淨土往生傳 3.15

3.15

Shi Hongju, secular surname Tang, was a native of Yongjia. He was ordained as a monk at Longxing Monastery in Kuaiji, and went to study at Baoxing Monastery in Chang'an. The people of Chang'an regarded him as having no equal among the Buddhist sangha for brilliance and distinction. Yet Hongju was modest and courteous, never satisfied with himself. He once traveled to Huadu Monastery with Cai Gui of Chenliu. There was an inscribed stele at the monastery; Hongju glanced through it, taking in several lines at a glance. Gui thought it extraordinary and asked Hongju, "Can you recite it?" Hongju said, "I can recite a little of it." He then repeated its text with not a single error. Gui suspected that Hongju just happened to be familiar with that text, and they went again to Chongsheng Monastery, which had nearly ten stele tablets. Reading them together with Hongju, after just one reading, he repeated and recited them just as before. Gui sighed and said, "Though unworthy, I am known as a talent among the literati, yet I had never seen such a thing with my own eyes. Today I have seen it in you!" Hongju did not reply. In his later years, he traveled in the Yue region. The monks and nuns of Yue asked him to be a refuge for both assemblies. His conduct was constant, his travels purposeful; he harbored compassion and forbearance, never having scolded even a cat or a dog. How he was toward people can well be known! Whenever he recited the Visualization Sūtra, he focused his thoughts on Anyang. Auspicious and unusual signs repeatedly occurred in response, yet Hongju set them aside and did not speak of them. In the third year of the Tiancheng reign era of the Later Tang, after a flood, the people suffered repeated famines. A thief entered his room, but Hongju's mind was undisturbed. Instead, he said to the thief, "You are merely distressed by natural calamity, with no other intent. Once this period has passed, you should value yourself." The thief felt ashamed. One of his disciples wished to strike the thief while he was unprepared. Hongju said, "If you have come to this, you are not my disciple. I must leave you." The disciple then stopped. In the fourth year of the Changxing reign era of the Later Tang, placid and free of illness, he said to his disciples, "The auspicious signs of the Pure Land have just appeared. When I depart this world, you must change me into new robes to complete my affairs." That evening at the third watch, he indeed departed this world. Three days after he was encoffined, one evening a knocking on the coffin was suddenly heard. The disciples opened the coffin, and Hongju rose from the coffin and said, "I once told you to change me into new robes, yet you failed my words. Just now, the ocean-like assembly said my robes were impure and that it would be difficult to draw near them. Therefore I have come to you to change them." After the change was completed, he took his final leave as before.