Northern Song poet-monk Dehong, styled Juefan and from Xinchang in Jiangxi, author of Lengzhai yehua, Shimen wenzi chan and Linjian lu.
Mural guide
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.
Huihong, whose monastic name was Dehong, courtesy name Juefan and honorific Venerable Jiyin, came from Xinchang in Yunzhou (modern Yifeng, Jiangxi) and lived 1071 to 1128 as a Northern Song poet-monk. His works include the ten-scroll poetry talks Lengzhai yehua, the poem and prose collection Shimen wenzi chan, the Chan notes Linjian lu and the monk biographies Chanlin sengbao zhuan, plus the lyric collection Shimen changduanju. A poem of his is in the Qianjia shi.
Moved to Baofeng Cloister and built a hermitage at Jingde Temple
1087 to 1128
In 1087 Huihong studied under Chan master Kewen at Dongshan; his Chan belonged to the Huanglong line of the Linji school and held Chan and doctrinal teaching as one. In 1097 he moved to Baofeng Cloister in Hongzhou, and in 1107, invited by the Fuzhou prefect Zhu Yanzhi, he lived at Jingde Temple north of Linchuan and built the Mingbai Hermitage. He was later ordained again on Zhang Shangying's petition and received the title Great Master Baojue Yuanming. He died at Tong'an Temple in Jianchang in 1128.
Wrote the Shimen wenzi chan, treating the brush as Buddhist work
Northern Song
Huihong excelled at poetry and prose and held that the brush and inkstone could do Buddhist work, which made him a representative of the Chan of the written word. He wrote the Shimen wenzi chan, the ten-scroll Lengzhai yehua, the Linjian lu, the three-scroll Tianchu jinluan and the one-scroll lyric collection Shimen changduanju, and compiled the monk biographies Chanlin sengbao zhuan. The Shimen wenzi chan later reached Japan, where the Soto monk Kakumon Kantetsu published an annotated edition in 1710.
Song