Fada was a Tang Chan monk of Hongzhou (Fengcheng), a dharma-heir of the Sixth Patriarch Huineng. He left home at seven and had recited the Lotus Sutra three thousand times by the time he met Huineng — to whom he bowed without touching his head to the ground, betraying his pride. Huineng's diagnosis produced the couplet that made him famous: 'Three thousand recitations of the sutra — and with one phrase of Caoxi, all of it gone.' His story in the Platform Sutra is the classic Chan parable about mastering the scripture instead of being turned by it.
References: DILA Authority
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