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The nun Ching-yüan (Pure Profundity) (436-506) of Bamboo Garden Convent
Ching-yüan's secular surname was Shih, and her family originally was from the Chü-lu region [in far north China]. When she was a child, she had the wisdom of an adult, and at the age of five or six she used to pile up sand to make little pagodas and carve wood to make little images. Burning incense and offering worship, the whole day was not long enough for her. Whenever she heard people discussing anything, she would relentlessly pursue the topic to grasp the essential principles.
When she was twenty, Ching-yüan left secular life to become a nun. Out of devotion to her parents she did not eat or sleep and drank only water to keep her fast. She went on like this, not acquiescing to remonstrances, until seven days were over, after which she always kept a vegetarian diet. Ching-yüan observed all the monastic precepts most diligently, needing no exhortation or encouragement from others. Her teachers and friends respected her; those far and near commended her. The Ch'i heir apparent Wen-hui (458-493) honored her greatly, giving her the four necessities of a monastic life, while messages and envoys came thick and fast.
Ching-yüan died in the fifth year of the t'ien-chien reign period (506) at the age of seventy-one.
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 Published
by The Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, © Copyright 2003
by Anne Kinney and the University of Virginia |
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