Of the Zhao clan of Mianyang in Chu; his father was named Shijie, his mother of the Du clan, a family in the Confucian line. Orphaned young, he was tonsured at sixteen at the West Chan hall of Donglin monastery in Huang'an, Huangzhou — the very place the Fifth Patriarch first crossed. At eighteen, spurred on by his uncle-in-dharma Tongshan, he broke his ties and set out. He went first to Miyun at Taibai peak, then to Ruigong at Longhua on Mount Bian and Feigong at Jinsu in Wuyuan. Weary of wandering he built a hut at Jiangyin and rested some years, then went to Longchi and met Wanru Tongwei, from whom he received the milk of the dharma. He was made abbot of Ruru hermitage at Jiahe, then Puji cloister in the capital (1656), then restored Haiyun and Baoguo, and ended at Wanshou. He died on the ninth day of the fourth month of 1670, aged 60, in his fifty-third year as a monk, after six great abbacies; ten men received his dharma.
References: DILA Authority A000406 | DILA Authority A000406 | DILA Authority A012040
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