景德傳燈錄 4.9

4.9

The third generation, Chan Master Huifang, was a native of Yanling in Runzhou with the surname Pu. He went to Kaishan Monastery to leave householder life, and when he received full ordination, he thoroughly comprehended the sūtras and treatises. Later he entered Mount Niutou and had an audience with Chan Master Yan to consult on the secret essentials. Yan observed that his spiritual capacity was capable of bearing the correct Dharma, and thereupon transmitted the mind-seal to him. The master was awakened with sudden clarity. Thereupon he did not leave the forest retreats for just over ten years, and students from the four directions gathered like clouds. One day, the master said to the assembly, “I wish to go elsewhere to benefit beings in accordance with conditions. You should put yourselves at ease.” He then entrusted the correct Dharma to Chan Master Fachi and returned to Mount Mao. A few years later, when he was about to pass away, he saw about five hundred people with their hair hanging down in the back in the appearance of bodhisattvas, each holding banners and flowers, saying, “We request the Dharma master to preach.” Furthermore, a mountain deity was moved to manifest the body of a great serpent, coming before the courtyard as if weeping in farewell. The master said to his attendant Hongdao, “I am departing. Report this to all the disciples on my behalf.” When the disciples rushed to arrive, the master had already entered extinction. This was on the first day of the eighth month in the first year of the Tianci era of the Tang. The mountain forest turned white, and the streams and ravines ceased flowing for seven days. The sorrowful longing of monastics and laypeople shook the mountain valleys with sound. He lived sixty-seven years and had been a monk for forty years.