Of the Li clan of Yibin (Bodao); his father and grandfather had been Brahmins for three generations. Eight monks are said to have come to the house at his birth, one of them saying the child was an arhat of the Eight Treasures come back. He was a Confucian first and a Buddhist after. He attended Yueming Lianchi at Zhaoyang for years and was tonsured and fully ordained under him in 1613; then he left for a solitary mountain and worked three years without letting his side touch the mat. Returning at the end of his term, he asked the old master, 'After all — how does it show itself?' — and Yueming reached out and clapped a hand over his mouth, and he opened wide. He crossed to Wu, into Fujian, through Guangdong, opened the dharma at Xiaoxiang Hudong, and came back to Shu to teach at Juyun in Zhongzhou, where he revived the Juyun branch of Linji in Sichuan and preached the unity of the three teachings. He wrote in plain language on purpose — his Three-Character Classic of Buddhism apes the Confucian primer to teach Buddhist history and the eight schools. Thirty years out in the world, five seats. On the last day of the 7th month of 1639 he took the brush and wrote: 'Beaten three thousand at dawn, eight hundred at dusk — to see Juyun, blood from the eyebrows.' He sat until noon, gave two great shouts, and died, aged 58.
References: DILA Authority A001662
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