Tiānrú Wéizé 天如惟則 (1286–1354)
A leading Línjì-school 臨濟宗 Chán master of the late Yuán, dharma heir of Zhōngfēng Míngběn 中峯明本 (1263–1323) and one of the most influential propagators of the integrated Chán-Pure Land synthesis (chánjìng shuāngxiū 禪淨雙修) that defined late-imperial Chinese Buddhism. Born in Yǒngxīn 永新 (modern Jiāngxī), surname Tan 譚; he received the dharma-name 惟則 Wéizé (with sobriquet Tiānrú 天如) during his training under Zhōngfēng at Tiānmùshān 天目山. After his master’s death he settled at Shīzǐlín 師子林 (Lion Grove) in Sūzhōu 蘇州, the famous monastic compound and garden complex that he established with literati patrons; the Shīzǐlín would later pass into the lay-elite garden tradition and survives today as the well-known UNESCO-listed Sūzhōu garden.
His major surviving works are the 《淨土或問》 Jìngtǔ huòwèn KR6p0053 (T1972), a single-fascicle question-and-answer Pure Land doctrinal treatise that is one of the foundational late-medieval texts of the Chán-Pure Land integration; the 《天如則禪師語錄》 Tiānrú Zé chánshī yǔlù (his recorded sayings, multiple recensions); and miscellaneous prefaces and verse. The Huòwèn in particular argues forcefully that there is no doctrinal opposition between Chán and Pure Land cultivation — a position later endorsed and amplified by 袾宏 Yúnqī Zhūhóng, 行策 Jiéliú Xíngcè, and the other major late-Míng / Qīng Pure Land masters, and one that decisively shaped the institutional shape of late-imperial Chinese Buddhism. He died in 至正 14 (1354) at age 69.