法苑珠林 96.19

96.19

Under the Song, at Zhaoti Temple in Linchuan, there was Shi Huishao, whose clan name is unknown. As a small boy, whenever his mother fed him fish or meat, he would vomit it up, but he swallowed vegetables without hesitation. Thereupon he adopted a vegetarian diet. At the age of eight, he left the household to become a disciple of Sengyao. Diligent and strenuous in practicing austerities, he was an exemplar of moral restraint. Later, following Yao, he stayed at Zhaoti Temple in Linchuan and secretly harbored the intention of burning his body. He regularly hired people to cut firewood. On the East Mountain, where the stone chamber was several tens of feet high, he opened a niche in the center just large enough to contain his body. He then returned to the temple to bid farewell to Yao; Yao bitterly dissuaded him, but he would not comply. On the day he burned his body, he held an eightfold retreat (aṣṭāṅgasamanvāgatopavāsa) for the great assembly on the East Mountain and took leave of his acquaintances. On that day, carriages, horses, and throngs of people from the entire region rushed there, and the gold and jewels they brought were beyond count. When night fell to practice the circumambulation, Shao offered incense himself. After offering the incense, he took a torch, lit the firewood, stepped inside, sat down, and recited the 'Chapter on the Ancient Deeds of Bodhisattva Bhaiṣajyarāja'. When the assembly could no longer see him, they realized he had already gone. Before their prostrations were finished, they all rushed to the woodpile. The firewood was already blazing fiercely, yet the sound of recitation had not ceased. When the fire reached his forehead, he was heard crying out 'Single-mindedness!' Having spoken, he suddenly expired. The great assembly all saw a star as large as a peck measure fall straight down into the smoke and, after a moment, ascend to heaven. All who saw it said that the heavenly palace had come to welcome Shao. After three days, the pile of firewood was consumed. As he approached death, Shao had told his fellow students: 'Where I burn my body, a paulownia tree will grow; be sure not to cut it down.' Three days later, it indeed grew there. Shao's self-immolation occurred in the twenty-eighth year of Yuanjia, at the age of twenty-eight.