 Tradition identifies Zongmi as the fifth patriarch of Huayan. Zongmi spent his early years studying Confucian classics and Buddhism before training with the Chan (Zen) master Suizhou Daoyuan (750–820). Then, following a brief period of studying the Avatamsaka Sutra with Chengguan, Zongmi began an extensive period of writing. His efforts focused, at first, on gathering commentaries on various sutras and writing his own. In time, he focused on compiling Chan texts to create a canon for the Chan tradition. These efforts resulted in his achieving status as a patriarch for the Heze school of Chan. Although Zongmi’s Collected Writings on the Source of Chan (Ch. Chanyuan zhuquanji) is no longer extant, its preface, Prolegomena to the Collected Writings on the Source of Chan (Ch. Chanyuan zhuquanji duxu; T48.2015, trans. Broughton 2004), survives. 