Song-dynasty Yunmen-school master (1071–1145), personal name 思慧, sobriquet 妙湛, of the Yu family of Qiantang; dharma heir of 法雲大通善本 (1035–1109) and reckoned the fourteenth generation below the Sixth Patriarch. He was ordained under Datong as a boy and awakened on reading in the Yuanjue Sutra 'knowing illusion, you are already free of it, without contrivance; free of illusion, you are already awake, without stages'. He headed Zhachuan, then Jingshan and Jingci, was summoned by decree to Zhihai in the capital, and later moved through Xianqin, Huangbo and Xuefeng, retiring at last to the East Hermitage. The lamps credit him with fourteen dharma heirs, chief among them 照堂了一 and 月堂道昌. His sermon on Yaoshan — who let a month go by without teaching, then walked back to his room the moment the assembly gathered — turns on the wry judgement 「彼時佛法早自淡薄，論來猶較些子」: even that thin gruel of a Dharma was still somewhat better than today's drum-beating and chatter.
References: DILA Authority A004628 | DILA Authority
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