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卷三傳十二集善寺慧緒尼
慧緒。本姓周。閭丘高平人也。為人高率疏遠。見之如丈夫不似婦人。發言吐論甚自方直。略無所迴避。七歲便蔬食持齋志節勇猛。十八出家住荊州三層寺。戒業具足道俗所美。
時江陵有隱尼。西土德望。見緒而異之。遂忘年契意相攜行道。嘗同居一夏。共習般舟。心形勤苦晝夜不息。
沈攸之為刺史普沙簡僧尼。緒乃避難下都。及沈破敗後復還西。齊太尉大司馬豫章王蕭嶷。以宋昇明末出鎮荊陝。知其有道行迎請入內。備盡四事。時有玄暢禪師。從蜀下荊。
緒就受禪法究極精妙。暢每稱其宿習不淺。緒既善解禪行兼菜蔬勵節。豫章王妃及內眷屬。
敬信甚深從受禪法。每有嚫施。受已隨散。不嘗儲畜意。志高遠都。不以生業關懷蕭。王要共還都。為起精舍在第東田之東。名曰福田寺。常入第行道。
永明九年自稱忽忽苦病亦無正惡。唯不復肯食。顏貌憔瘁苦求還寺。還寺即平愈。旬日中輒復請入。入轉如前。咸不知所以。俄而王薨禍故相續。
武皇帝以東田郊迥更起集善寺。悉移諸尼還集善。而以福田寺別安外國道人阿梨。第中還復供養善讀誦咒。緒自移集善寺以後。足不復入第者數年。時內外既敬重此尼。每勸其暫至後第內。
竺夫人欲建禪齋。遣信先諮請。尼云甚善。貧道年惡。此叚實願一入第與諸夫娘別。既入齋。齋竟自索紙筆作詩曰。世人或不知。呼我作老周。忽請作七日。禪齋不得休(後復有十字道別今忘之)作詩竟言笑接人。了不異常日高傲也。因具敘離云。此叚出寺方為永別。年老無復能入第理。
時體中甚康健。出寺月餘。便云病。乃無有異於恒少日而卒也。是永元元年十一月二十日卒。時年六十九周捨為立序贊。又有德盛尼。德合志同為法眷屬。行道習觀親承音旨也
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3.12 (Tsai no.48) Hui-hsü
The nun Hui-hsü (Wisdom's
Thread) (431-499) of Collected Goodness Convent
Hui-hsü's secular surname was Chou. Her family
was originally from the city of Kao-p'ing in the Lü-ch'iu district [quite
far north of the Ch'i capital].
High-minded and distant in character, in physical
appearance she looked like a man rather than a woman. Her statements and
opinions were extremely straightforward without the slightest
circumlocution.
By the time she was seven years old, Hui-hsü
ate vegetarian food, observed the fasts, and was resolute in her determination
to maintain her chastity. At the age of eighteen she left the secular household
life to take up residence in Three-Story Convent of Ching Province [along the
Yangtze River, an important center of Buddhism, far to the west of the
capital].
Religious and
laity alike admired her complete practice of the monastic rules.
At that time in Chiang-ling [the provincial capital
of Ching Province], there was an eremitic nun who had a reputation for virtue
in those western regions.
When she saw Hui-hsü, she regarded her as extraordinary, and
therefore, forgetting any difference in age, they together followed the Way of
Buddhism. Once they lived together for a summer to practice [the meditation of
visualizing the Buddha in one's presence], during which time they carried out
austerities of mind and body both day and night without rest.
When Shen Yu-chih (d. 478) was governor of the
province he sifted and weeded the monastic communities, at which time
Hui-hsü, to avoid the difficulty, fled to the capital.
She returned to the west only after the defeat of Shen [during the
struggles between the Sung and the eventually victorious Ch'i]. The Ch'i grand
general of the army and grand marshal, the prince of Yü-chang, Hsiao I
(444-492) [second son of Emperor Kao, first emperor of Ch'i], at the end of the
sheng-ming reign period (477-479) of the Sung dynasty,
went out as a commander of the garrison for the provinces of
Ching and Shan.
Knowing of her religious practice, he requested her presence at
his residence where he provided her with the four essentials of a monastic.
At that time the master of meditation
Hsüan-ch'ang came to Ching from the [far western] province of Shu.
He taught methods of meditation to
Hui-hsü, who investigated to the utmost their subtle mysteries, causing
Hsüan-ch'ang often to praise her depth of mind inherited from experience
gained in previous lives. Hui-hsü thus became proficient in meditation as
well as continued to maintain her vegetarianism and strict observance of the
moral precepts.
The wife of the prince of Yü-chang and other
ladies of the royal family were greatly devoted to her and from her received
instruction in meditation. Whenever she received donations, she dispersed them
to others, never having any intention of keeping them for herself.
Hui-hsü, far above such matters, had no concern for her material
livelihood.
The prince requested her to return with him to the
capital, where, east of the eastern fields of his family's estate, he built for
her Field of Blessings Convent. She was frequently invited to the prince's
residence to carry out various religious practices.
In the ninth year of the yung-ming reign period (491), Hui-hsü announced that
she had suddenly taken very ill, but it was not a genuine disease; it was only
that she was no longer willing to eat. When she had become quite haggard and
emaciated, she earnestly begged to be able to return to her convent, and as
soon as she returned she immediately improved. Ten days later, however, she was
again summoned to the prince's residence, and, having once arrived, her illness
reappeared as before. No one knew the reason why, but suddenly the prince died
(492), and one calamity after another befell his family. Because the eastern
estate was in a distant suburb, Emperor Wu (440-483-493) [the prince's elder
brother and second emperor of Ch'i], built Collected Goodness Convent and moved
all the nuns to this new convent while using Field of Blessings Convent to
house the foreign monk ārya.
The
monk, who received support from the royal family, was good at chanting Buddhist
magical spells.
After Hui-hsü herself had moved to Collected
Goodness Convent, she did not again set foot in the palace for several years.
During that time everyone, both within and without the palace, greatly
respected the nun and often urged her to return for short visits to the women's
apartments of the palace. Lady Chu wished to hold a religious vegetarian feast
and sent a message to invite Hui-hsü to consult with her ahead of time
about the affair.
The nun said, "This is very good. Because I am now
old, I truly want at this time to visit the palace once more to bid farewell to
all the ladies." Thus she attended the vegetarian feast and, when it was over,
she asked for paper and brush and wrote a poem:
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Worldly people who know me not |
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Call me by my worldly name of Old
Chou. |
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You invite me to a week-long feast of
food, |
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but the feast of meditation has no
end. |
(I, Pao-ch'ang, the compiler, note here that there
were ten more words in this poem of farewell, but they have been lost.) After
she finished the poem, she talked and laughed with the people there and
comported herself in no way different from her usual dignity.
She then took her leave, saying, "This time when I
go out to the convent, it will be farewell forever. Because I am old, I shall
not again be able to enter the palace." She was healthy at that time, but a
little over a month after she had gone back to the convent she said she was
sick, and, even though she seemed no different from before, she died a few days
later on the twentieth day of the eleventh month of the first year of the
yung-yüan reign period (499). She was sixty-nine
years old. The scholar Chou Sheh (469-524) wrote a statement in praise of her.
The nun Te-sheng was a companion in the Way [of
Buddhism], the same in virtue and will, and received Hui-hsü's instruction
in religious practice and contemplation.
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