Xuansha Shibei

Xuansha Shibei (玄沙師備, 835–908) is recorded in the *Sòng Gāosēng Zhuàn* and the *Jǐngdé Chuándēng Lù* as a former fisherman from Fuzhou who became one of the closest disciples of Xuefeng Yicun and inherited Xuefeng's community after a period of solitary practice on Mount Xuansha^[1]. The lamp records preserve his awakening as a sudden moment of insight on the road down the mountain — recounted in the *Wúménguān* as the "Xuansha stubs his toe" episode — and the formula he is said to have spoken at that moment, "Bodhidharma never came to China; the Second Patriarch never went to India," became a *locus classicus* for the Chan claim that no Dharma is added from outside^[2].

Xuansha is best known for the teaching of the "three invalids" (三種病人) — the blind, the deaf, and the mute — used as a diagnostic of the partial understandings into which practitioners settle; the formula is preserved in the *Línjì Lù* commentaries and recycled in koan collections from the *Bìyán Lù* onward^[3]. His Dharma was carried forward through Luohan Guichen to Fayan Wenyi, the founder of the Fayan house, making Xuansha the immediate predecessor of one of the canonical Five Houses^[4].