鐔津文集 13.9

13.9

師法諱幼旻。信陽玉山人也。本姓葉氏。童時即有出俗之志。告父母得命。遂入其邑之興教蘭若。師僧省覃出家。既納戒乃訪道四方。來虎林見惠明禪師。頹然有道器。即服膺執弟子禮。盡學其法。法務無難易者。備嘗之矣。久之惠明命師監其寺事。未幾會其寺大火蕩盡。方根其所失。其同事者危之皆憂乃禍。師謂之曰。我總寺事。罪盡在我。吾獨當之。爾曹不必懼也。吏果不入寺問師。弟坐其爨者耳。此豈古所謂臨難無苟免者耶。其後惠明告終畢其喪。師即帥眾曰。本府請大長老惠照聰公鎮其寺。以繼惠明。所統仍以監寺輔之。戮力相與復其寺。不十年而葺屋廬。嶷然千餘間益偉於舊。慶曆中朝廷用其薦而錫之章服。其後又賜號普慈。及惠照謝世。師方大疾。亦力病治其喪事。始惠照垂終遺書。舉師自代。官疑其事。不與以靈隱。更命僧主之。師事其僧愈恭。無毫𩬊鄙悋心見於聲彩。而人益德之。當此知府龍圖季公知之。乃以上天竺精舍。命師以長老居之。及觀文孫公初以資政大學士涖杭。特遷之主靈隱。始其演法之日。孫公大師衣冠貴游。不翅百人。預會爇香。聽其所說。而道俗老少貴賤摩肩而趨來者萬計。是日人聲馬跡溢滿山谷。法席之盛其如此者鮮矣。師天性寬平慈恕。與人周而多容。而人亦頗美之。故居其寺方六年。寺益修眾益靖。度弟子二十三人。嘉祐乙亥仲冬初。忽感微疾而臥。先終一日。與蒙語將授寺與今知禪德。語氣詳正。如平昔不衰。十三日鷄鳴起漱洗。問時辰乃安坐而盡。世壽六十一。僧臘四十一。以是月二十九日入塔于呼猿㵎之直北寺垣之內。塔已知師以其行狀求蒙文而銘之。然在古高僧傳其法凡吾人於其教有德有言及其有功者乃得書之。若今靈隱最天下名寺。固吾佛法以之弛張也。嗚呼普慈於其寺平生如此之效。豈不曰於法有功乎。余故不讓。乃引其事而書之也。銘曰。

The Master’s Dharma name was Youmin. He was a native of Yushan in Xinyang; his original surname was Ye. In his childhood he already had the aspiration to leave secular life. Having informed his parents and obtained their permission, he entered the Xingjiao Hermitage of his county, leaving home under the monk Shengtan. After receiving the full precepts, he traveled in the four directions seeking the Dao. Arriving in Hulin, he met Chan Master Huiming; as he possessed the capacity for the Dao in an unassuming way, he respectfully accepted his teachings as a disciple and mastered his Dharma completely. In Dharma duties, whether hard or easy, he experienced them all. In time, Huiming ordered him to supervise the affairs of the monastery. Shortly thereafter, the monastery was completely destroyed by a great fire. When the authorities investigated the fault, his colleagues felt endangered and all feared calamity. The Master said to them: “I oversee the affairs of the monastery; the fault rests entirely on me. I alone shall bear it; you need not be afraid.” The officials indeed did not enter the monastery to question the Master, but merely punished the cook. Was this not what the ancients meant by ‘facing adversity without seeking escape’? Later, when Huiming passed away and his funeral was completed, the Master led the assembly, saying: “Our prefecture should invite the Great Elder Huizhao (Venerable Cong) to preside over the monastery to succeed Huiming, and the previous supervisor should still assist him.” Striving together, they restored the monastery. In less than ten years, they reconstructed the halls and dwellings, towering over a thousand bays and even more magnificent than before. During the Qingli era, the court, based on recommendations, bestowed upon him the monastic robes, and later also granted the title Puci. When Huizhao passed away, the Master was severely ill, yet he forced himself to handle the funeral affairs despite his illness. When Huizhao was near death, his testamentary letter had recommended the Master to succeed him, but the authorities doubted the matter and did not grant him Lingyin, appointing another monk to preside instead. The Master served that monk with even greater reverence, without the slightest resentment or stinginess appearing in his demeanor, so that people respected his virtue all the more. At that time, Prefect and Longtu Academician Lord Ji learned of this, and thus appointed the Master as Elder to reside at the Upper Tianzhu Hermitage. When Lord Sun of the Guanwen Pavilion first arrived to administer Hangzhou as Grand Academician of the Zizheng Hall, he specially transferred him to preside over Lingyin. On the day he first expounded the Dharma, Lord Sun and high-ranking officials and nobility, no fewer than a hundred persons, participated in the gathering, burning incense and listening to his discourse; while monks and laypeople, old and young, noble and base, arrived shoulder to shoulder by the tens of thousands. On that day, the voices of people and tracks of horses filled the valleys; such splendor for a Dharma assembly has rarely been seen. The Master was by nature broad-minded, fair, compassionate, and forgiving, accommodating and generous to others, and people praised him greatly. Thus, having resided at the monastery for merely six years, the monastery was increasingly repaired and the assembly grew ever more peaceful; he ordained twenty-three disciples. In the beginning of the mid-winter of the yihai year of the Jiayou era, he suddenly contracted a slight illness and took to bed. One day before his passing, he spoke with me, Meng, about handing the monastery over to the present Chan Virtuous One Zhi; his tone was precise and calm, as sound as usual. On the thirteenth day at cockcrow, he arose and washed, asked the hour, and then sat peacefully and passed away. His worldly age was sixty-one; his monastic seniority was forty-one. On the twenty-ninth day of that month, he was interred in a stūpa due north of the Ape-Calling Ravine, within the monastery wall. After the stūpa was completed, Master Zhi, presenting his biography, asked me, Meng, to write an epitaph. In the ancient Biographies of Eminent Monks, those among our peers who possessed virtue, valuable teachings, or great meritorious service to the religion were recorded. Lingyin today is among the foremost celebrated monasteries in the realm, upon which the flourishing and declining of our Buddha-Dharma depends. Alas, with such lifelong service to this monastery, can it not be said that Puci performed meritorious service for the Dharma? Therefore, I did not decline, and recorded his deeds. The epitaph reads: