Chāomíng 超溟 (Zǔyuán Chāomíng 祖源超溟)
Early-Qīng Línjì-lineage Chán master. Hào Zǔyuán 祖源 (“Ancestral Source”), Xiǎoyángshān 小楊山 (“Lesser Poplar Mountain”), Zǔyuán Chāomíng dàorén 祖源超溟道人 (“Zǔyuán Chāomíng the Daoist”). Lifedates unrecorded. Active at Xiǎoyángshān in the Beijing (Běipíng 北平) region in the Kāngxī era, as evidenced by the preface-contributors to his Wàn fǎ guī xīn lù, who are all northern-China officials and laymen.
Dharma-heir of Tiānfēng Qīng 天峯清 of Jiāngxī Shàng-lán 江西上藍 (per the Wǔ dēng quán shū juan 97). Three generations downstream from Mìyún Yuánwù 密雲圓悟 in the Línjì orthodox lineage, via Fúshí Tōngxián 浮石通賢 — Chāomíng’s lineage-grandfather — whom he acknowledges by reference in the prefaces. Identified in the preface-signature as Chuán Línjì zhèng zōng sānshí-sān dài sì zǔ shāmén Zǔyuán Chāomíng dàorén 傳臨濟正宗三十三代嗣祖沙門祖源超溟道人 (“transmitting-Línjì orthodox-school 33rd-generation dharma-successor śramaṇa, Zǔyuán Chāomíng the Daoist”).
Single surviving work: the Wàn fǎ guī xīn lù 萬法歸心錄 KR6q0174, a three-juan Chán syncretic treatise presenting Chán via ten topical question-and-answer dialogues, self-prefaced in 1676. Notable for its sustained engagement with Wáng Yángmíng Neo-Confucian thought and its integrative (rather than polemical) presentation of the Chán position within the broader sān jiào héyī 三教合一 tradition.