景德傳燈錄 3.16

3.16

After the Great Master had transmitted the robe and the Dharma, he further said, "Having received my teaching, you should dwell deep in the mountains; do not go about teaching yet, as there will be a national catastrophe." Sengcan said, "Since you, Master, know this in advance, please deign to give me instruction." The Master said, "It is not that I know it; this is the prophetic record transmitted by Bodhidharma from Prajñātāra, which says: 'Although within the mind it is auspicious, outwardly there is calamity.' I have calculated the years, and it is precisely now. You must carefully ponder my former words and not be caught in the worldly catastrophe. However, I too have past encumbrances, and now I must repay them. Go well and practice well, awaiting the proper time to transmit [the Dharma]." Having given his entrustment, the Great Master went to the capital of Ye and preached the Dharma according to circumstance. Expounding with a single voice, the fourfold assembly took refuge in him. Thus thirty-four years passed, whereupon he hid his light and mixed his traces, altering his manner and appearance. Sometimes he entered wine taverns, sometimes he passed through butcher shops, sometimes he engaged in street chatter, and sometimes he accompanied menial servants. People asked him, "Master, you are a man of the Way; why do you act like this?" The Master said, "I am tuning my own mind; what business is it of yours?" Moreover, beneath the triple gate of Kuangjiu Monastery in Guancheng county, he spoke of the unsurpassed Way, and listeners gathered like a forest. At that time, there was Dharma Master Bianhe, who was lecturing on the Nirvāṇa Sūtra within the monastery. When his students heard the Master expounding the Dharma, they gradually slipped away. Bianhe could not contain his rage and lodged slanders with the county magistrate, Zhai Zhongkan. Zhongkan was deluded by his perverse words and unlawfully inflicted punishment upon the Master. The Master accepted it serenely and submissively; those who recognized the truth called it the repaying of a debt. His age at the time was one hundred and seven years, on the sixteenth day of the third month in the thirteenth year of the Kaihuang reign era of Emperor Wen of the Sui, a guichou year (Court Attendant Haoyue asked Upādhyāya Cen of Changsha, "The ancients said: 'When one realizes, karmic hindrances are originally empty; when one has not realized, one must repay past debts.' What about the Venerable Simha and the Great Master the Second Patriarch—why did they go to repay debts?" Changsha said, "Virtuous One, you do not recognize original emptiness." The other said, "What is original emptiness?" Changsha said, "Karmic hindrances are it." He asked again, "What are karmic hindrances?" Changsha said, "Original emptiness is it." The other had no words. Changsha then presented a verse, saying:
Provisional existence is originally not existent;
Provisional cessation is also not non-existent.
The meaning of nirvāṇa and repaying debts—
In the one nature there is no difference at all).
Later he was buried seventy li northeast of Fuyang county in Cizhou. Emperor Dezong of the Tang bestowed on him the posthumous title Zen Master Dazu (Great Ancestor). From the Master's death to the first year of the Jingde reign era of the August Song, a jiachen year, it was 413 years (this should be 412 years).