曆代法寶記 1.11

1.11

處寂禪師。綿州浮城縣人也。俗姓唐。家代好儒。常習詩禮。有分義孝行。年十歲。父亡。歎曰。天地既無。我聞佛法不可思議。拔生死苦。乃投詵和上。詵和上問。汝何來。答云。故投和上。和上知非常人。當赴京日。遂擔大師至京。一肩不移。身長八尺。神情稟然。於眾獨見其首。見者欽貴。後還歸居資州德純寺。化道眾生二十餘年。後至開元二十年四月。密遣家人王鍠喚海東無相禪師。付囑法及信袈裟云。此衣是達摩祖師衣。則天賜詵和上。和上與吾。吾轉付汝。善自保愛。覓好山住去。後至其年五月二十七日。告諸門徒。吾不久住。至夜半子時。奄然坐化。處寂大師時年六十八。

Chan Master Chuji was a native of Fucheng County in Mianzhou. His secular surname was Tang. For generations his family loved Confucianism, and he constantly studied the Odes and Rites, possessing a sense of duty and filial conduct. At the age of ten, his father died. He sighed, saying, 'Since heaven and earth are no more [for me], and I have heard that the Buddha's Dharma is inconceivable and pulls one out from the suffering of birth and death,' he thereupon went to Upādhyāya Shen. Upādhyāya Shen asked, 'Why have you come?' He replied, 'I have deliberately come to take refuge with you, Upādhyāya.' The Upādhyāya knew he was no ordinary man. On the day [Shen] had to proceed to the capital, [Chuji] carried the Grand Master on a shoulder-pole all the way to the capital, never shifting shoulders. He was eight feet tall, of awe-inspiring demeanor; among the crowd only his head stood out, and whoever saw him admired and honored him. Later he returned to dwell at Dechun Temple in Zizhou, transforming and guiding sentient beings for over twenty years. Later, in the fourth month of the twentieth year of Kaiyuan, he secretly sent his domestic servant Wang Huang to summon Chan Master Wuxiang of Haedong, and entrusted to him the Dharma and the robe of verification, saying: 'This robe is ancestral master Bodhidharma's robe. Zetian bestowed it upon Upādhyāya Shen, the Upādhyāya gave it to me, and I turn and transmit it to you. Cherish and preserve it well; search out a fine mountain to dwell in.' Later, on the twenty-seventh day of the fifth month of that year, he announced to all his disciples, 'I shall not stay long.' When midnight arrived, he suddenly underwent sitting transformation. Grand Master Chuji was sixty-eight years of age at the time.