釋門自鏡錄 2.14

2.14

Shi Weizheng: his family and lineage are not known. He entered the renunciant life in his youth and cultivated insightful understanding, listening and studying diligently without wasting a single day. He resided at Taiping Monastery in the Divine Capital, frequently expounding several Mahāyāna scriptures with profound benefit for propagation. Suddenly, behind his bed on the wall, he saw a spider. He pinned it with a staff, inadvertently severing one of its legs. He sent someone to remove it. On the following day, it returned, and Weizheng saw it; he again dispatched someone to carry it across the river to the south. After spending the night, it came again. Thereupon Weizheng flicked at its injured leg with his finger, whereupon his finger was bitten by it. He again dispatched someone to carry it extremely far away. On another day, unawares, it returned once more and bit his finger again. Although it was only a small sore, the pain was unbearable. He ordered it carried away once more, and from then on it did not return. Afterward, the sore slightly enlarged and gradually spread over his whole body. His body felt slight itching; scratching it with his hand produced a sore wherever his hand touched. Within the sores were spiderwebs, and the emerging sores each gradually enlarged to some two or three inches. Morning and evening the torment was beyond words and unbearable. Over the course of two years, his nasal mucus, saliva, and urine all had tiny spiderlings emerging from them. Up to the present day it has not healed. Inquiries made with a hundred remedies found none that could cure it. The congregation of the whole monastery gathered from time to time to make supplications to the Buddha on his behalf, whereat he felt slightly better. He exhausted his monastic robes and resources to make an ensemble of fifteen thousand images on Mount Longmen. Now, as the images are nearing completion, his sores have slightly closed. How could this not be brought about by uninvited past calamities?