Death is an essential lesson of life. Whether Buddhas are truly released can be determined at the time of death. For Buddhist practitioners, death can be said to be the most severe trial in the process of practicing Buddhism. ”Patriarch's Hall Collection”, a collection of biographies of Zen masters and early Zen sutras, was compiled by Master Jing and Master Yun from Zhao-Qing Temple in Quanzhou, in the 10th year of Bao-Da of Southern Tang (952 A.D.). The subjects of those biographies in ”Patriarch's Hall Collection” were selected through the standard of realization, and those subjects were all Zen satori saints. ”Patriarch's Hall Collection” consists of three parts: one is about Buddha, another the 27 masters in the Western Land from Jia-She onward, and still another satori saints in the Eastern Land from pu-ti-da-mo onward. Shakyamuni Buddha is the initiator of Buddhism. The masters from the Western Land are the origin of Zen faction. They are the models of Zen Buddhas. In Zen Missions, they have sacred positions. The deaths of them are the principle of Zen death writing, which exerts a profound influence on writing about deaths of later satori saints. In order to keep hold of the unfolding process and the changes in the death writing in ”Patriarch's Hall Collection”, this article first discusses Buddha and masters from the Western Land as the research subjects, and expounds the following three aspects: death writing (including a description of death phenomena, records of funeral arrangements, reactions towards death, teaching and discussions about death, etc.), patterns and contexts of death writing (including outside diction, inside context, etc.), and inner meanings of death writing (including perspectives of viewing death, attitudes in the face of death, etc.). Hopefully, via these discussions, a basic framework of death writing in ”Patriarch's Hall Collection” can be gradually grasped. Moreover, in the future, by analyzing all the subjects in ”Patriarch's Hall Collection”, an observation of how Zen satori saints pass the trial of death can be expected as well as an exploration of how Zen sees, faces, deals with, discusses, and transcends lessons like death, a contemplation of the profound meanings incorporated in Zen death writing, and enlightenment and teaching of Zen life viewpoints for the present world.
