Zhàozhōu Cōngshěn (; Wade-Giles: ''Chao-chou Ts'ung-shen''; ja, Jōshū Jūshin) (778–897) was a

Chán 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 S ...

(

Zen Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), and ...

)

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

master especially known for his " paradoxical statements and strange deeds". Zhaozhou became ordained as a

monk A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedica ...

at an early age. At the age of 18, he met

Nánquán Pǔyuàn Nanquan Puyuan (Chinese: 南泉普願; Wade-Giles: Nan-ch’üan P’u-yüan; Pinyin: Nánquán Pǔyuàn; Japanese: Nansen Fugan; Korean: 남천보원 Nam-cheon Bo-won) (c. 749 – c. 835) was a Chán (Zen) Buddhist master in China during the Tan ...

(南泉普願 748–835; J: Nansen Fugan), a successor of Mǎzǔ Dàoyī (709–788; J. Baso Do-itsu), and eventually received the Dharma from him. When Nanquan asked Zhaozhou the

koan A (; , ; ko, 화두, ; vi, công án) is a story, dialogue, question, or statement which is used in Zen practice to provoke the "great doubt" and to practice or test a student's progress in Zen. Etymology The Japanese term is the Sino-J ...

"What is the Way?", the two had a dialogue, at the height of which Zhaozhou attained

enlightenment Enlightenment or enlighten may refer to: Age of Enlightenment * Age of Enlightenment, period in Western intellectual history from the late 17th to late 18th century, centered in France but also encompassing (alphabetically by country or culture): ...

. Zhaozhou continued to practice under Nanquan until the latter's death. Subsequently, Zhaozhou began to travel throughout China, visiting the prominent Chan masters of the time before finally, at the age of eighty, settling in Guānyīnyuàn (觀音院), a ruined temple in northern China.''Ibid.'' There, for the next 40 years, he taught a small group of monks. Zhaozhou is sometimes touted as the greatest Chan master of Tang dynasty China during a time when its hegemony was disintegrating as more and more regional military governors ('' jiédùshǐ'') began to assert their power. Zhaozhou's lineage died out quickly due to the many wars and frequent purges of Buddhism in China at the time, and cannot be documented beyond the year 1000. Many koans in both the '' Blue Cliff Record'' and ''

The Gateless Gate ''The Gateless Barrier'' (Mandarin: 無門關 ''Wúménguān''; Japanese: 無門関 ''Mumonkan''), sometimes translated as ''The Gateless Gate'', is a collection of 48 Chan (Zen) koans compiled in the early 13th century by the Chinese Zen master ...

'' concern Zhaozhou, with twelve cases in the former and five in the latter being attributed to him. He is, however, probably best known for the first koan in ''The Gateless Gate'': Bailin Temple in China, famous for his abbacy, was rebuilt after the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated go ...

and is nowadays again a prominent center of Chinese Buddhism.Caifang Zhu (2003), ''Buddhism in China Today: The Example of the Bai Lin Chan Monastery''
/ref>

References

Sources

* Dumoulin, Heinrich. ''Zen Buddhism: A History. Volume 1: India and China''. Tr. Heisig, James W. and Knitter, Paul. Bloomington, Indiana:

World Wisdom World Wisdom is an independent American publishing company established in 1980 in Bloomington, Indiana. World Wisdom publishes religious and philosophical texts, including the work of authors such as Frithjof Schuon, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Titus Bur ...

, 2005. *Green, James; ed. and tr. ''The Recorded Sayings of Zen Master Joshu''. Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1998. . *Hoffmann, Yoel, ed. and tr., ''Radical Zen: The Sayings of Joshu''. Bantam press, 1978.

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Congshen, Zhaozhou 778 births 897 deaths Chan Buddhist monks Tang dynasty Buddhist monks Chinese centenarians Chinese Zen Buddhists Men centenarians