Yuquan Shenxiu
Chinese Zen Patriarch
Yuquan Shenxiu (Chinese: 玉泉神秀; pinyin: Yùquán Shénxiù; Wade–Giles: Yü-ch'üan Shen-hsiu, 606?–706) was one of the most influential Chan masters of his day, a Patriarch of the East Mountain Teaching of Chan Buddhism. Shenxiu was Dharma heir of Daman Hongren (601–674), honoured by Wu Zetian (r. 690–705) of the Tang dynasty, and the putative author of the Guan Xin Lun (Treatise on the Contemplation of the Mind, written between 675 and 700), a text once attributed to Bodhidharma.
Biography
Shenxiu was born in Weishi County, suburb of Luoyang, Henan, then secondary capital of China. His family name was Li. His family was aristocratic and may have been related to the Tang dynasty imperial family He was educated in the Chinese classics and Taoism and became a Buddhist at the age of thirteen when he went to the government granaries at Kaifeng during a famine to plead the release of grain to the starving population. There he met an unnamed Buddhist and was inspired to take up Buddhism. After some seven years of a homeless life visiting the famous mountain centres of China, Shenxiu took the full precepts of Buddhist monk in 625 at Tankong monastery in Luoyang(洛阳), the Buddhist centre at the end of Silk Road since the second century.
Traces of his activities for the next twenty-five years were lost, the Chuan Fabao Ji (傳法寶紀) (Annals of the Transmission of the Dharma-treasure) claim that Shenxiu studied the Buddhist regulations (vinaya) and ceremonies and devoted himself to the practice of meditation (dhyāna) and the development of wisdom (prajñā). In 651 he began to study under Hongren.
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