University of Virginia Library

48. Hui-hsü

[OMITTED]

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].[59]

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].[60] 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.[61] 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.[62]

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.[63] 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,[64] went out as a
commander of the garrison for the provinces of Ching and Shan.[65]
Knowing of her religious practice, he requested her presence at his residence
where he provided her with the four essentials of a monastic.[66]

At that time the master of meditation Hsüan-ch'ang came to Ching
from the [far western] province of Shu.[67] 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.[68] The monk, who received support from the royal family, was
good at chanting Buddhist magical spells.[69]

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:

(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.[70]

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.