世無俠士空呈劍：季總禪師以南嶽山居去來為主軸的女禪詩路=Presenting Sword Vainly in a World without Chivalrous Persons: Nanyue Mountain Living and Leaving Poetry of Ji Zong as a Female Zen Master
Ji Zong Xing Che (1606-1658?), the female Zen Master of the late Ming and early Qing dynasty, left Nanyue for the south of Yangtze River for preaching and eventually returned to Nanyue after cultivating herself and enlightening at the Nanyue mountain of Hunan. Regarding female space, the rare life course of Ji Zong demonstrated her determination on preaching for which she walked through rivers and mountains. For Ji Zong herself, the course symbolized the life experience of a female practitioner who was enlightened, traveled and preached between two places. Historically speaking, it also provided an indirect description of the environment of Zen which centered on Yangtze River. Even in the aspect of poetry, Ji Zong as a female poet significantly added the flavors of mountain living, traveling, and preaching to women's poems which were commonly seen. In this regard, by focusing on three types of poems, including Nanyue Mountain Living Poetry (25 pieces of ＂Random Poems of Nanyue Mountain Living,＂ 8 pieces of ＂Mountain Living,＂ and 10 epigrams of Nanyue attractions) collected in Recorded Sayings of Ji Zong Zen Master, the epigrams about leaving Nanyue for the south of Yangtze River for preaching, and 10 pieces of planning on returning to Nanyue, the study explores the poetry of the female Zen master. Compared with the styles of Duan-shu Wang and Yi-zun Zhu, which emphasize on the bitterness and leanness within the Mountain Living Poetry, the tree types of Ji Zong's poetry contain many vivid and quite images such as ＂bright autumn＂ described in Nanyue Mountain Living Poetry. In addition, the poem ＂A Staying Practitioner's Dream on Mountains＂ written during the period of leaving mountain for the south of Yangtze River, despite the expression of solitude and easiness, shows a broad-minded view aiming at traveling mountains to preach and benefit the world. As to the poems of planning on returning to Nanyue, they teem with indignation and grief which are expressed with words like ＂all people are drunk,＂ ＂presenting the sword vainly,＂ and ＂broken heart in the autumn.＂ In sum, Ji Zong prefers the scenery of autumn, with which she strings the three phases of her life course together, and expresses thoroughly the autumn's brightness, aliveness, quietness, easiness, decay and brokenness. As to the heart of Zen, the easiness of mountain living, and spirit of traveling and preaching, and the grief of returning Nanyue all shows the awakened one's quietness, generous heart, and emotions as a mortal.
