法苑珠林 83.41

83.41

In the second year of Datong of the [Liang], Dharma Master Huijing was the temple abbot; his moral conduct was pure and lofty. Earlier, Dharma Master Huizhen had built two dhūta huts on the mountain behind the temple, which were constantly guarded and protected by benevolent deities. On the twentieth day of the fourth month of the first year of Putong, there was a newly ordained monk, Huizheng, who went into the huts to recite the precepts. Becoming slightly weary and slack, the mountain deity manifested in bodily form, also wearing black clothes, ten feet tall, holding a cord in his hand. Huizheng was frightened and returned to the temple. On the fifteenth day of the fourth month of the eighth year of Putong, the temple monk Sengfu went to these huts, vowing to recite sūtras for the whole summer retreat. On the very first day, he recited and studied without flagging. On the second day, he returned to the temple to rest. In an instant, a rock fell from the mountain, the sound like thunder and lightning, and a boulder struck the hut. Sengfu leapt up in alarm, apologized, and recited sūtras, not daring to sleep again. Around midday on the twelfth day of the fourth month of the fourth year of Datong, there was a visiting monk named Fazhen whose family was in Shouyang; he came to the temple to worship, and proceeded to the mountain behind the temple. Seeing that there had long been a fine spring in a rock cave, with extremely clean and pure water, he then sat in meditation there. In an instant, a voice in the air told him to move away, but he did not budge at all. Presently a tiger came and grabbed his head with its forepaws, blood streaming down his face. After more than forty days, his wounds healed and he left. On the fifth day of the second month of the first year of Zhongdatong, the mountain deity of Sheshan manifested his form, wearing a bodhisattva's kerchief and draped in a kāṣāya, with an extremely handsome appearance, attended by more than thirty followers to his left and right, with one person in front holding an incense burner. He came into the meditation hall to the quarters of Dharma Master Hongshi, seated himself on a folding chair, conversed with the Dharma Master, and invited the temple assembly to practice the Way. Further, on the night of the fourth day of the fourth month of that year, at that time there was a great wind, and the monks of the meditation hall, Zhiyuan and others, heard what sounded like the footsteps of several tens of people outside. In the latter part of the night, they saw that beside the doorway there was a wooden image. Zhiyuan and the others then returned to the main temple to conclude the fast. By the time they returned and opened the door of the meditation hall, they saw this image already seated on the meditation bench. They found a sheet of writing instructing them to place it in the rock cave behind the old meditation hall. When Huiqian first tried to lift it, it would not move; once he said, 'It shall be moved to the rock cave,' it was lifted with ease. On the fourteenth day of the fifth month of that year, [the deity] further wrote on a piece of stone for the two monks Huijing and Zhiyuan, instructing them to plant bamboo behind the meditation hall, referring to himself by the name Bodhi.