Grand Master Zhixu
Grand Master Zhixu, courtesy name Ouyi, lived in the Qing dynasty. His surname was Zhong, and his family lived in Wu County. His father practiced the Great Compassion Mantra and the White-Robed Guanyin practice. In a dream, he saw Great Being Guanyin handing him a baby boy, and then the Master was born.
In youth, he studied Confucianism and even wrote works criticizing Buddhism. Later, after reading Lianchi Great Master’s Zhuzhuang Suibi Lu, he immediately burned his own anti-Buddhist writings. At age twenty, he read the Ksitigarbha Original Vow Sutra, aroused the aspiration to leave worldly life, and from then on recited the Buddha’s name daily.
In the first year of Tianqi, at age twenty-four, after hearing a Dharma Master lecture on a sutra, he suddenly gave rise to a great doubt and applied himself to contemplative investigation. Not long after, he attained awakening, then entered retreat in Wujiang. During that period, he became gravely ill, and therefore resolved firmly to recite the Buddha’s name and seek rebirth in the Pure Land.
As soon as the illness eased, he established a seven-day altar for the Rebirth Mantra, burned three incense marks on his arm, and vowed to arouse Bodhi-mind, seek rebirth in Ultimate Bliss, swiftly realize the path, and soon liberate sentient beings.
Later, the Great Master served as abbot in many places: Wenling, Zhangzhou, Shicheng, Shengxi, Changshui, and Xin’an, widely transmitting Tiantai doctrine and the Buddha-recitation method. At that time, most Chan practitioners in various regions considered the Pure Land path only a provisional teaching. When they met Buddha-reciters, they would always tell them to investigate the word “Who?”
Only this Great Master judged that Name-Recitation itself is the perfectly sudden Mind School. A Chan practitioner named Zhuo Zuoche challenged Pure Land with Chan metaphysics, and the Master answered him completely and appropriately. Afterward, the Great Master retired to Lingfeng for old age.
In daily teaching, the Great Master often instructed as follows:
“The Pure Land Dharma gate has nothing strange or exotic. Its essentials are only deep faith, earnest vows, and diligent actual practice. The Buddha said: ‘Whoever single-mindedly recites Amitabha is practicing unsurpassed profound and wondrous Chan.’ Great Master Zhizhe said: ‘Buddha-recitation samadhi is king among all samadhis.’ Patriarch Yunqi also said: ‘One phrase of Amitabha Buddha encompasses the eight teachings and completely includes the five schools.’
“It is a pity that people today regard Buddha-recitation as shallow and ordinary, saying it is a practice for ignorant men and women. Therefore their faith is unstable, they do not exert true effort, they remain lax all day, and their practice is hard to accomplish.
“Some even set up expedient methods and say: ‘To enter deeply into Buddha-recitation samadhi, one must investigate the word Who.’ They do not know that the present one thought already departs from the four propositions and cuts off the hundred negations, so there is no need to deliberately seek departure and cutting off. The present one phrase of Buddha-recitation already transcends emotional grasping and conceptual views – why insist on calling it subtle or profound?
“What matters is to make faith firm, hold to it steadily, then let go of everything and recite. Recite ten thousand, thirty thousand, fifty thousand, seventy thousand, or one hundred thousand phrases day and night, taking one definite standard: never missing the set count. Persist this way for life and vow never to change. If one practices correctly in this way yet is not reborn, then all Buddhas of the three times would be speaking falsehood. Once born in Ultimate Bliss, one never retrogresses, and all Dharma gates gradually appear before one.
“Most to be avoided are people without stable resolve: today this, tomorrow that. Meeting scriptural lecturers, they want textual study of sutras and vinaya. Meeting Chan practitioners, they want huatou investigation and Chan-style turning phrases. Meeting vinaya practitioners, they want to carry bowls for alms and do ascetic dhutanga practices. Therefore nothing is completed; every path remains unfinished.
“They do not realize that when the Buddha-name becomes truly mature, the Three Baskets and twelve divisions of scripture are all contained within it; the 1,700 koans and the upward gate are all contained within it; the 3,000 deportments, 80,000 fine practices, and threefold pure precepts are all contained within it.
“A person who truly recites the Buddha lets go of body, mind, and world – this is great giving. Reciting without greed, anger, and delusion – this is great precept-keeping. Reciting without concern for self/other and right/wrong disputes – this is great patience. Reciting without interruption and without stray thoughts – this is great diligence. Reciting without coarse or subtle dreamlike fantasies – this is great meditation. Reciting without being confused or swept away by other dharmas – this is great wisdom.
“Examine yourself: if you have not forgotten body, mind, and world; if greed, anger, and delusion are not ended; if judgments of self/other and right/wrong are not cut off; if interruptions and mixed wandering thoughts remain; if idle fantasies are not removed; if you are still drawn off by other dharmas – then you are not yet a true Buddha-reciter.
“If you wish to reach One Mind Undisturbed, there is also no strange method. At the beginning, use prayer beads to count clearly and set fixed daily sessions without omission. Over time, practice naturally matures, and even without intentional recitation, recitation continues by itself. At that point, counting or not counting both work.
“But if at the start you hastily want to display skill, show non-attachment to marks, or imitate effortless spontaneity and perfect freedom, in the end your recitation power will be hard to establish. In summary, this is because faith is not deep enough and practice is not wholehearted enough.
“Even if such a person can lecture fluently on the Three Baskets and twelve divisions or understand 1,700 koans, all of it remains on the shore of birth-and-death samsara. At the moment of death, none of it can be used!”
In the second year of Shunzhi, at the end of winter, the Great Master became slightly ill. He left final instructions and told his disciples that after cremation they should grind his bones into powder, mix them into pellets, and distribute them as offerings to fish and birds, so those beings might form a Pure Land affinity.
At the beginning of the following year, on the 21st day of the first lunar month, the Great Master rose early in the morning; his complexion was fresh and healthy like one not ill. At exactly noon, he sat upright on his bed, faced west, joined his palms, recited the Buddha’s name, and peacefully passed away at age fifty-seven.
Three years later, his disciples gathered to perform cremation according to his instruction. When they opened the stupa, they found the Great Master’s whole body still intact, with hair grown long over both ears and facial color vivid as if alive. The assembly could not bear to follow the cremation instruction, and instead built a stupa enshrining his whole body at Lingfeng Monastery.