However, as to the question of the transmission of the robe and bowl, the Venerable Master surprised everyone, because he willed the twenty-second lineage of the Linji Sect to a lay disciple named Miaoshou Zhang who lived faraway in Chengdu. The people had only seen this disciple three times. When Miaoshou arrived during the mourning period, he followed that last request and had his head shaved in front of the body of the Master. From then on he was known as Shi Changzhen.

The first time I heard about Dharma Master Changzhen was in l990, when he was still a layman. After he retired from the College of Forestry, he went to live at Manjushri Temple in Chengdu and was writing for the Buddhist Journal of Sichuan Province. He was known as Teacher Miaoshou Zhang and was secretary to Abbot Kuanlin of Manjushri Temple.

My friend told me about Layman Zhang and said that he had experienced many disasters and difficulties. He had lost his wife, his daughter had passed away, and his son was retarded. Instead of being distressed under such circumstances, he was content and peaceful. At over sixty with no grandchildren to enjoy and nothing to look forward to in life, he should have been feeling empty and depressed, but in fact he was at ease and fulfilled.

One night recently, he suddenly began to vomit blood. He spit up half a cup, and more blood was gushing out of his throat. He could have asked someone to take him to the hospital, but he didn’t call out. He thought about how in l965 his wife, Yuan Juan, when near death had also vomited blood, stopped breathing, and then died. Wasn’t that just like his present situation? He thought, “Probably it’s time for me to go. So just go!” Then he got up, wrote instructions about dispensing his responsibilities, money (that others had given him to use for printing Sutras, liberating life, and so forth), and wrote his will: “After I die please ask Dharma Master Qingding, distinguished Teacher, to perform ceremonies to cross me over. Please scatter my ashes in Manjushri Temple’s forests.” Then he bathed, changed his clothes, bowed to the Buddhas, sat in full lotus facing the West, and there on his bed was single-mindedly reciting the name of Amitabha Buddha. Who would have thought that after a while the bleeding stopped. The next day he was completely well. After that incident his niece complained and asked why he didn’t go to the hospital. He smiled a little and said, “Can a person hold on to his own life? If one could hold on to his own life, then what about the Emperor of Qin and Emperor Wu of Han, both of whom sought immortality? Were they able to hold on to life?”

During the ten years of turmoil, he was a doctor at the College of Forestry and was condemned as a “counter-revolutionary", a “bad element,” and was kept in a cow shed. At that time, at the college, two gangs had a shoot-out and as a result some members of each gang died. The job of the burying the open-mouthed, broken-toothed, filthy, blood-smeared corpses fell on the shoulders of the “bad elements.” The day was hot and the corpses stank. Those assigned to bury the corpses could neither eat nor sleep; they were in great misery. But Layman Zhang willingly did this tough task. As he buried the corpses he recited the “Rebirth Mantra” to cross over lost souls who died untimely deaths. He was not afraid at all, and he even helped his companions finish their job. Thus he tied up good affinities with the living and the dead. He was calm and filled with joy for the Dharma. The other people in the cow shed could neither eat nor sleep, and their complexions were pale and haggard. Only he could eat and sleep as usual; he was calm and at ease.

Because of this, one day the keeper of the political activists (the person who was in charge of the “bad elements”) suddenly called Layman Zhang to come forth and said, “Mr. Zhang, why is your brow so different from those of the others? How come it’s shining?” Layman Zhang thought up some nonsense to answer. Later he said to a friend of mine:

To tell the truth, at that time I didn’t feel resentful or angry. After the Gang of Four fell from power, they considered that I had been unjustly accused and overturned my case. Actually, theirs was a worldly view. You should know that from the perspective of the law of cause and effect, which prevails in the three periods of time, there is never a time when someone is “framed by mistake.” The misfortune I met with in this life comes from the karma I created in the past. I ought to repay enmity with virtue and thereby eradicate my karma. Those who act in unprincipled ways are lost and pitiful; we should be compassionate and pity them. During that time my mind was calm and unburdened. Whenever I had free time I silently recited the Buddha’s name, and so I ate and slept well. I really didn’t have any idea if my brow was “shining” or not.

He was smiling as he said that.

To be continued