法苑珠林 26.39

26.39

During the Tang dynasty, at Xuanzhong Temple in Bingzhou, there was the śramaṇa Shi Daochuo. His surname was Wei, and he was a man of Wenshui in Bingzhou. He was pure, restrained, elegant, and simple, with wisdom and awakening opened by Heaven. Inheriting the legacy of Master [Tan]luan, he exclusively revered and cultivated [Pure Land] practice. On the eighth day of the fourth month of the second year of Zhenguan, Daochuo knew his life was about to end and announced the circumstances. Those who heard and hastened there filled the mountain temple. Sympathetically, they saw Master [Tan]luan upon a seven-jeweled boat, telling Daochuo, "Your hall in the Pure Land is completed, but your remaining retribution is not yet exhausted." They also saw transformed Buddhas abiding in the sky and heavenly flowers scattering down. The multitudes of men and women caught them with the folds of their skirts; they were thin, smooth, and lovely. Moreover, lotuses on the dry ground remained fresh and did not wither until seven days had passed. Other auspicious omens cannot be fully recorded. When he reached seventy years of age, his teeth suddenly grew anew as before, with no difference whatsoever, and the power of his retribution increased. Were it not for his practice evoking sympathetic resonance and penetrating [the spiritual realm], how could he have encountered such an auspicious response? (This one piece of evidence is from the Tang Gaoseng zhuan.)