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Distinguished mid-Tang Buddhist monk and poet (746–816 CE), close companion of Liu Yuxi, Bai Juyi, and Jiaoran, master of serene Chan meditative verse.
In a temple courtyard at dusk, a great bronze bell hangs at the right and incense smoke rises from a bronze urn; monks in orange robes and plainly dressed visitors walk toward a lamplit hall, lotus flowers bloom in a stone basin, and a gold prayer wheel stands at the left.
Also known as Monk Lingche · Tang Lingche
Ling Che (746–816 CE), lay surname Tang, was an eminent mid-Tang Buddhist poet-monk from Kuaiji. Partnering with Jiaoran as the leading monastic poetic voice of the era, his crystalline and transcendental verses earned the deep admiration of Liu Yuxi and Liu Zongyuan.
TangThe Song Biographies of Eminent Monks says Lingche was especially strong in chanting feeling and nature, that Yan Wei, Liu Changqing and Huangfu Zeng exchanged poems with him in reply, that Jiaoran praised one of his poems so highly that he said he felt like putting down his own brush, and that people said of Yue's Che that he was clear as ice and snow.
The monk Lingche lived at Yunmen Temple by the Yue stream. In early adulthood his writing was known far and wide. He taught tirelessly and students crowded to him as to a market, and he excelled above all at verse expressing feeling.