冥報記 1.7

1.7

At Renshou Monastery in Puzhou was the monk Shi Daoxian. He was clever from his youth, fond of learning, and revered by his home district. He lectured on the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra more than eighty times, renowned for his thorough mastery. In the second year of the Zhenguan reign era, Cui Yizhi was serving as magistrate of Yuqing County; the people invited Daoxian to lecture on the sūtra. When he first opened the topic, he wept and said to the assembly, 'We are distant from the sages, and their subtle words have become obscure and cut off; what is transmitted by the mediocre and foolish is insufficient as a standard. Yet if you take refuge with a faithful mind, you will naturally attain discernment and awakening. Today’s exposition will conclude at the Lion [chapter]. The time has already run out; I hope each of you keeps this in mind.' Subsequently, having lectured up to the Lion [chapter], one morning he died without illness. Clergy and laity were shocked and grieved. Yizhi himself went barefoot to escort his body to the northern slope of the Southern Mountains. It was the eleventh month, and the ground was frozen with ice. When they lowered the corpse to the ground, flowers immediately sprang from the earth, resembling lotuses though smaller; at his head and each of his hands and feet, there was a single flower. Yizhi marveled at it and ordered men to guard it through the night. The guards grew weary and slept, and someone stole and snapped off the flowers. When they looked the next morning, flowers had burst forth all around his body, totaling more than five hundred stems. Only after seven days did they wither and dry up. (Yizhi, as well as clergy and laity, all related this as such.)