冥報記 1.3

1.3

Under the Sui, there was the monk of great virtue in the capital, Śramaṇa Shi Xinxing. He was originally a monk of Fazang Monastery in Xiangzhou. Initially, his mother had no son and had long grieved over it. A śramaṇa passed by and advised her to be mindful of Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva. The mother prayed and remained mindful day and night, and before long became pregnant and gave birth to Xinxing. As a child he was intelligent and wise, broadly learned in the sūtras and treatises, with insight surpassing others. He considered that the sūtras spoken by the Buddha aimed at salvation and deliverance: sometimes pointing out the way to people in accordance with their capacities, sometimes determining dharmas in accordance with what was timely and suitable to the situation. Now, the Holy One was long departed and capacities and times were long divergent; if people of lower capacity were to practice the higher Dharma, the dharma would not fit the capacity and could easily lead to errors and perversions. He then compiled excerpts from the sūtras and treatises, collating and examining what human faculties and dharmas ought to be studied, into thirty-six fascicles, entitled Renji lu (Record of Human Capacities). Early in the Kaihuang era, Duke Qi, the Left Supervisor of the Imperial Secretariat, heard of his great renown and memorialized Emperor Wen, summoning him to the capital to reside at Zhenji Monastery, which the Duke had founded. Xinxing also drew upon the sūtras and vinaya to extract the Sanjie fa (Three Levels Teaching) in four fascicles. Its main tenets were to exhort people to universal reverence, to recognize their evil roots, to contemplate the Buddha-nature, to administer medicine according to the sickness, and the sudden teaching of the One Vehicle. Valiant and vigorous practitioners throughout the realm all took him as their model. Xinxing once practiced the dhūta asceticism of begging for food (piṇḍapāta), bowed in worship at the six periods of the day, toiled with physical effort to calm his mind, seeking only to empty his physical form and substantiate his wisdom. Whenever he sat in meditation to expound the Dharma, four youths in blue clothing were often seen holding flowers and standing in attendance. Once, when he was sitting in meditation with his disciples in the hall, the assembly suddenly smelled a wondrous fragrance and a bright light illuminated the interior of the hall. Surprised and amazed together, they questioned Xinxing. Xinxing bade them ask his disciples Sengyong and Huiru. Sengyong said: 'Just now I saw an emanated Buddha arrive from the sky, approach the Chan Master, rub his crown, and bestow a prophecy (vyākaraṇa) upon him.' Ru said that [the Buddha] also rubbed Sengyong's crown and bestowed a prophecy; the rest of the details were identical to what Yong had said. Later, Yong took charge of his followers and went into seclusion on Mount Taibai. One morning, he said to the monks: 'We must return to the capital with the master.' The assembly respected Yong and all complied with him. They immediately descended the mountain and lodged for the night at Wugong. Setting out before dawn, he said to the assembly: 'Strive hard, Masters! Tonight we must enter the city.' At sunset they reached Caoshang; hearing the drum sound, he sighed and said: 'The city gates are closed.' They then lodged at an inn. When dusk arrived, he wept bitterly and said: 'We are too late.' The assembly asked the reason, but he did not answer. The next morning they entered the city and reached Zhenji Monastery, only to find that Xinxing had breathed his last at dusk the previous night. The monastery monks, surprised, asked Yong why he had come. He replied: 'While in the mountains, I saw from afar many people holding incense, flowers, banners, and canopies coming from the west, entering through the Kaiyuan Gate, and heading toward Zhenji Monastery. I suspected that the Chan Master was about to pass away, which is why I came. At dusk last night, I saw the Chan Master departing westward with an escort; he looked back and took leave of me, which is how I knew we were too late.' Earlier, various masters in the capital had doubted Xinxing's teachings. At this point, they conferred together: based on the Fu fazang jing (Sūtra on the Transmission of the Dharmapiṭaka), if a person's skull is hollow throughout, it is because they heard the true Dharma in past lives. Thereupon, they examined Xinxing's skull together, and found that his two ears were directly connected through; they were all filled with shame and remorse, and faithfully submitted. At first, Xinxing's disciples resided in five monasteries in the capital. Although their numbers later expanded, they are still known today as the Five Chan Masters. (An old monk and Lin's maternal uncle recounted this as such).