續傳燈錄 30.54

30.54

嘉興府報恩法常首座。開封人也。丞相薛居正之裔。宣和七年依長沙益陽華嚴元軾下髮。遍依叢林。於首楞嚴經深入義海。自湖湘至萬年謁雪巢機契。命掌牋翰。後首眾報恩。室中唯一矮榻餘無長物。庚子九月中語寺僧曰。一月後不復留。此十月二十一往方丈謁。飯將曉書漁父詞於室門。就榻收足而逝。詞曰。此事楞嚴嘗露布。梅花雪月交光處。一笑寥寥空萬古。風甌語。逈然銀漢橫天宇。蝶夢南華方栩栩。斑斑誰跨豐干虎。而今忘却來時路。江山暮。天涯目送鴻飛去。

Head Monk Fachang of Bao'en in Jiaxing Prefecture was a native of Kaifeng, a descendant of Chancellor Xue Juzheng. In the seventh year of Xuanhe, he tonsured under Huayan Yuanshi of Yiyang in Changsha. He visited monasteries throughout the land, delving deeply into the ocean of meaning in the Śūraṅgama-sūtra. Coming from the lakes and rivers of Hunan to Wannian, he met Xuechao, and their minds dovetailed. Xuechao ordered him to take charge of correspondence and documents. Later, he served as head of the assembly at Bao'en. In his room there was only a single low couch, with no other superfluous belongings. In the middle of the ninth month of the gengzi year, he said to the monks of the temple: 'In one month I shall stay no longer.' On the twenty-first of the tenth month, he went to the abbot's quarters to pay his respects. As breakfast neared dawn, he wrote a lyric to the tune 'The Fisherman' on the door of his room, sat down on the couch, pulled in his feet, and passed away. The lyric went:
'This matter was once proclaimed abroad in the Śūraṅgama;
Where plum blossoms, snow, and moon mingle their lights.
A single laugh, so utterly solitary, empties ten thousand ages;
The wind chatters in the earthenware bowl,
Far, far away, the Silver River spans the vault of heaven.
Chuang-tzu's butterfly dream was just then fluttering;
Dappled and bright, who rides Fenggan's tiger?
And now I have forgotten the road by which I came;
Evening falls on the rivers and mountains;
At the world's edge my eyes see the wild geese flying away.'