Guanxi Zhixian灌溪志閑

d. 895LinjiAlso: Kankei Shikan

Died: 895
Teacher: Linji Yixuan (transmission)
Studied with: Moshan Liaoran
School: Linji

A student of Linji Yixuan who went to test the nun Moshan Liaoran and stayed three years as her gardener. Later lamp records have him say he got half a ladle from Linji and half from Moshan.

He came from Guantao in Weifu, and his family name was Shi. The two lamp records disagree on how he began. The Jingde chuandeng lu has him tonsured as a boy by a teacher named Boyan, fully ordained at twenty, and meeting Linji afterwards; the Tiansheng guangdeng lu has him leave home under Linji at about twenty. Both tell the same encounter: Linji seized him and held him, and Zhixian said he understood.

The Jingde lists him first among Linji’s twenty-two heirs and records that he taught a community of his own; one of his monks went to call on Shishuang. It dates his death to the fifth month of 895.

Related people

Stories

Moshan and Zhixian

encounter

Zhixian, a student of Linji, came to Moshan intending to test the nun who taught there, and if she was no good, to overturn her seat. The nun, Moshan Liaoran, sent an attendant to ask whether he had come to look at the mountain or for the dharma. For the dharma, he said. She took the high seat and he came up.

Sources

Daoyuan (comp.), Jingde chuandeng lu 景德傳燈錄 (1004), Taishō T.2076 · link
Li Zunxu 李遵勗 (comp.), Tiansheng guangdeng lu 天聖廣燈錄 (1036), Zokuzōkyō X.1553 · link
Gábor Terebess (ed.), Terebess Online, Zen Masters (Zen mesterek) · link
Miriam L. Levering, The Dragon Girl and the Abbess of Mo-shan: Gender and Status in the Ch’an Buddhist Tradition (1982), Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 5.1 (1982), pp. 19–35 · link

Checked against sources 2026-11-02 by pipeline/opus@14c63ac. Report an error.