MO-SHAN LIAO-JAN

Mo-Shan Liao-Jan (mo shan means Summit Mountain) was well known in her time (around 800 A.D.) and referred to by many later writers. She is one of the role models of wisdom cited by Dogen Zenji in his chapter Raihai-tokuzu.

Mo-shan was a disciple of Kao-an Ta-yu and is the first woman Dharma heir in the official Ch'an Transmission Line. Miriam Levering, who has translated her records, writes, she is "the first nun to be portrayed in Ch'an texts as doing what male teachers do - being an abbess, welcoming and challenging students in that role." Mo-shan has a chapter in the Chinese book of Enlightenment stories called the Cheng-te ch'uan-teng lu, the Record of the Transmission of the Lamp, from 1004 A.D. When the Chinese monk Kuan-ch'i Chih-hsien was traveling in search of a teacher, he came to Mo­shan's temple:

"What place did you leave today?" she asked him.

"I left the entrance to the road," he answered.

"Why didn't you cover it?" Mo-shan asked. He had no answer, and bowed.

Then he asked, "What is Mo-shan like?"

"It does not expose its peak," she said.

"What is the owner of Summit Mountain like?"

"It does not have male or female appearance," Mo-Shan said.

Chih-hsien shouted "Ho!" and added, "Why doesn't it transform itself?"

"It is not a god and it is not a ghost," said Mo-shan. "What should it transform itself into?"

Chih-hsien submitted to her teaching for three years.

Mo-shan is the first recorded woman who was the teacher of a man. Dogen notes that Chih-hsien's willingness to overcome his cultural resistance to being taught by a woman was a sign of the depth of his desire to attain understanding.

Also known as: Moshan Liaoran, Laoran, Massan Ryonen, Myoshin, Miao-Hsin. Dharma-heir of Gaoan Dayu, one of Linji’s teachers, she was a teacher of Linji’s disciple, Guanzhi Zhixian (Kuan-ch'i Chih-hsien) as well.