Encyclopedia of Buddhism

a Linji lineage, Rinzai and China’s Linji had diverged
over the centuries, so when the monks arrived in the
1650s, the Japanese objected to the O
baku (Chinese,
Huangbo) use of nianfo(Japanese, nenbutsu; recollec-
tion of the Buddha’s name) in Chan. Many Japanese
were, however, fascinated by the new import, and
O
baku long retained its Chinese style in food, lan-
guage, architecture, ritual, and dress. Abbots of Man-
pukuji, O
baku’s monastic headquarters, were always
to be Chinese, but the last Chinese abbot died in 1784,
and was succeeded by a Japanese abbot. O
baku took
over some monasteries in the Myo
shinji lineage, so
there was intense rivalry between them. O
baku di-
rected more attention to study of the su
tras and
discourse records (goroku), and away from decontex-
tualized ko
anas in the Hekigan roku(Chinese, Biyan
lu; Blue Cliff Record). They invented their own ko
an,
thinking the Japanese use of ko
ancourses that en-
couraged rote memorization a form of “lettered Zen”
of set poetic replies and textbook manuals.

In 1872 the government permitted monks to marry,
and so the majority of Zen priests after World War II
were married, resulting in the inheritance by sons of
small temples from their Zen priest fathers. To main-
tain the temple, they spend most of their time at fu-
neral services or chanting su
tras.

Vietnam (Thiên).Chan probably gained a minor fol- lowing among the ethnic Vietnamese elites beginning in the ninth century, although tradition asserts it ar- rived in 580 C.E. with Vin
taruci (d. 594), an Indian monk who allegedly studied under Sengcan (d. 606). Another tradition maintains that Chan arrived in 820 with Wuyan Tong (d. 826), a supposed pupil of Huai- hai. During the Ly ́dynasty (1009–1225), Confucian- ism came to dominate, so court elites, such as the monk Thông Bien (d. 1134), fabricated lineages back to China. The Mongol invasions inspired the Traˆn-
dynasty (1225–1407) emperor Nhân-Tông (r. 1279–
1293), who defeated the invaders, to become a monk
and found the short-lived Trúc Lâm lineage. The Ming
conquest (1413–1428) and Lê dynasty (1414–1788) im-
posed a Confucian anti-Buddhist policy, and so Chi-
nese Linji monks who fled the Manchu conquest in the
1660s, headed for the mid-coast of Vietnam, where the
Nguyê ̃n warlords held sway. This Linji (Vietnamese,
Lâm Tê), combined Chan and Pure Land practice. The
stronghold of Thieˆn Buddhism, as the Chan tradition became known, remained in the cities of central Viet- nam, and the san ̇gha was nominally Lâm Tê. Thieˆn had
a following only among the intellectual, urban elites,

and since the unification of Buddhism in 1963, Thieˆ`n

has been subsumed into a syncretic Buddhism.

Conclusion

Chan is the most Confucian form of Buddhism, and it

has been in constant rivalry with neo-Confucianism.

It is also elitist, given the strict requirements for prac-

tice and the requirements to read literary Chinese, even

though some popularizers, writing in the colloquial

vernacular, contributed to the development of national

languages. However, there was often a gap between

ideal and practice, for the tradition also had to meet

the needs of clients, who wanted easier practices, fu-

neral rites, and the transfer of merit. This was a con-

stant tension, as was the need for the confirmation of

enlightenment, which led to many genealogical dis-

putes and inventions.

See also:China; Confucianism and Buddhism; Japan;

Korea; Lineage; Poetry and Buddhism; Syncretic

Sects: Three Teachings; Vietnam; Zen, Popular Con-

ceptions of

Bibliography

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Bodiford, William M. So
to
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University of Hawaii Press, 1993.

Buswell, Robert E., Jr., trans. The Korean Approach to Zen: The

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Korean Way of Zen.Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press,

1991.

Buswell, Robert E., Jr. The Zen Monastic Experience: Buddhist

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Macmillan, 1988.

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tr. James W. Heisig and Paul Knitter. New York: Macmil-

lan, 1990.

Faure, Bernard. The Rhetoric of Immediacy: A Cultural Critique

of Chan/Zen Buddhism.Princeton, NJ: Princeton University

Press, 1991.

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