Yìqīng 義青
Northern-Sòng Cáo-dòng 曹洞 Chán master, hào Qīng Huá-yán 青華嚴 (for his Avataṃsaka scholarship as a young lecturer); posthumous title (chì-shì 敕諡) Miào-xù dà-shī 妙續大師 (also Cí-jì 慈濟). 1032 – 29 May 1083 (lunar 元豐 6.5.4), sú-shòu 52, sēng-là 37. Native of Qīng-shè 青社 (Shān-dōng), lay surname Lǐ 李.
Tonsured at seven at his native prefecture’s Miàoxiàngsì 妙相寺; ordained at sixteen. Made an early reputation as a young Huáyán lecturer — nicknamed “Qīng the Huáyán” — attaining an initial opening on the phrase “即心自性.” Subsequently turned to Chán under Fúshān Yuánjiàn Fǎyuǎn 浮山圓鑑法遠 (991–1067) at Huìshèngyán 會聖巖, where he trained for six years. Fǎyuǎn — a Línjì master who had been entrusted with the robes and hand-drawn portrait of Dàyáng Jǐngxuán 大陽警玄 (943–1027) in the absence of a direct Cáodòng heir — formally transmitted them to Yìqīng with the charge “Continue Dàyáng’s lineage on my behalf” 代吾續大陽宗風. This cross-school dàifù 代付 — Yìqīng thus receiving Cáodòng dharma-transmission from a master he had never met — is the single clearest Northern-Sòng case of the practice and remains a central datum in Cáodòng / Sōtō historiography.
Held two abbacies: Jiànzhōu Báiyúnshān Hǎihuì chányuàn 白雲山海會禪院 (from Xīníng 6 / 1073) and Shūzhōu Tóuzǐshān Shèngyīn chányuàn 投子山勝因禪院 — the latter the seat from which he took the definitive hào Tóuzǐ. Named dharma-heirs, “ten-odd persons” per the xíngzhuàng: Fúróng Dàokǎi 芙蓉道楷 (1043–1118; DILA A001539) is the most consequential, for through him — via Dānxiá Zǐchún 丹霞子淳, Zhēnxiē Qīngliǎo 真歇清了, and Hóngzhì Zhèngjué 宏智正覺 — Yìqīng’s line became the main surviving Cáodòng channel into the Southern Sòng, and, through Dōgen’s teacher Tiāntóng Rújìng 天童如淨, into Japanese Sōtō. Other heirs include Bàoēn 報恩, Dòngshān Yún 洞山雲, Fúyīng Wén 福應文, Tánguǎng 曇廣.
His yǔlù survives as Tóuzǐ Yìqīng chánshī yǔlù 投子義青禪師語錄 (KR6q0356; X71 n1423), compiled by his grand-disciple 自覺 Lùmén Zìjué at Jìngyīn chányuàn after 1107. A 100-case sònggǔ 頌古 by him — separately embedded, with Yuán commentary, in Línquán Cónglún 林泉從倫’s Kōnggǔ jí 空谷集 (KR6q0251) — parallels the more famous Xuědòu / Bìyán lù tradition on the Línjì side and remains the foundational niāngǔ text for the Cáodòng school.