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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.
The principle teachers of the Chan, Zen and Seon traditions are commonly known in English translations as "Patriarchs". However, the more precise terminology would be "Ancestors" or "Founders" ( Chinese : 祖 ; pinyin : zǔ ) and "Ancestral Masters" or "Founding Masters" ( Chinese : 祖師 ), as the commonly used Chinese terms are gender neutral.
The Five Houses of Chán (also called the Five Houses of Zen) were the five major schools of Chan Buddhism that originated during Tang China. Although at the time they were not considered formal schools or sects of Buddhism, they are now regarded as important schools in the history of Chán Buddhism.
In Chan and Zen Buddhism, dharma transmission is a custom in which a person is established as a "successor in an unbroken lineage of teachers and disciples, a spiritual 'bloodline' theoretically traced back to the Buddha himself."
Most scholars now believe that the first schism was originally caused by differences in vinaya (monastic rule). [22]: 88–90 Later splits were also due to doctrinal differences and geographical separation. The first schism separated the community into two groups, the Sthavira (Elders) Nikaya and the Mahāsāṃghika (Great Community).
Zen Buddhism: A History. Volume 1 India and China. New York, N.Y.: Macmillan Publishing Company. ISBN 0-02-908230-7 (2 vol. set; paper) McRae, John R.(1983). The Northern School of Chinese Chan Buddhism. Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University. Faure, Bernard (1997). The Will to Orthodoxy: A Critical Genealogy of Northern Chan Buddhism. Translated ...
Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva sitting in meditation. In Zen Buddhism two main views on the way to enlightenment are discernible, namely sudden and gradual enlightenment.. Early Chán recognized the "transcendence of the body and mind", followed by "non-defilement [of] knowledge and perception", meaning sudden insight into the true nature followed by gradual purification of intentions.
The idea of a patriarchal lineage in Chan dates back to the epitaph for Fărú (法如 638–689), a disciple of the 5th patriarch, Daman Hongren (弘忍 601–674). In the Long Scroll of the Treatise on the Two Entrances and Four Practices and the Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks, Daoyu and Dazu Huike are the only explicitly identified disciples of Bodhidharma.