Born 1638, 10th month, 2nd day. The father was Hu Yingrong, style Chunyu, the mother of the Hong clan; both were charitable people who kept a lifelong vegetarian fast, gave coffins to the poor for years and fed monks beyond counting. Before the birth the mother dreamt that an old monk with bare head and bare feet, carrying a gourd and a staff, came begging food and lodging, and was taken in. From eleven, when the mother died, the wish to leave the world took hold — but the father cursed and forbade it, and FIFTY YEARS WERE SPENT IN THE DUST, grieving night and day at not being able to go forth. In 1690 the household was abandoned at last for a hermitage; the children brought in relatives to prevent it, swearing they would fight to the death anyone who tonsured 'our mother' — so the ordination was performed with a knife, on the self. In the second month of that year came a dream of a great white ox on a mountain, which lowered its head to be mounted and flew up; the Reverend Zongyuan of Shanguang heard the dream and cried, 'Your master has come!' — for the water-buffalo is Guishan's koan, and the Reverend of Guishan had arrived at his hermitage the day before. That was GUMEI DINGLIE, thirty-fourth-generation Linji master of Great Mt Gui in Tanzhou.
References: DILA Authority A018976 (Gumei Dinglie) | CBETA 語錄 J39nB464
View interactive profile →