景德傳燈錄 21.65

21.65

Chan Master Qinghu of Bao'en Cloister in Jinling was a native of Changle in Fuzhou. His lay surname was Chen. At six years of age, he took leave of his parents to pay homage at Mount Gu, where he was tonsured. At fifteen, he received the precepts. Under the National Master's words, he clearly comprehended the true purport. When the National Master entered parinirvāṇa, he proceeded to Baiyun in Jianzhou. The Military Commissioner of Min, of the Wang clan, petitioned to bestow upon him the purple robe and the title Great Master Chongyin. In the eighth year of the Tianfu era of the Jin dynasty, when the army of Jinling was mobilized to enter the city of Jian, General Zha Wenhui arrived at the cloister. The Master came out to receive him. Zha asked, "How is it when we meet here?" The Master said, "Causing trouble for the general." Later, Zha invited the Master to return to Jinling. The ruler of the state ordered him to reside at Changqing Cloister to lead the assembly. In the early Xiande era of the Zhou dynasty, he retired to Jianzhou and built a hermitage. At that time, the Military Commissioner Chen Hui founded the Xianqin Bao'en Chan Monastery and earnestly invited him to become abbot. On the day he opened the hall, a monk asked, "When the Buddhas appear in the world, heavenly flowers fall in profusion. I wonder what auspicious omens there are when the Upādhyāya appears in the world?" The Master said, "Yesterday fresh thunder broke out; this morning fine rain flies." The monk asked, "What is the profound purport of all Buddhas?" The Master said, "Straw sandals and wooden clogs." In the fifth month of the third year of the Kaibao era, the Later Ruler of Jiangnan again invited him to reside in the two places of practice, Bao'en and Jingde. He came and went to preach the Dharma, and his title was changed to Chan Master Miaoxing. In the eleventh month of that year, showing signs of illness, he took advance leave of the ruler of the state. At dawn on the twentieth day, the bell was struck to assemble the great assembly; after giving his final instructions, he sat upright and passed away. His age was fifty-five, his monastic age forty. The ruler of the state provided lavish funeral rites and cremation. Over three hundred grains of śarīra and his sacred relics were gathered and returned to Mount Jizu in Jianzhou for burial at Woyun Cloister, where a stupa was erected. The Master's bearing was pure and untrammeled, his conduct solitary and lofty. For twenty years he did not wear silk or satin, dressing only in paper and cloth. His literary elegance and calligraphy surpassed all others. The essential words and verse-hymns from five places circulate separately in the world.