Master Yuanyin | 2018-05-06 | Download | AI assisted translation
| 大愚阿阇黎，武汉李氏子，俗名叔倍。参政于军阀割据时期，目睹诸军阀为争霸称王，抢夺地盘，互相残杀，掳掠民财，置国家危亡，生灵荼炭于不顾，于痛心疾首之余，乃奋而弃官出走，至庐山东林寺出家。 | Acharya Dayu, a native of Wuhan surnamed Li, had the secular name Shubei. He served in government during the period of warlord division. Witnessing the warlords contending for supremacy and kingship, seizing territory, slaughtering one another, plundering the people's wealth, and heedlessly leaving the nation in peril and its people in misery, he was filled with grief and indignation. He therefore resolutely abandoned office and left, eventually becoming a monastic at Donglin Monastery on Mount Lu. |
|---|---|
| 初修净土法门，后拜经，大病几死，继遇盗又几死，虽屡遭厄难，曾不稍懈。 | He first practiced the Pure Land Dharma gate. Later, while worshipping before the sūtras, he fell gravely ill and nearly died; then he encountered bandits and again nearly died. Although he repeatedly suffered such hardships, he never slackened in the least. |
| 嗣感人生苦短，佛法难遇，乃发奋修“般舟三昧”（译为“佛立三昧”，修法以七日或九日为一期，日夜经行，不可坐卧，能于空中感十方诸佛在其前立。 | Later, feeling that human life is brief and the Buddhadharma difficult to encounter, he applied himself vigorously to the practice of the Pratyutpanna Samādhi, translated as the “Buddha-Standing Samādhi.” Each period of practice lasted seven or nine days, during which one walked continuously day and night and was not permitted to sit or lie down. Through it, one could perceive the Buddhas of the ten directions standing before one in empty space. |
| ）三、五日后，双腿浮肿，寸步难移，师为贯彻初衷，决不后退，咬紧牙关，用手爬行。一、二日后，两手也相继浮肿，每进一步，须付莫大艰巨的努力，个中苦难实非常人所堪忍受。 | After three or five days, both his legs became swollen, making it difficult for him to move even a single step. Determined to carry through his original resolve and never retreat, the Master gritted his teeth and crawled forward with his hands. After another day or two, his hands too became swollen. Every further advance required immense and arduous effort; the suffering involved was truly more than ordinary people could endure. |
| 故近代净宗行人绝少修此三昧，即修亦不能坚持到底，师于力尽爬不动时，立誓除死方休，以身滚动前进，经此一番艰苦卓绝的奋斗，偷心死尽，泯然深入大定，感普贤菩萨现身，为之灌顶，授以心中心密法。 | For this reason, very few modern Pure Land practitioners cultivated this samādhi; even those who did were unable to persist to the end. When the Master had exhausted his strength and could no longer crawl, he vowed that only death would make him stop. He rolled himself forward, and after this extraordinarily arduous struggle, his grasping mind utterly died away. He entered deeply and silently into great samādhi, where Samantabhadra Bodhisattva appeared, conferred empowerment upon him, and transmitted the Heart-of-Heart Esoteric Dharma. |
| 并谓《大藏经》中原有此法，甚为善巧，可检而参学。师检之果然，乃按菩萨所授与《大藏经秘密仪轨佛心经品亦通大随求陀罗尼》（二卷，唐菩提流志译）所说之六印一咒修持。经七年苦行，成就下山，开印心法门，为印心宗之初祖。 | Samantabhadra also told him that this Dharma was originally contained in the Buddhist canon, that it was highly skillful, and that he could search for it and study it. The Master searched and indeed found it. He then cultivated according to the transmission bestowed by the Bodhisattva and the six mudrās and one mantra described in The Buddha-Heart Sūtra, Also Corresponding to the Great Wish-Fulfilling Dhāraṇī, an esoteric ritual manual in two fascicles translated by Bodhiruci of the Tang dynasty. After seven years of ascetic practice, he attained realization and descended the mountain, opening the Mind-Seal Dharma gate. He became the first patriarch of the Mind-Seal school. |
| 师下山后，为使世知有此善巧方便法门，所到之处，略显神通，大江南北无不为之轰动，当时求法者不下五、六万人，入室弟子近二百人。嗣之广大信众重神通而不重道，师乃易装归隐四川成都，嘱得其心髓之弟子王骧陆老居士嗣法传道，后人尊为印心宗第二祖。 | After descending the mountain, in order to let the world know of this skillful and expedient Dharma gate, he displayed a few spiritual powers wherever he went. The regions north and south of the Yangtze were all stirred by this, and at that time no fewer than fifty or sixty thousand people sought the Dharma from him, while nearly two hundred became his close disciples. Later, because his many followers valued spiritual powers but not the Way, the Master changed his appearance and withdrew into seclusion in Chengdu, Sichuan. He instructed Elder Lay Practitioner Wang Xianglu, a disciple who had obtained the heart-essence of his teaching, to succeed to the Dharma and transmit the Way. Later generations honored Wang as the second patriarch of the Mind-Seal school. |
| 师约于50年代在其成都弟子家留诗一首： | Around the 1950s, the Master left a poem at the home of one of his disciples in Chengdu: |
| 拈花怎么传，不妨密且禅， | How is the flower held up transmitted? It may well be both Esoteric and Chan; |
| 归隐扬眉际，相逢瞬目边。 | Withdraw into seclusion between the raising of the brows; meet at the edge of a blink. |
| 一期从古棹，三界任横眠， | For one lifetime, follow the ancient oar; lie crosswise through the three realms at will. |
| 临行无剩语，珍重一声○。 | At departure, no words remain; take care—one sound: “yuan.” |
| 置于砚间，不辞而别，至今不知所终。师说法，贵直指心要，不立文字，其留传后世之著述，除早期所著《解脱歌》外，只此告别诗一首。 | He placed it among the inkstones and departed without farewell; to this day, no one knows where he ended up. In teaching the Dharma, the Master valued direct pointing to the essential mind and did not establish words and letters. Of the writings he left to later generations, apart from the Song of Liberation written in his early years, only this farewell poem remains. |
| （注：“○”读音同“圆”） | (Note: “○” is pronounced the same as yuan, “round” or “complete.”) |
