Career
According to the account given in Taigen Dan Leighton"s Cultivating the Empty Field, Hongzhi was born to a family named Li in Xizhou, present-day Shanxi province. In 1129, Hongzhi began teaching at the Jingde monastery on Mount Tiantong, where he remained for nearly thirty years, until shortly before his death in 1157, when he ventured down the mountain to bid farewell to his supporters.
