page_title: Chan Buddhism
section_title: Hung-chou School
hierarchical_section_title: Chan Buddhism / History / Classical or Middle Chan – Tang dynasty (c. 750–1000) / Hung-chou School
caption_attribution_description: English: en:Rinzai Gigen, 18th century. Ink portrait of Rinzai (Linji), by 曾我蛇足 Soga Jasoku (fl. c. 1300) from the collection of Daitokuji, Yōtokuin. 大徳寺養徳院所蔵. See Hasegawa Tōhaku: 400th Memorial Retrospective, Tokyo Museum of Art, 2010, p. 270.
context_page_description: Chan, from Sanskrit dhyāna, is a Chinese school of Mahāyāna Buddhism. It developed in China from the 6th century CE onwards, becoming dominant during the Tang and Song dynasties. After the Yuan dynasty, Chan more or less fused with Pure Land Buddhism.
  Chan is the originating tradition of Zen Buddhism. 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.
context_section_description: The most important of these schools is the Hongzhou school (洪州宗) of Mazu, to which also belong Shitou, Baizhang Huaihai, Huangbo and Linji (Rinzai). Linji is also regarded as the founder of one of the Five Houses.
  This school developed "shock techniques such as shouting, beating, and using irrational retorts to startle their students into realization". Some of these are common today, while others are found mostly in anecdotes. It is common in many Chan traditions today for Chan teachers to have a stick with them during formal ceremonies which is a symbol of authority and which can be also used to strike on the table during a talk.
  These shock techniques became part of the traditional and still popular image of Chan masters displaying irrational and strange behaviour to aid their students. Part of this image was due to later misinterpretations and translation errors, such as the loud belly shout known as katsu. "Katsu" means "to shout", which has traditionally been translated as "yelled 'katsu'" – which should mean "yelled a yell".
  A well-known story depicts Mazu practicing dhyana, but being rebuked by his teacher Nanyue Huairang, comparing seated meditation with polishing a tile. According to Faure, the criticism is not about dhyana as such, but "the idea of "becoming a Buddha" by means of any practice, lowered to the standing of a "means" to achieve an "end"". The criticism of seated dhyana reflects a change in the role and position of monks in Tang society, who "undertook only pious works, reciting sacred texts and remaining seated in dhyana". Nevertheless, seated dhyana remained an important part of the Chan tradition, also due to the influence of Guifeng Zongmi, who tried to balance dhyana and insight.
  The Hung-chou school has been criticised for its radical subitism. Guifeng Zongmi (圭峰 宗密) (780–841), an influential teacher-scholar and patriarch of both the Chan and the Huayan school, claimed that the Hongzhou school teaching led to a radical nondualism that denies the need for spiritual cultivation and moral discipline. While Zongmi acknowledged that the essence of Buddha-nature and its functioning in the day-to-day reality are but difference aspects of the same reality, he insisted that there is a difference.
caption: Rinzai
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