Nanquan Puyuan [W-G: Nan-ch’uan P’u-yuan / J: Nansen Fugan]

                When Nanquan Puyuan found the monks at his temple quarrelling over a cat, he grabbed it up and said, “If one of you can say a word, the cat will live.  Otherwise, I’m going to kill it.”

                The monks were so surprised that their master would even talk about breaking the precept against taking life that they were stunned into silence. None was able to say a word, and Nanquan cut the cat in two. 

                Nanquan’s chief disciple, Zhaozhou Congshen, had been absent when these events took place. He returned to find his fellow monks bewildered by their teacher’s behavior, and, when Zhoazhou went to see his master, Nanquan related what had occurred. Without saying a word, Zhoazhou took off one of his sandals, placed it on his head, and left the room.

                “If you’d been there,” Nanquan called after him, “the cat would have lived!”

[Nanquan Puyuan – Zen Masters of China: 128, 137, 164-69, 178; The Story of Zen: 148, 191]

Shide [W-G: Shih-te / J: Jittoku]

                Shide was Hanshan’s companion and fellow poet. His name means “picked up.”  He had been an abandoned orphan, found in the forest by a monk who heard him crying.  The monk brought the infant back to the Guoqing temple, where, when he was older, he was given work doing general cleaning and maintenance.  Once, when he was told to clean the meditation hall, the monks found him seated companionably in front of the statue of the Buddha, helping himself to the fruit which had been left on the altar as an offering, as if sharing a snack with a friend.

                He became friends with Hanshan and would save leftovers which he set aside in a hidden place for him to pick up during his visits to the monastery.

[Shide – Zen Masters of China: 153-61; The Story of Zen: 246]

Hanshan [W-G: Han-shan / J: Kanzan]

                 As a result of a riding accident, Hanshan sustained an injury to his foot which left him slightly disabled.  This physical impediment prevented him from advancing in the Chinese civil service, and he was unable to rise beyond the lowly position of clerk. Disenchanted with the established traditions of his day, he gave up his office, left his wife and child, and went into the mountains, where he found shelter in caves and make-shift huts.

                His retreat was near the monastery at Guoqing, which he visited from time to time, scrounging scraps left by the monks at meal time.  It is said that he would walk the halls of the temple talking to himself during the monks’ periods of meditation.  When his behavior became too disruptive, he would be was asked to leave. Then he would clap his hands and laugh as he made his way back to his cave.

                He became a beloved figure in Chinese lore and is considered an embodiment of the Chan (Zen) spirit because of the poems he wrote, sometimes leaving them on the trunks of trees or on the faces of rock.

[Hanshan – Zen Masters of China: 153-61; The Story of Zen: 246, 345]

Damei Fachang [W-G: Ta-mai Fa-ch’ang / J: Daibai Hojo]

                Fachang asked Mazu, “What is the Buddha?”

                Mazu told him, “The mind just as it is is the Buddha.”

                The statement was sufficient to bring Fachang to awakening. 

                Fachang secluded himself in a straw-roofed hermitage on Damei—or Plum—Mountain. 

                When Fachang had been living in the mountains for many years, Mazu became curious about how his practice was progressing.  He sent a student to seek out Fachang and ask him why he was living in isolation. 

                “My Master, Mazu, told me that this very mind, just as it is, is Buddha.  And for that reason I’ve made my dwelling here in these mountains.”

                “But our master no longer teaches that,” the student said.  “Now he says, ‘no mind, no Buddha’.”

                “Mazu is a senile old dotard who enjoys bewildering others,” Fachang replied. “He can say whatever he wishes, but I still say this very mind is Buddha.”

                When the student returned to Mazu and reported Fachang’s disrespectful comment, Mazu was unoffended, noting, “The plum, indeed, is ripe.”        

Damei Fachang – Zen Masters of China: 148-50