Yunmen zong

Yunmen zong ( J. Unmonshū; K. Unmun chong 雲門宗). One of the "five houses of Chan" during the Tang and Song dynasties.

The name, which translates as “Cloud Gate school”, refers to a mountain, located in Shaozhou (present-day Guangdong province), where its founder Yunmen Wenyan taught. Yunmen Wenyan was famous for his “one-word barriers” or “one-word checkpoints” (Yizi guan), in which he responded to his students’ questions by using only a single word.

The Digital Dictionary of Buddhism states:

[The Yunmen zong] flourished from the late Tang into the Northern Song and is thought to have played an important role in the creation of Chan 'recorded sayings' or 'discourse records' 語錄 literature. See the English translation of the recorded sayings text transmitted in Yunmen Wenyanʼs name by Urs App. App, Urs. 1994. Master Yunmen: From the Record of the Chan Teacher 'Gate of the Clouds'. New York, Tokyo, and London: Kodansha. The Fo Guang Dictionary also includes an extensive entry on this topic. [John McRae]

Sources

• Buswell, Robert E.; Lopez, Donald S. (2014), The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, Princeton University 
• 雲門宗, Digital Dictionary of Buddhism (to sign in, see DDB sign-in)

External links

• Guiyang school, Wikipedia