The great Chan patriarch of Lingnan. Born in the hour of hai on the fourteenth of the tenth month of 1608; styled Lizhong. In 1642, at the invitation of Chen Zizhuang and others, he opened the dharma at Helin and the Chan wind rose again in Guangdong, which had been in decline since the Yuan. Dharma heir of Zongbao Daodu, whose 行狀 he wrote as 嗣法門人. He was abbot of Haiyun, Haichuang and Huashou, and founded Biechuan monastery on Danxia; he was a noted calligrapher. Though a monk, he held up loyalty, filiality, integrity and honour to his students, and when the Ming fell, scholars, officials and loyalist remnants took refuge with him in their thousands — many of his disciples, as his modern chronicler observes, 'had somewhere to flee to and something they meant to do', and their taking of the robe was not their first intent. He died in the hour of you on the twenty-seventh of the eighth month of 1685, aged 78.
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