The Story of the Chan monk Zhu Sing The monk, came from Huili. As a child he was orphaned. He was fostered by a Mr Ceng They were very poor. In 1909, when I returned there with the Tripitaka I transmitted to him the five precepts. The next year, when he was twenty-one, he begged to leave home. (The lower or Samanera ordination)
He was deaf, illiterate and he had an ugly face; he worked in the vegetable garden during the day as a kind of hard practice and was dedicated to Kwan Yin Bodhisattva invocation practice in the evening. Then, in 1915, he asked my permission to go and visit some other Chan teachers in other locations. In 1920 I met him again at the Cloud Perch Monastery where he again became a gardener. He did not speak unless he needed to. During my stay at the Fallen Heroes or Sheng Yin monastery I saw this wonderful work in the vegetable gardens. That year, as I transmitted the precepts elsewhere on the mountain, he came and asked me to confirm his progress. Then he took the higher precepts (full ordination for a monk).
On March 29th, after the noon meditation he put on his formal robes in a courtyard behind the main hall and sat in lotus on a pile of straw. Facing west, he chanted the Buddha’s name with one hand holding and ringing the hand bell and the other hand striking the wooden fish. He then set fire to the straw. The handle of the hand bell and the wooden fish had burnt away but his robes had not been burnt. I was getting ready to transmit the Bodhisattva precepts in September as I got the news, so I was too busy to go down the mountain. But I wrote to two officials, Mr Wong and Mr Zhang, to ask them to see to the funeral for me. On witnessing this unusual event they went and told Governor Tang, and he came with his complete family to have a look. The hand bell was removed from the monk’s hand and then the body collapsed into a heap of ashes.
-Empty Cloud, The Autobiography of Chinese Zen Master Xu Yun
He was deaf, illiterate and he had an ugly face; he worked in the vegetable garden during the day as a kind of hard practice and was dedicated to Kwan Yin Bodhisattva invocation practice in the evening. Then, in 1915, he asked my permission to go and visit some other Chan teachers in other locations. In 1920 I met him again at the Cloud Perch Monastery where he again became a gardener. He did not speak unless he needed to. During my stay at the Fallen Heroes or Sheng Yin monastery I saw this wonderful work in the vegetable gardens. That year, as I transmitted the precepts elsewhere on the mountain, he came and asked me to confirm his progress. Then he took the higher precepts (full ordination for a monk).
On March 29th, after the noon meditation he put on his formal robes in a courtyard behind the main hall and sat in lotus on a pile of straw. Facing west, he chanted the Buddha’s name with one hand holding and ringing the hand bell and the other hand striking the wooden fish. He then set fire to the straw. The handle of the hand bell and the wooden fish had burnt away but his robes had not been burnt. I was getting ready to transmit the Bodhisattva precepts in September as I got the news, so I was too busy to go down the mountain. But I wrote to two officials, Mr Wong and Mr Zhang, to ask them to see to the funeral for me. On witnessing this unusual event they went and told Governor Tang, and he came with his complete family to have a look. The hand bell was removed from the monk’s hand and then the body collapsed into a heap of ashes.
-Empty Cloud, The Autobiography of Chinese Zen Master Xu Yun
