淨土往生傳 2.12

2.12

Shi Daochuo, whose secular surname was Wei, was a native of Wenshui in Bingzhou. After renouncing the household, he traveled around visiting famous teachers. Later, hearing that Chan Master Zan was distinguished in both theoretical understanding and practice, he devoted his whole aspiration to serving him. Soon he rested at Xuanzhong Monastery in Bigu. The monastery was the former dwelling of Dharma Master Tanluan of the Later Wei. In that monastery, Tanluan had long accumulated pure karma, and on the day of his passing, auspicious marvels occurred in succession. The prefectural people marveled at it, gathered the accounts of the events, and carved them on a stele. Daochuo looked upon its inscription and generated an even deeper faith. Thereupon, relying on a quiet setting and calming all thoughts, he recited the name of Amitābha Buddha countless times, making seventy thousand times a day his general norm. In the Bing and Fen regions, the local custom rarely engaged in buddhānusmṛti, and those holding prayer beads were few and far between. Daochuo encouraged both monastics and laypeople to practice buddhānusmṛti; for those without prayer beads, he had them count using beans—whenever one recitation was uttered, one bean was counted. At times, this was also done by counting hemp seeds or wheat grains. Afterward, when they were measured, the amount counted reached several tens of thousands of bushels. On the eighth day of the fourth month in the third year of Tang Zhenguan, monastics and laypeople gathered at the monastery, rejoicing in the descent and birth of the Tathāgata. They then saw Tanluan in the sky, riding a seven-jeweled boat, pointing from aboard the boat to Daochuo and saying, 'Your dwelling hall in the Pure Land is already completed; it is only that your karmic lifespan has not yet run out.' They also saw transformation buddhas and transformation bodhisattvas drifting in the sky. The assembly marveled in admiration and gave rise to great faith and submission; even icchantikas devoid of the spiritual lineage followed and submitted to him. Because of this, in the early Tang, the steeping of the various prefectures of Bing and Fen in pure karma flourished through Daochuo. Daochuo had a companion named Daofu, who long lived in the capital, quite distant from Xuanzhong Monastery. Whenever they met, they would always point to the Pure Land as their eternal reunion. Three days after Daochuo passed away, Daofu heard of it and said, 'I always took practice to be foremost; why am I left behind?' He also said, 'With the effort of just a single breath, the time to see the Buddha can be caught up with!' That very day, bowing his head before the image, he laid bare his confession, then withdrew to his seat and passed away.