Guiyang zong

Guiyang zong [alt. Weiyang zong] (J. Igyōshū; K. Wiang chong 潙仰宗). In Chinese, the “Guiyang school,” one of the “five houses of Chan" that developed during the late-Tang dynasty.^[1] The Guiyang school is named after its cofounders, Guishan Lingyou (771–853) and Yangshan Huiji (807–883).^[1]

The Princeton Dictionary states:

The Guiyang school is recognized for its distinctive pedagogical style, which privileged nonverbal expressions of enlightenment over verbal descriptions. For example, once Lingyou’s teacher, Huaihai, placed a water jug before the assembly of monks and asked them, “If you don’t call this a water jug, what can you call it?” Lingyou’s response was to kick over the jug and walk away. This combination of action and silence was said to be the way in which the Guiyang school would express the relationship between essence (ti) and function (yong).^[1]

The Digital Dictionary of Buddhism states:

The Wei-Yang lineage is counted as one of the 'five houses' 五家 and seven schools 七宗 of Chinese Chan, a category that includes together a set of Chan teacher-student transmissions that flourished in an overlapping chronological fashion from the late Tang to the Song dynasty. The Weiyang 'house,' which owes its name to Weishan Lingyu 潙山靈裕 (771–835) and Yangshan Huiji 仰山慧寂 (840–916), was centered geographically in the Jingnan 荊南 and Nan-Tang 南唐 areas of southern China and was basically defunct by the beginning of the Song dynasty. The name of this school is derived from the names of the mountains where the above two masters stayed. In the Song dynasty, a hundred and fifty years after its foundation, this lineage merged with the Linji 臨濟 tradition. [John McRae; source(s): JEBD, Ina-Z, Yokoi]^[2]