Yúnxiù 雲岫
Late-Southern-Sòng / Yuán Cáodòng 曹洞 Chán master, zì Yúnwài 雲外, 別號 Fāngyán 方嵓. 1242 – 1324 (lunar 泰定 1), shìshòu 83, sēnglà 65. Native of Chāngguózhōu 昌國州 (Míngzhōu coastal islands), lay surname Lǐ 李. Dharma-heir of Zhíwēng Déjǔ 直翁德舉 (DILA A020880), hào Zhíwēng 直翁, in the Southern-Sòng Cáodòng line descended from Hóngzhì Zhèngjué — and thus a late witness to the Sìmíng Cáodòng tradition at the point when, as the preface to his yǔlù (KR6q0361) puts it, Cáodòng had become a “gūzōng 孤宗” (solitary school) in the Yuán Chán landscape.
Thoroughly mastered the Cáodòng wǔwèi 五位 system under his teacher, then toured the principal Chán-林 seats before beginning his abbatial career. Abbacy sequence: Cíxī Shímén 慈谿石門, Xiàngshān 象山, Zhìmén 智門 (the seat from which the principal record in his yǔlù derives), Jùnzhī Tiānníng 天寧, and — as capstone — Tiāntóng 天童 (Hóngzhì’s historic seat), whence the alternate names Tiāntóng Yúnxiù / Tiāntóng Xiù.
He composed the Bǎojìng sānmèi xuányì 寶鏡三昧玄義 — an exegetical commentary on the foundational Cáodòng text Bǎojìng sānmèi 寶鏡三昧 — which became a standard reference in monastic forests, and which underpins the central strand of his yǔlù’s niāngǔ passages. Drew a substantial following of Korean (Sānhán 三韓) and Japanese monks at Tiāntóng — one significant channel by which Southern-Sòng / Yuán Cáodòng teaching reached East Asia on the eve of the Chán thread’s attenuation within China.
Named dharma-heir: Xuědòu Dàzhèng 雪竇大證 (also 無印大證, hào Wúyìn 無印) — one of the late-Yuán Cáodòng figures through whom the thin Chinese thread continued. Principal source: the zhuàn 傳 preserved in KR6q0361; Xùchuándēnglù juan 35.