Shishuang Qingzhu

Shishuang Qingzhu (石霜慶諸, 807–888) was the Dharma heir of Daowu Yuanzhi and one of the most distinctive teachers of the late-Tang Yaoshan stream. The *Jǐngdé Chuándēng Lù* describes the community he established on Mount Shishuang (in modern Hunan) as the "withered-tree hall" (枯木堂), so called because its monks were trained to sit with such radical stillness that they were said to look like "dead trees and cold ashes" — a practice that prefigures the silent-illumination (*mòzhào chán*) of the later Caodong revival^[1].

Shishuang's recorded instruction — "Cease and desist; be like a censer in an old shrine, like a length of bleached silk" — became one of the most-quoted formulae of late-Tang Caodong-stream practice, cited by Hongzhi Zhengjue and by Dōgen as an early expression of the *mòzhào / shikantaza* line of teaching^[2]. The lamp records note that after his death his community faced a celebrated succession dispute resolved in favour of Jiufeng Daoqian, who declined to identify himself as Shishuang's heir until forced to do so by a public test of understanding posed by the head monk^[3].