景德傳燈錄 5.4

5.4

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.'