Founder-abbot of Qianling at Guiyang and the man who planted the Linji line in Guizhou. In the account of his course, dictated in 1682, he says: 'I am a son of the Han family, born on the twenty-fourth day of the fourth month of 1634; our ancestral home is Changsha, but we lived at Tongchuan in Shu. My father was named Liang, my mother of the Xie clan.' His father died when he was six; his mother and elder brother raised him, and war drove the family into Guizhou. At fifteen he fled into the Nanwang mountains with a companion, living on grass and wood and reciting the Buddha's name until he was thin as a stick. He studied under Jiufeng Lingyao, took Baiyun Xishi as his tonsure master, and afterwards, at Zunyi, called on the master who would become his own. The master asked where he was from. 'Tongchuan.' 'Then you are from my own district' — and the two shouted at each other, and the master beat him out of the room. The next day the master read his verse and asked, 'is this awakening, or is it learning?' 'Do not rub your eyes and make flowers in the air.' He bowed; the master gave him a nudge and said, 'take good care of yourself,' and later handed over the whisk with a verse: 'go deep into hiding, and the dragons and gods will push you out.' In 1667 he was asked to head the Shoushi Chan cloister in the provincial capital, sealed himself in a cell there for a thousand days, and on coming out was asked to found Qianling. He taught for more than thirty years.
References: DILA Authority A016604
View interactive profile →