釋氏稽古略 4.347

4.347

On the seventeenth day of the fourth month, Dharma Master Daoyin, styled Cao'an, of Yanqing Teaching Monastery in Mingzhou, entered extinction at the age of seventy-eight, with a monastic seniority of sixty-one. From his youth he traveled through the various regions, entering the hall of Mingzhi Zhaohui, and also entered the Chan rooms of Zhenxie Qingliao, Hongzhi Zhengjue, and Wushi Shen. Upon returning, he read the Zhiyao chao and only then attained great awakening. When he first assumed the abbacy of Yanqing, he offered incense and said: "Three times I entered the Chan room, and five times I mounted the lecture hall; from beginning to end I drew close to eight good spiritual friends. They were all grandly radiant, possessed of virtue and eloquence, yet my affinity did not lie with them, like casting water upon stone. This pinch of incense is respectfully offered to succeed to the Venerable Fazhi, the first generation of Yanqing. If he lived, it would be the man; since he is dead, it is his writings. My heart does not betray others, and my face bears no shame." In the bingyin year of the Shaoxing era under Emperor Gaozong, he retired to the South Gate Thatched Hut (Cao'an); drawing upon the marvel of the Way attained throughout his life, he composed the Cao'an lu in ten fascicles. Its words were refined yet true, chanted by all across rivers and lakes (from his primary biography).