景德傳燈錄 10.64

10.64

唐杭州刺史白居易字樂天。久參佛光得心法。兼稟大乘金剛寶戒。元和中造于京兆興善法堂致四問（語見興善章）十五年牧杭州訪鳥窠和尚。有問答偈頌（鳥窠章敘訖）甞致書于濟法師。以佛無上大慧演出教理。安有徇機高下應病不同。與平等一味之說相反。援引維摩及金剛三昧等六經。闢二義而難之。又以五蘊十二緣。說名色前後不類。立理而徵之。並鉤深索隱通幽洞微。然未覩法師醻對。後來亦鮮有代答者。復受東都凝禪師八漸之目。各廣一言而為一偈釋其旨趣。自淺之深猶貫珠焉。凡守任處多訪祖道。學無常師。後為賓客分司東都。罄己俸修龍門香山寺。寺成自撰記。凡為文動關教化。無不贊美佛乘。見于本集。其歷官次第歸全代祀。即史傳存焉耳。

Bai Juyi, courtesy name Letian, was Prefect of Hangzhou under the Tang. He studied for a long time under Foguang and attained the mind-Dharma, and also received the Mahāyāna Adamantine Jewel Precepts. During the Yuanhe era, he went to the Dharma hall of Xingshan in Jingzhao and posed four questions (the words appear in the chapter on Xingshan). In the fifteenth year, while governing Hangzhou, he visited Upādhyāya Niaoke, with whom he exchanged questions, answers, and verses (already recounted in the chapter on Niaoke). He once sent a letter to Dharma Master Ji, [arguing that] since the Buddha’s supreme great wisdom expounded the doctrinal principles, how could there be high and low according to faculties, or differences in response to diseases, in contradiction to the teaching of equal one-taste? Citing six sūtras including the *Vimalakīrti* and the *Vajrasamādhi*, he refuted the two meanings and challenged them. Furthermore, regarding the five aggregates and twelve links of dependent origination, he pointed out discrepancies in the sequence of name-and-form, establishing rational principles to investigate them. He probed the depths and sought the hidden, penetrating the subtle and fathoming the minute. However, no response from the Dharma Master was ever seen, and later on few could answer on his behalf. Moreover, he received the headings of the Eight Gradual Steps from Chan Master Ning of Dongdu; expounding each word into a verse, he explained their purports, progressing from the shallow to the deep like a string of pearls. Wherever he served in office, he mostly visited the ancestral ways, learning with no permanent teacher. Later, as an advisor with an official post in Dongdu, he emptied his own stipend to renovate Xiangshan Temple at Longmen. When the temple was completed, he composed the record himself. Whenever he composed writings, they were invariably connected with moral transformation, and there were none that did not praise the Buddha-vehicle, as seen in his collected works. His successive official posts, passing away, and generations of offerings are preserved in the historical biographies.