Name Daodu, sobriquet Zongbao, also styled Kongyin; a son of the Lu clan of Nanhai in Guangdong. At three his mother carried him upstairs and he watched a spider spinning its web, staring a long while, until grief and joy came over him together. At six he lost his father. He got hold of the Platform Sutra — AND COULD NOT READ. He carried it in his sleeve and bowed earnestly to Guanyin; one night he prostrated until he collapsed exhausted, and woke feeling as though he hung in space, sweat soaking his back; he lit a lamp, took out the sutra, guessed at a character, asked someone — and was right, and thereafter read whole lines at a glance. At fourteen, sitting under a tree, HIS CHEST SPLIT LIKE A CLEFT BAMBOO. At sixteen he took a knife to a boulder, bowed to the Buddhas of the ten directions, SHAVED HIS OWN HEAD, built a hut on Mt Long and lived alone for more than ten years. He served his mother with total devotion — when she was ill he carried spring-water twenty li a day on his shoulder — and when she died he kept vigil at her grave three months. AT TWENTY-NINE he went to Boshan, to WUYI YUANLAI, who had been asking every monk from Guangdong: 'Why does Zongbao not come? Can the Way be reached without coming to Boshan?' Boshan called him into the abbot's room and they talked the night through; he gave him his name and his full ordination. Boshan died five months later. He held Luofu, Xichan at Fuzhou, Changqing, and Haichuang at Guangzhou, and his whole-body stupa stands south of West Creek at Huashou Terrace on Mt Luofu. He died in 1661, aged 62, with 33 summers. 'Only two men,' says his heir, 'personally received his seal.'
References: DILA Authority A001554 | Baidu 道独
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