大明高僧傳 6.12

6.12

Śramaṇa Shi Tanhua, styled Ying'an, was a son of the Wang family of Qizhou. Born extraordinary and heroic, he was unlike ordinary children. At the age of seventeen, he shaved his hair under Dongchan. First he visited Master Sui and slightly tasted the flavor of the Dharma. Thereupon he traveled widely visiting spiritual friends, but found no point of accord or realization. Hearing that Yuanwu was residing at Yunju training students, Tanhua went to pay homage and rely upon him as an attendant. Yuanwu gave him severe pricks with awl and needle. When Yuanwu was returning to Shu, he directed him to see Chan Master Huqiu Long. Attending him for a year, he suddenly became clear about the great matter. Soon after, he visited Ci'an Yuan, who ordered him to share the seat. Thereupon he opened the hall at Miaoyan, and later moved to Guizong. At that time, Dahui was in Meiyang. A monk transmitted Tanhua's instructions to the assembly to him; when Dahui saw them, he praised them to the utmost and sent a gāthā in reply, saying:
'Sitting across the foremost peak of the golden wheel,
A thousand monsters and a hundred freaks all hide their traces.
These years true tidings have been obtained again,
Reporting that the orthodox vein of Yangqi is unobstructed.'
On the anniversary of Huqiu's passing, he offered incense and said: 'In all my life I was unlucky to bump into this old fellow devoid of conceptual thought. Having exhausted every trick without being able to fit in, from then on I laid down shield and spear, wearing robes and eating food as my lot allowed. For twenty years I have sat on the curved-wood chair, hanging up a sheep's head and selling dog meat. Who knows what proof he had? Even so, though the day for burning incense comes once a year, through a thousand ages it makes one's resentment turn even deeper.' The world called Tanhua and [Dahui Zong]gao the two gates of sweet dew. He once admonished the assembly, saying: 'Patch-robed monks wear straw sandals. What business do they have when residing in a monastery, whose mouths are like the foul dens of giant turtles and serpents?' On the thirteenth day of the sixth month of the first year of the Longxing era of the Song, he quietly transformed. His whole body was stupaed on Dongshan.