[5][4] Yuanzhao was a key reformer of the Vinaya school during the Song dynasty, widely administering its monastic ordination ceremonies to monks and bodhisattva precepts to laypersons.
[4] A native of Yuhang (modern Zhejiang Province), he was born in 1048, the eighth year of the Qingli reign, with the secular surname Tang (唐).
Ordained under Master Huijian at Xiangfu Temple in Qiantang, his early accomplishments included an outstanding performance in the national ordination examination for monks, where he demonstrated exceptional proficiency in reciting the Lotus Sutra.
[7] This commitment aligned with his broader aim to revive and systematize the Vinaya tradition, which had suffered setbacks due to prior political persecutions during the Tang and Five Dynasties periods.
[2] Yuanzhao spent over thirty years in Hangzhou, attending to various temples, including Fahui (法慧), Dabei (大悲), Xiangfu Jietan (祥符戒壇), Jintu Baoge (淨土寶閣), Lingzhi Chongfu (靈芝崇福).
His works and reforms played a pivotal role in the resurgence of the Vinaya school and the broader revitalization of Chinese Buddhist monasticism.
He felt incumbent upon himself to put together a coherent and comprehensive commentary by consulting all references and exegeses, collating and redacting old and new texts, selecting those he considered better interpretations and expunging bad ones.
[4] Yuanzhao also incorporated Pure Land elements into the Bodhisattva precept ordination ceremonies, which he administered over sixty times to over ten thousand people.
The three pure acts (which include keeping precepts and reciting sutras) evoked the Buddha's blessings (fuye 福業) which supported the practice of contemplation.
A mind wishing for rebirth in the Pure Land as one transfers one's merits to other sentient beings means benefiting all in their deliverance.
But according to Yuanzhao, the sutra's meditation "aims at delivering the mind to another realm" (songxin tajing 送心他境) and at "protection through the power of a holy being" (shengde huchi 聖德護持).