret treasury and moved it forward alone in the southeast. He said to his disciples, "That the Way is difficult to practice—I know it indeed! The perfect men of old contemplated the root in tranquility, and responded to things in activity; abiding in neither, they stepped onto the great path. People today either dissipate into emptiness or cling stubbornly to existence, ailing themselves and ailing others, so that the function of the Way fails to flourish. If one wishes to rectify this, who besides myself can assume the task?" Thereupon he broadly opened up the supreme Dharma, embracing all ten thousand practices on all sides, collecting all marks into the non-differentiation, reaching contemplation through the written word, and guiding speech and silence to return to the source. He then expanded the passages and sentences transmitted by the Patriarchs to some hundreds of thousands of words. In his mind he measured all dhyānas, while in body he did not overstep rules. The three learnings all blazed brightly, and manifold doubts collapsed day by day. Those who searched for the jewel and inquired after shadows gradually witnessed the efficacy of the formless. That the practice of calm abiding and special insight flourished was originally due to the master's strength. At the end of the Tianbao era and the beginning of the Dali era, imperial decrees repeatedly summoned him, but he declined on grounds of illness and did not take them up. Amidst great military strife and great famine, he waded through the stream of the Dharma, and his students grew even more numerous; they looked up to his hall and chamber as their refuge. Yet he received them with compassion and maintained his practice: wearing coarse cloth, living on a single couch, teaching others through his own person, never ceasing even in old age. On the fifth day of the second month of the third year of the Jianzhong reign era, he manifested illness at the Folong Bodhimaṇḍa. Looking around, he addressed his disciples, saying: "The Way has no fixed direction; the nature has no substance. Whether life or death, their principle is one and the same. I shall leave my bones in this mountain; my retribution ends tonight. I must speak of the Way with you and bid farewell. The marklessness of a single thought-moment is called emptiness; having no dharma unprovided is called provisionality; being neither identical nor different is called the middle. In ordinary beings these are the three causes; in sages these are the three virtues. When lighting an incense stick, the beginning and the end have the same mark; when wading into the ocean, the shallow and deep follow different currents. Good benefit for benefiting others lies solely in this. Keep this in your minds!" Having finished speaking, he leaned on his armrest and peacefully passed away. His worldly age was seventy-two, and his dharma age was thirty-four. His disciples wailed and choked with grief; they received his whole body and erected a stupa, interring it at the southwestern corner of Great Master Zhizhe's cemetery. His chamber-entering disciple Yuanhao of Wumen could truly be said to have been intimate with his person and close to his chamber. As for his lifelong compilation of doctrinal teachings, clarifying former doubts and opening up later stagnations, there are the Fahua shiqian and Fahua shu ji in ten fascicles each; the Zhiguan fuxing chuanhong jue in ten fascicles; the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Samādhi Supplementary Ritual in one fascicle; the Vaipulya Repentance Supplementary Ritual in two fascicles; the Abridged Vimalakīrti Commentary in ten fascicles; the Vimalakīrti Commentary Record in three fascicles; the Revised and Established Nirvāṇa Commentary in fifteen fascicles; the Jinpi lun in one fascicle; as well as the Zhiguan yili, Zhiguan dayi, and the Wenju shimiao bu'er men, which circulated widely in the world. When he finished composing the records on the three major works, the master personally transcribed them and sent them to the Great Canon at Kaiyuan Monastery in Gusu; the words were carved on a small stone stele, which still exists today. It is also recorded here, in the hope that his compassionate heart for benefiting others may be seen. It further says: "In the beginning of the sixteenth year of Kaiyuan, I traveled around eastern Zhejiang seeking teachers and inquiring into the Way. In the twentieth year, at Jinhua in Dongyang, I met Upādhyāya Fangyan, who revealed to me the Tiantai doctrinal gateway and imparted the texts of calm abiding and so forth. Thereupon I sought instruction under Great Master Zuoxi and received instruction in the overarching purport. Considering my own understanding to be dim, whatever I heard and saw I recorded in paper and ink. Around the Zhide era, I was reassigned to this monastery; from Qianyuan onward, I gathered them into scrolls. This was originally intended to guard myself against confusion and errors, but followers of the Way from the four quarters happened to copy and transmit them. Now, feeling myself weakened and ill, unable to take up any responsibility, I leave this text together with the two records on the Xuan\[yi\] and Shu, in thirty fascicles altogether, to be deposited in this canon. If this should supplement even one ten-thousandth of the former master's posthumous writings, it will not fail the sincerity of my recent years. I hope that the community will protect them together, so as to bequeath them to later students. Recorded by the śramaṇa Zhanran in the first month of autumn in the twelfth year of the Dali era." > — English (machine translation) (machine translation) - [Previous: 1.11](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2069.1.11) - [Next: 1.13](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2069.1.13) - [Up: 1](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2069.1) ## Translations (1) - [English (machine translation)](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2069~en-mt.1.12) — English, machine translation ## Linked texts (1) - [佛祖歷代通載](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2036.14.33) — Classical Chinese --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2069.1.12](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2069.1.12) · Pramāṇa