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. He left home at the age of eleven to become a monk, studying under Caodong master Kumu Facheng (枯木法成), among others, including Yuanwu Keqin, author of the famous kōan collection, the Blue Cliff Record.

　

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.

The main text associated with Hongzhi is a collection of one hundred of his kōans called the Book of Equanimity (Chinese: 從容録; pinyin: Cóngróng Lù; Japanese: 従容録; rōmaji: Shōyōroku). This book was compiled after his death by Wansong Xingxiu (1166–1246) at the urging of the Khitan statesman Yelü Chucai (1190–1244), and first published in 1224, with commentaries by Wansong. This book is regarded as one of the key texts of the Caodong school of Zen Buddhism. A collection of Hongzhi's philosophical texts has also been translated by Leighton.

　

Hongzhi is often referred to as an exponent of Silent Illumination Chan (Mokushō Zen (黙照禅) in Japanese).

　

Aside from his own teacher, Eihei Dōgen—the founder of the Sōtō school of Zen in Japan—quotes Hongzhi in his work more than any other Zen figure.