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Caodong School
Caodong school () is a Chinese Chan Buddhist branch and one of the Five Houses of Chán. The school emphasised sitting meditation (Ch: zuochan, Jp: zazen), and the " five ranks" teaching. During the Song dynasty, Caodong masters like Hongzhi Zhengjue developed " silent illumination" (mozhao) meditation. Etymology The key figure in the Caodong school was founder Dongshan Liangjie (807–869, 洞山良价, Jpn. Tozan Ryokai) and his heir Caoshan Benji (840–901, 曹山本寂, Ts'ao-shan Pen-chi, Jpn. Sōzan Honjaku). Some attribute the name "Cáodòng" as a union of "Dongshan" and "Caoshan". The "Cao" may also be from ''Cáoxī'' (曹溪), the "mountain-name" of Huineng, the Sixth Ancestor of Chan, as Caoshan was of little importance unlike his contemporary and fellow Dharma-heir, Yunju Daoying. History The Caodong school was founded by Dongshan Liangjie and his Dharma-heir Caoshan Benji. Dongshan traced back his lineage to Shitou Xiqian (700–790), a contemporary of M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Chan
Chan (; of ), from Sanskrit '' dhyāna'' (meaning "meditation" or "meditative state"), is a Chinese school of Mahāyāna Buddhism. It developed in China from the 6th century CE onwards, becoming especially popular during the Tang and Song dynasties. Chan is the originating tradition of Zen Buddhism (the Japanese pronunciation of the same character, which is the most commonly used English name for the school). Chan Buddhism spread from China south to Vietnam as Thiền and north to Korea as Seon, and, in the 13th century, east to Japan as Japanese Zen. History The historical records required for a complete, accurate account of early Chan history no longer exist. Periodisation The history of Chan in China can be divided into several periods. Zen, as we know it today, is the result of a long history, with many changes and contingent factors. Each period had different types of Zen, some of which remained influential, while others vanished. Andy Ferguson distinguishes three ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northern Song
The Song dynasty ( ) was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 960 to 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who usurped the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the rest of the Ten Kingdoms, ending the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. The Song frequently came into conflict with the contemporaneous Liao, Western Xia and Jin dynasties in northern China. After retreating to southern China following attacks by the Jin dynasty, the Song was eventually conquered by the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The dynasty's history is divided into two periods: during the Northern Song (; 960–1127), the capital was in the northern city of Bianjing (now Kaifeng) and the dynasty controlled most of what is now East China. The Southern Song (; 1127–1279) comprise the period following the loss of control over the northern half of Song territory to the Jurchen-led Jin dynasty in the Jin–Song wars. At that time, the Song court retreated sou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea in the south. The Japanese archipelago consists of four major islands—Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu—and List of islands of Japan, thousands of smaller islands, covering . Japan has a population of over 123 million as of 2025, making it the List of countries and dependencies by population, eleventh-most populous country. The capital of Japan and List of cities in Japan, its largest city is Tokyo; the Greater Tokyo Area is the List of largest cities, largest metropolitan area in the world, with more than 37 million inhabitants as of 2024. Japan is divided into 47 Prefectures of Japan, administrative prefectures and List of regions of Japan, eight traditional regions. About three-quarters of Geography of Japan, the countr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tiantong Rujing
Tiāntóng Rújìng (天童如淨; Japanese: Tendō Nyojō) (1163–1228) was a Caodong Buddhist monk living in Jìngdé Temple (景徳寺; Japanese: Keitoku-ji) on Tiāntóng Mountain (天童山; Japanese: Tendōzan) in Yinzhou District, Ningbo. He taught and gave dharma transmission to Sōtō Zen founder Dōgen as well as early Sōtō monk Jakuen (寂円 Jìyuán). His teacher was Xuedou Zhijian (雪竇智鑑, 1105–1192), who was the sixteenth-generation dharma descendant of Huineng. According to Keizan Keizan Jōkin (, 1268–1325), also known as Taiso Jōsai Daishi, is considered to be the second great founder of the Sōtō school of Zen in Japan. While Dōgen, as founder of Japanese Sōtō, is known as , Keizan is often referred to as . Keiz ..., when Ruijing became a leader, he didn't put himself above the other monks. He wore the black surplice and robe of a monk. He was given a purple vestment of honor by the emperor of China, but he declined it. Even after reachin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tendai
, also known as the Tendai Dharma Flower School (天台法華宗, ''Tendai hokke shū,'' sometimes just ''Hokkeshū''), is a Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition with significant esoteric elements that was officially established in Japan in 806 by the Japanese monk Saichō. The Tendai school, which has been based on Mount Hiei since its inception, rose to prominence during the Heian period (794–1185). It gradually eclipsed the powerful Hossō school and competed with the rival Shingon school to become the most influential sect at the Imperial court. By the Kamakura period (1185–1333), Tendai had become one of the dominant forms of Japanese Buddhism, with numerous temples and vast landholdings. During the Kamakura period, various monks left Tendai to found new Buddhist schools such as Jōdo-shū, Jōdo Shinshū, Nichiren-shū and Sōtō Zen. The destruction of the head temple of Enryaku-ji by Oda Nobunaga in 1571, as well as the geographic shift of the capital away from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dōgen Zenji
was a Japanese Zen Buddhist monk, writer, poet, philosopher, and founder of the Sōtō school of Zen in Japan. He is also known as Dōgen Kigen (), Eihei Dōgen (), Kōso Jōyō Daishi (), and Busshō Dentō Kokushi (). Originally ordained as a monk in the Tendai School in Kyoto, he was ultimately dissatisfied with its teaching and traveled to China to seek out what he believed to be a more authentic Buddhism. He remained there for four years, finally training under Tiāntóng Rújìng, an eminent teacher of the Cáodòng lineage of Chinese Chan. Upon his return to Japan, he began promoting the practice of zazen (sitting meditation) through literary works such as '' Fukanzazengi'' and '' Bendōwa''. He eventually broke relations completely with the powerful Tendai School, and, after several years of likely friction between himself and the establishment, left Kyoto for the mountainous countryside where he founded the monastery Eihei-ji, which remains the head temple of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quietism (philosophy)
Quietism in philosophy sees the role of philosophy as broadly therapeutic or remedial. Quietist philosophers believe that philosophy has no positive thesis to contribute; rather, it defuses confusions in the linguistic and conceptual frameworks of other subjects, including non-quietist philosophy. For quietists, advancing knowledge or settling debates (particularly those between realists and non-realists) is not the job of philosophy, rather philosophy should liberate the mind by diagnosing confusing concepts. Status within philosophy Crispin Wright said that "Quietism is the view that significant metaphysical debate is impossible." It has been described as "the view or stance that entails avoidance of substantive philosophical theorizing and is usually associated with certain forms of skepticism, pragmatism, and minimalism about truth. More particularly, it is opposed to putting forth positive theses and developing constructive arguments." Quietism by its nature is not a ph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Koan
A ( ; ; zh, c=公案, p=gōng'àn ; ; ) is a story, dialogue, question, or statement from Chinese Chan Buddhist lore, supplemented with commentaries, that is used in Zen Buddhist practice in different ways. The main goal of practice in Zen is to achieve (Chinese: jianxing 見性), to see or observe one's buddha-nature. Extended study of literature as well as meditation () on a is a major feature of modern Rinzai Zen. They are also studied in the Sōtō school of Zen to a lesser extent. In Chinese Chan and Korean Seon Buddhism, meditating on a , a key phrase of a , is also a major Zen meditation method. Etymology The Japanese term is the Sino-Japanese reading of the Chinese word ( zh, c= 公案, p=gōng'àn, w=kung-an, l=public case). The term is a compound word, consisting of the characters ('public; official; governmental; common; collective; fair; equitable') and ('table; desk, altar; (law) case; record; file; plan; mandate, proposal.') According to the Y ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hua Tou
''Hua Tou'' (simplified Chinese: 话头; traditional Chinese: 話頭, Korean: ''hwadu'', Japanese: ''watō'') is part of a form of Buddhist meditation known as ''Gongfu'' 工夫 (not to be confused with the Martial Arts 功夫) common in the teachings of Chan Buddhism, Korean Seon and Rinzai Zen. ''Hua Tou'' can be translated as 'word head', 'head of speech' or 'point beyond which speech exhausts itself'. A ''Hua Tou'' can be a short phrase that is used as a subject of meditation to focus the mind. Origins ''Hua Tou'' are based on the encounter-dialogues and ''koan'' of the interactions between past masters and students, but are shorter phrases than koans. The Hua Tou method was invented by the Chinese Zen master Dahui Zonggao (1089–1163) who was a member of the Linji school. Dahui was interested in teaching the lay community, particularly the educated Chinese scholar-officials. Support of those "literati" was essential for the survival of the individual lineages, since ap ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dahui Zonggao
Dahui Zonggao (1089–10 August 1163) (; Wade–Giles: Ta-hui Tsung-kao; Japanese: Daie Sōkō; Vietnamese: Đại Huệ Tông Cảo) was a 12th-century Chinese Chan (Zen) master. Dahui was a student of Yuanwu Keqin (Wade–Giles: Yuan-wu K'o-ch'in; Japanese: Engo Kokugon) (1063–1135) and was the 12th generation of the Linji school of Chan Buddhism. He was the dominant figure of the Linji school during the Song dynasty. Dahui introduced the practice of '' kan huatou'', or "inspecting the critical phrase," of a kōan story. This method was called the "Chan of ''gongan'' (''kōan'') introspection" (看話禪 Kanhua Chan). Dahui was a vigorous critic of what he called the "heretical Chan of silent illumination" (默照邪禪 Mozhao Xie Chan) of the Caodong school (Wade–Giles: Ts'ao-tung; Japanese: Sōtō). Biography Early years Dahui was born in Xuancheng, Anhui, to the Xi (奚) family. He left home at sixteen and became a Buddhist monk at seventeen. His initiatory ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Buddha-nature
In Buddhist philosophy and soteriology, Buddha-nature ( Chinese: , Japanese: , , Sanskrit: ) is the innate potential for all sentient beings to become a Buddha or the fact that all sentient beings already have a pure Buddha-essence within themselves.Heng-Ching ShihThe Significance Of 'Tathagatagarbha' – A Positive Expression Of 'Sunyata'/ref> "Buddha-nature" is the common English translation for several related Mahāyāna Buddhism, Buddhist terms, most notably ''tathāgatagarbha'' and ''buddhadhātu'', but also ''sugatagarbha,'' and ''buddhagarbha''. ''Tathāgatagarbha'' can mean "the womb" or "embryo" (''garbha'') of the "thus-gone one" (''Tathagata, tathāgata''), and can also mean "containing a ''tathāgata''"''. Buddhadhātu'' can mean "buddha-element", "buddha-realm", or "buddha-substrate". Buddha-nature has a wide range of (sometimes conflicting) meanings in Indian Buddhism and later in East Asian Buddhism, East Asian and Tibetan Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhist literatur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Simplified Chinese Characters
Simplified Chinese characters are one of two standardized Chinese characters, character sets widely used to write the Chinese language, with the other being traditional characters. Their mass standardization during the 20th century was part of an initiative by the People's Republic of China (PRC) to promote literacy, and their use in ordinary circumstances on the mainland has been encouraged by the Chinese government since the 1950s. They are the official forms used in mainland China, Malaysia, and Singapore, while traditional characters are officially used in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. Simplification of a component—either a character or a sub-component called a Radical (Chinese characters), radical—usually involves either a reduction in its total number of Chinese character strokes, strokes, or an apparent streamlining of which strokes are chosen in what places—for example, the radical used in the traditional character is simplified to to form the simplified charac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
