往生集 1.147

1.147

宋晤恩。姑蘇常熟人。年十三聞誦彌陀經。遂求出家。終日一食。不離衣鉢。不畜財寶。臥必右脅。坐必跏趺。每布薩涕泗不止。遍誨人以西方淨業。及一乘圓旨。有疑不逗機者。答曰。與作毒鼓之緣耳。雍熙二年八月朔日。夜覩白光自井而出。謂門人曰。吾將逝矣。絕粒禁言。一心念佛。夢一沙門。執金爐焚香。三遶其室。自言灌頂。來此相迎。夢覺呼門人至。猶聞異香二十五日。說止觀指歸及觀心義畢端坐而化。人聞管絃鈴鐸之音嘹亮空中。漸久漸遠。自西而去。

Wu'en of the Song dynasty was a native of Changshu in Gusu. At the age of thirteen, he heard the Amitābha Sūtra chanted and thereupon sought to enter the monastic life. Throughout his life, he ate only one meal a day, never parted from his robe and bowl, and accumulated no wealth or treasures. When lying down, he invariably rested on his right side; when sitting, he invariably assumed the cross-legged posture. Every time the poṣadha was held, his tears and mucus flowed unceasingly. He universally instructed people in the pure karma of the Western Direction and the perfect purport of the Ekayāna. When someone doubted whether this was suited to their spiritual capacity, he answered: 'It is merely to establish a karmic connection like that of the poison-smeared drum.' On the first day of the eighth month of the second year of the Yongxi era, he saw a white light emerging from a well at night. He said to his disciples: 'I am about to pass away.' He ceased grain consumption, observed silence, and devoted his mind single-mindedly to buddhamanasikāra. He dreamed of a śramaṇa holding a golden burner, burning incense, and circumambulating his room three times, who said of himself: 'I am Guanding, and I have come to welcome you.' Waking from the dream, he summoned his disciples to come, and an extraordinary fragrance could still be smelled. On the twenty-fifth day, having finished expounding the 'Essentials of Śamatha-Vipaśyanā' and the meaning of mind contemplation, he sat upright and passed away. People heard the clear and resonant sound of stringed instruments, bells, and chimes in the sky, which gradually grew fainter and farther away, departing toward the west.