道積法師
Dharma Master Daoji
積。河東安邑人。先講涅槃。後敷攝論。并諸異部。往往宣傳。及知命將鄰。偏弘地持。以為誡勗之極。先沙門寶澄。隋初於普救寺。創營彌勒大像百尺。萬工纔登其一。不卒所願。而澄早逝。鄉邑蓍艾。請積繼之。修建十年。彫粧都了。道俗慶賴。欣喜相并。初積受請之夕。夢二師子。於大像側。連吐明珠。相續不絕。既覺。惟曰。獸王自在。則表法流無滯。寶珠自涌。乃喻財施無窮。冥運潛開功成斯在。即命工匠。圖夢所見。於彌勒大像前。今猶存焉。像設三層。巖廊四合。上坊下院。赫奕相臨。園磑田蔬。周環俯就。小而成大。咸積之功。貞觀十年。九月十七日。終於本寺。春秋六十有九。未終三日。鐘不發聲。逝後如舊。眾咸哀歎。
Ji was a man of Anyi in Hedong. He first lectured on the Nirvana Sutra, and afterward expounded the Mahayana-samgraha, along with the teachings of the various other schools, spreading them widely wherever he went. When he knew his time of death was near, he devoted himself especially to expounding the Bodhisattva Precepts from the Sutra of Bodhisattva Stages, regarding them as the ultimate in admonition and encouragement.
Earlier, the monk Baocheng, in the early years of the Sui dynasty, had begun constructing a great hundred-foot statue of Maitreya at the Pujiu Temple. Of the ten thousand workers needed, only one in ten had been assembled, and the vow was left unfinished when Baocheng passed away early. The elders of the local villages invited Ji to carry on the work. He built and restored for ten years, until the carving and gilding were completely finished. Monastics and laypeople alike rejoiced and relied upon it, their joy overflowing together.
On the evening when Ji first accepted the invitation, he dreamed of two lions beside the great statue, continuously spitting out luminous pearls without cease. When he awoke, he reflected: "The king of beasts is sovereign and unconstrained—this signifies that the stream of Dharma will flow without obstruction. The precious pearls welling up on their own—this symbolizes that the giving of wealth will be inexhaustible. Hidden workings silently unfold, and the accomplishment of the work lies herein." He then commanded the craftsmen to depict what he had seen in the dream in front of the great Maitreya statue. It is still there today.
The statue was set in three tiers, with cloistered galleries enclosing it on four sides. Upper chambers and lower courts towered splendidly over one another. Gardens, mills, and fields of vegetables surrounded and looked down upon it. What began small became great—all through the efforts of Ji.
On the seventeenth day of the ninth month of the tenth year of the Zhenguan era, he passed away at his own temple. He was sixty-nine years of age. Three days before his death, the bell would not sound. After his passing, it rang as before. All who knew him grieved and sighed.