路遇禪修苦修道

公以修寺。急於募化。乃下山行至和木樹。遇一僧修路。禮不答。晚對坐。次晨作飯。公為燒火。飯熟。不招呼。取缽食畢。僧荷鋤。公負箕。同修路。十餘日未造一語。相安同處止興皆如是。

宣化偈曰：

觕犖數百路難行。楚僧禪修願地平。
苦行數十永不退。高矣休哉嘆奇逢。

Meeting Dharma Master Ch'an Hsiu¹⁶ who cultivated austerities

The Master immediately went to raise the money required to repair the broken-down temple. As he descended the mountain, upon reaching Ho Mu tree, he met a monk who was repairing the road. The Master bowed, but the monk did not respond. In the evening, they sat facing each other, and the next morning, the monk cooked some rice while the Master stoked the fire. When it was ready, the monk did not tell him to eat, but the Master did so anyway. The monk then shouldered his hoe and the Master carried the basket. They worked together in that way for more than ten days without exchanging a single word. Thus, in mutual harmony, they toiled and rested together.

The gatha says:
Rough and craggy for several hundred miles, the road was hard to travel.
The monk Ch'an Hsiu vowed to make it passable,
So he bitterly toiled for several decades, and never once retreated.
Eminent indeed was Hsiu! The Master sighed at this strange encounter.

16. "Ch'an Cultivation"