景德傳燈錄 5.4

5.4

師說偈已復曰。其法無二其心亦然。其道清淨亦無諸相。汝等慎勿觀淨及空其心。此心本淨無可取捨。各自努力隨緣好去。師說法利生經四十載。其年七月六日命弟子。往新州國恩寺。建報恩塔仍令倍工。又有蜀僧名方辯。來謁師云。善揑塑。師正色曰。試塑看。方辯不領旨。乃塑師真。可高七寸。曲盡其妙。師觀之曰。汝善塑性不善佛性。酬以衣物。僧禮謝而去。先天二年七月一日謂門人曰。吾欲歸新州。汝速理舟檝。時大眾哀慕乞師且住。師曰。諸佛出現猶示涅槃。有來必去理亦常然。吾此形骸歸必有所。眾曰。師從此去早晚却迴。師曰。葉落歸根來時無口。又問。師之法眼何人傳受。師曰。有道者得無心者通。又問。後莫有難否。曰吾滅後五六年。當有一人來取吾首。聽吾記曰。頭上養親。口裏須餐。遇滿之難。楊柳為官。又云。吾去七十年有二菩薩。從東方來。一在家一出家。同時興化建立吾宗。締緝伽藍昌隆法嗣。言訖往新州國恩寺。沐浴訖跏趺而化。異香襲人白虹屬地。即其年八月三日也。時韶新兩郡各修靈塔。道俗莫決所之。兩郡刺史共焚香祝云。香煙引處即師之欲歸焉。時鑪香騰涌直貫曹谿。以十一月十三日入塔。壽七十六。時韶州刺史韋據撰碑。門人憶念取首之記。遂先以鐵葉漆布固護師頸。塔中有達磨所傳信衣（西域屈眴布也。緝木綿華心織成。後人以碧絹為裏）中宗賜磨衲寶鉢方辯塑真道具等。主塔侍者尸之。開元十年壬戌八月三日。夜半忽聞塔中如拽鐵索聲。僧眾驚起。見一孝子從塔中走出。尋見師頸有傷。具以賊事聞於州縣。縣令楊侃刺史柳無忝得牒切加擒捉。五日於石角村捕得賊人。送韶州鞫問。云姓張名淨滿。汝州梁縣人。於洪州開元寺。受新羅僧金大悲錢二十千。令取六祖大師首。歸海東供養。柳守聞狀未即加刑。乃躬至曹谿。問師上足令韜曰。如何處斷。韜曰。若以國法論理須誅夷。但以佛教慈悲冤親平等。況彼求欲供養罪可恕矣。柳守嘉歎曰。始知佛門廣大。遂赦之（爾後甚有名賢贊述及檀施珍異。文繁不錄）上元元年肅宗遣使。就請師衣鉢歸內供養。至永泰元年五月五日。代宗夢六祖大師請衣鉢。七日勅刺史楊瑊云。朕夢感能禪師請傳法袈裟却歸曹溪。今遣鎮國大將軍劉崇景。頂戴而送。朕謂之國寶。卿可於本寺如法安置。專令僧眾親承宗旨者。嚴加守護勿令遺墜。後或為人偷竊。皆不遠而獲。如是者數四。憲宗諡大鑒禪師。塔曰元和靈照。皇宋開寶初。王師平南海。劉氏殘兵作梗。師之塔廟鞠為煨燼。而真身為守塔僧保護一無所損。尋有制興修功未竟。會太宗即位留心禪門。頗增壯麗焉。大師自唐先天二年癸丑入滅。至今景德元年甲辰歲。凡二百九十二年矣。得法者除印宗等三十三人各化一方標為正嗣。其外藏名匿迹者不可勝紀。今於諸家傳記中略錄十人。謂之旁出。

After the Master spoke the verse, he said again: "The Dharma is non-dual, and the mind is likewise. Its Way is pure and free of all marks. Take care not to view purity or empty your minds. This mind is fundamentally pure; there is nothing to grasp or reject. Strive, each of you, and go well following conditions." For forty years the Master taught the Dharma and benefited living beings. On the sixth day of the seventh month of that year, he instructed his disciples to go to Guo'en Monastery in Xinzhou to construct a Stūpa for Repaying Kindness, ordering them to double their efforts. Furthermore, there was a monk from Shu named Fangbian who came to see the Master, saying that he was skilled at sculpting. With a grave countenance, the Master said: "Try sculpting and let me see." Fangbian did not grasp his intention and sculpted a likeness of the Master, about seven inches high, extraordinarily lifelike in its artistry. The Master looked at it and said: "You are skilled at sculpting nature, but not skilled at the Buddha-nature." He rewarded him with robes and items. The monk bowed, gave thanks, and departed. On the first day of the seventh month of the second year of Xiantian, [the Master] said to his disciples: "I wish to return to Xinzhou. Quickly prepare the boat and oars." At that time the great assembly wept in longing and begged the Master to stay. The Master said: "When the Buddhas appear, they still demonstrate nirvāṇa. That which comes must go—this is ever the principle. This physical body of mine must have a place to return to." The assembly asked: "After leaving now, when will you return?" The Master said: "Fallen leaves return to the root; when I came, I had no mouth." They asked again: "To whom has your Dharma eye been transmitted?" The Master said: "One who possesses the Way obtains it; one who is free of mind penetrates it." They asked again: "Will there be any disaster in the future?" He said: "Five or six years after my extinction, someone will come to take my head. Listen to my prediction: 'To nourish parents upon the head; / there must be food within the mouth. / Encountering the disaster of Man; / Yang and Liu serve as officials.'" He also said: "Seventy years after I depart, two bodhisattvas will come from the east, one a householder and one a monastic. They will simultaneously propagate the transformation and establish my school, repairing the saṅghārāma and causing the Dharma line to flourish." Having spoken, he went to Guo'en Monastery in Xinzhou, bathed, sat cross-legged, and passed away. A rare fragrance permeated the air, and a white rainbow touched the ground. This was on the third day of the eighth month of that year. At that time, Shaozhou and Xinzhou both built sacred stūpas, and monastics and laypeople could not decide where [the body] should go. The governors of the two prefectures together burned incense and prayed: "Wherever the smoke of the incense leads, that is where the Master wishes to return." The incense smoke surged directly toward Caoxi. On the thirteenth day of the eleventh month, he was entombed in the stūpa. His age was seventy-six. At that time, Wei Ju, the governor of Shaozhou, composed a stele inscription. Remembering the prediction about taking the head, the disciples first protected the Master's neck with iron plates and lacquered cloth. In the stūpa were the robe of faith transmitted by Bodhidharma (a fabric of *quxun* cloth from the Western Regions, woven from the core of kapok flowers, later lined with green silk by successors), the cassock and precious bowl bestowed by Emperor Zhongzong, Fangbian's sculpted likeness, requisites, and so forth. The attendant guarding the stūpa took charge of them. At midnight on the third day of the eighth month of the tenth year of Kaiyuan, a renxu year, the sound of pulling iron chains was suddenly heard in the stūpa. The monks woke in alarm and saw a filial son running out from the stūpa. Soon after, they found an injury on the Master's neck. They reported the theft fully to the prefecture and county. The county magistrate Yang Kan and the prefect Liu Wutian received the report and made diligent efforts to capture [the culprit]. On the fifth day, they captured the thief in Shijiao Village and sent him to Shaozhou for interrogation. He stated that his surname was Zhang and his personal name Jingman, a native of Liang County in Ruzhou; at Kaiyuan Monastery in Hongzhou, he had received twenty strings of cash from the Silla monk Jin Dabi, who instructed him to take the head of the Sixth Patriarch and bring it back to Haedong for worship. When Governor Liu heard the circumstances, he did not immediately execute punishment. Instead, he went personally to Caoxi and asked the Master's senior disciple Lingtao: "How should this be judged?" Tao said: "If judged by state law, he should indeed be executed; but by the Buddhist compassion of equality toward enemies and kin, and moreover because he sought to make offerings, the crime may be pardoned." Governor Liu praised him, sighing: "Only now do I know the vastness of the Buddhist gate!" and thereupon pardoned him. (Thereafter, many worthy luminaries composed eulogies and made rare and precious donations; they are too numerous to record here.) In the first year of Shangyuan, Emperor Suzong sent an envoy to request the Master's robe and bowl to be brought into the palace for offerings. In the first year of Yongtai, on the fifth day of the fifth month, Emperor Daizong dreamed that the Great Master, the Sixth Patriarch, asked for the robe and bowl. On the seventh day, an imperial edict was issued to the prefect Yang Jian: "Our dream responded to Chan Master Neng asking for the Dharma-transmission robe to return to Caoxi. Now We dispatch Senior General Liu Chongjing to respectfully deliver it upon his head. We consider it a national treasure. You, sir, should properly enshrine it in the original monastery, especially ordering the monks who personally received the core teachings to guard it strictly, not letting it be lost." Later, it was stolen by people on several occasions, but each time was recovered not far away; this happened four times. Emperor Xianzong conferred the posthumous title 'Chan Master Dajian' (Great Mirror) and named the stūpa 'Yuanhe Lingzhao' (Spiritual Illumination of Yuanhe). At the beginning of the Kaibao era of the imperial Song dynasty, when the royal army subdued Nanhai, the remnant troops of the Liu clan caused disturbances; the Master's stūpa and shrine were reduced to ashes, but his true body was protected by the stūpa-guarding monks and suffered no damage whatsoever. Soon an imperial decree was issued to rebuild it, but the work was not completed. When Emperor Taizong ascended the throne, he paid attention to the Chan school and considerably enhanced its splendor. From the Master's parinirvāṇa in the second year of Xiantian of the Tang dynasty, a guichou year, to the present first year of Jingde, a jiachen year, there have been altogether two hundred and ninety-two years. Those who attained the Dharma, excluding Yinzong and others—thirty-three people in all who taught in various regions—are designated as the direct lineage. Aside from them, those who hid their names and concealed their traces cannot be counted. Here, ten people are briefly recorded from various biographies and termed 'collateral branches.'