天台九祖傳 1.12

1.12

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."