Chinese school of Mahāyāna Buddhism
Chan (; abbr. of ), from Sanskrit "dhyāna" (meaning "meditation" or "meditative state"), is a Chinese school of Mahāyāna Buddhism. It developed in China from the 6th century CE onwards, becoming especially popular during the Tang and Song dynasties.
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.
History.
The historical records required for a complete, accurate account of early Chan history no longer exist.
Periodisation.
The history of Chan in China can be divided into several periods. Zen, as we know it today, is the result of a long history, with many changes and contingent factors. Each period had different types of Zen, some of which remained influential, while others vanished.
Andy Ferguson distinguishes three periods from the 5th century into the 13th century:
Although John R. McRae has reservations about the division of Chan history in phases or periods, he nevertheless distinguishes four phases in the history of Chan:
Neither Ferguson nor McRae gives a periodisation for Chinese Chan following the Song-dynasty, though McRae mentions 
[5.] "at least a postclassical phase or perhaps multiple phases".
Introduction of Buddhism in China (c. 200–500).
Sinification of Buddhism and Taoist influences.
When Buddhism came to China, it was adapted to the Chinese culture and understanding. Theories about the influence of other schools in the evolution of Chan vary widely and are heavily reliant upon speculative correlation rather than on written records or histories. Numerous scholars have argued that Chan developed from the interaction between Mahāyāna Buddhism and Taoism. 
Buddhist meditation was practiced in China centuries before the rise of Chan, by people such as An Shigao (c. 148–180 CE) and his school, who translated various Dhyāna sutras (Chán-jing, 禪経, "meditation treatises"), which were influential early meditation texts mostly based on the Yogacara meditation teachings of the Sarvāstivāda school of Kashmir circa 1st-4th centuries CE. The five main types of meditation in the Dhyana sutras are anapanasati (mindfulness of breathing); paṭikūlamanasikāra meditation, mindfulness of the impurities of the body; loving-kindness maitrī meditation; the contemplation on the twelve links of pratītyasamutpāda; and the contemplation on the Buddha's thirty-two Characteristics. Other important translators of meditation texts were Kumārajīva (334–413 CE), who translated "The Sutra on the Concentration of Sitting Meditation", amongst many other texts; and Buddhabhadra. These Chinese translations of mostly Indian Sarvāstivāda Yogacara meditation manuals were the basis for the meditation techniques of Chinese Chan.
Buddhism was exposed to Confucian, Taoist and local Folk religious influences when it came to China. Goddard quotes D.T. Suzuki, calling Chan a "natural evolution of Buddhism under Taoist conditions". Buddhism was first identified to be "a barbarian variant of Taoism", and Taoist terminology was used to express Buddhist doctrines in the oldest translations of Buddhist texts, a practice termed "ko-i", "matching the concepts".
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;Judging from the reception by the Han of the Hinayana works and from the early commentaries, it appears that Buddhism was being perceived and digested through the medium of religious Daoism (Taoism). Buddha was seen as a foreign immortal who had achieved some form of Daoist nondeath. The Buddhists' mindfulness of the breath was regarded as an extension of Daoist breathing exercises.
The first Buddhist converts in China were Taoists. They developed high esteem for the newly introduced Buddhist meditational techniques, and blended them with Taoist meditation. Representatives of early Chinese Buddhism like Sengzhao and Tao Sheng were deeply influenced by the Taoist keystone works of Laozi and Zhuangzi. Against this background, especially the Taoist concept of "naturalness" was inherited by the early Chan disciples: they equated – to some extent – the ineffable Tao and Buddha-nature, and thus, rather than feeling bound to the abstract "wisdom of the sūtras", emphasized Buddha-nature to be found in "everyday" human life, just as the Tao.
Chinese Buddhism absorbed Neo-Daoist concepts as well. Concepts such as "T'i-yung" (體用 Essence and Function) and "Li-shih" (理事 Noumenon and Phenomenon, or Principle and Practice) first appeared in Hua-yen Buddhism, which consequently influenced Chan deeply. On the other hand, Taoists at first misunderstood sunyata to be akin to the Taoist non-being.
The emerging Chinese Buddhism nevertheless had to compete with Taoism and Confucianism:
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;Because Buddhism was a foreign influence, however, and everything "barbarian" was suspect, certain Chinese critics were jolted out of complacency by the spread of the dharma [...] In the first four centuries of the Christian Era, this barbarian influence was infiltrating China just when it was least politically stable and more vulnerable to sedition. As the philosophy and practice infiltrated society, many traditionalists banded together to stop the foreign influence, not so much out of intolerance (an attitude flatly rejected by both Taoism and Confucianism), but because they felt that the Chinese worldview was being turned upside down.One point of confusion for this new emerging Chinese Buddhism was the two truths doctrine. Chinese thinking took this to refer to two "ontological truths": reality exists on two levels, a relative level and an absolute level. Taoists at first misunderstood sunyata to be akin to the Taoist non-being. In Indian Madhyamaka philosophy the two truths are two "epistemological truths": two different ways to look at reality. Based on their understanding of the "Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra" the Chinese supposed that the teaching of Buddha-nature was, as stated by that sutra, the final Buddhist teaching, and that there is an essential truth above sunyata and the two truths.
Divisions of training.
When Buddhism came to China, there were three divisions of training:
It was in this context that Buddhism entered into Chinese culture. Three types of teachers with expertise in each training practice developed:
Monasteries and practice centers were created that tended to focus on either the Vinaya and training of monks or the teachings focused on one scripture or a small group of texts. Dhyāna ("Chan") masters tended to practice in solitary hermitages, or to be associated with Vinaya training monasteries or the dharma teaching centers. The later naming of the Zen school has its origins in this view of the threefold division of training.
McRae goes so far as to say:
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;... one important feature must not be overlooked: Chan was not nearly as separate from these other types of Buddhist activities as one might think [...] [T]he monasteries of which Chan monks became abbots were comprehensive institutions, "public monasteries" that supported various types of Buddhist activities other than Chan-style meditation. The reader should bear this point in mind: In contrast to the independent denominations of Soto and Rinzai that emerged (largely by government fiat) in seventeenth-century Japan, "there was never any such thing as an institutionally separate Chan "school" at any time in Chinese Buddhist history" (emphasis McRae).
Legendary or Proto-Chan (c. 500–600).
Mahākāśyapa and the Flower Sermon.
The Chan tradition ascribes the origins of Chan in India to the Flower Sermon, the earliest source for which comes from the 14th century. It is said that Gautama Buddha gathered his disciples one day for a Dharma talk. When they gathered together, the Buddha was completely silent and some speculated that perhaps the Buddha was tired or ill. The Buddha silently held up and twirled a flower and his eyes twinkled; several of his disciples tried to interpret what this meant, though none of them were correct. One of the Buddha's disciples, Mahākāśyapa, gazed at the flower and smiled. The Buddha then acknowledged Mahākāśyapa's insight by saying the following:
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;I possess the true Dharma eye, the marvelous mind of Nirvāṇa, the true form of the formless, the subtle Dharma gate that does not rest on words or letters but is a special transmission outside of the scriptures. This I entrust to Mahākāśyapa.
First six patriarchs (c. 500 – early 8th century).
Traditionally the origin of Chan in China is credited to Bodhidharma, an Iranian-language speaking Central Asian monk or an Indian monk. The story of his life, and of the Six Patriarchs, was constructed during the Tang dynasty to lend credibility to the growing Chan-school. Only scarce historical information is available about him, but his hagiography developed when the Chan tradition grew stronger and gained prominence in the early 8th century. By this time a lineage of the six ancestral founders of Chan in China was developed.
The actual origins of Chan may lie in ascetic practitioners of Buddhism, who found refuge in forests and mountains. Huike, "a dhuta (extreme ascetic) who schooled others" and used the Srimala Sutra, one of the Tathāgatagarbha sūtras, figures in the stories about Bodhidharma. Huike is regarded as the second Chan patriarch, appointed by Bodhidharma to succeed him. One of Huike's students, Sengcan, to whom is ascribed the Xinxin Ming, is regarded as the third patriarch.
By the late 8th century, under the influence of Huineng's student Shenhui, the traditional list of patriarchs of the Chan lineage had been established:
In later writings, this lineage was extended to include 28 Indian patriarchs. In the "Song of Enlightenment" (證道歌 "Zhèngdào gē") of Yongjia Xuanjue (永嘉玄覺, 665–713), one of the chief disciples of Huìnéng, it is written that Bodhidharma was the 28th patriarch in a line of descent from Mahākāśyapa, a disciple of Śākyamuni Buddha, and the first patriarch of Chan Buddhism.
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ; ;poem ;
Mahākāśyapa was the first, leading the line of transmission;
Twenty-eight Fathers followed him in the West;
The Lamp was then brought over the sea to this country;
And Bodhidharma became the First Father here:
His mantle, as we all know, passed over six Fathers,
And by them many minds came to see the Light. ;/poem ;
Lankavatara Sutra.
In its beginnings in China, Chan primarily referred to the Mahāyāna sūtras and especially to the "Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra". As a result, early masters of the Chan tradition were referred to as "Laṅkāvatāra masters". As the "Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra" teaches the doctrine of the Ekayāna "One Vehicle", the early Chan school was sometimes referred to as the "One Vehicle School". In other early texts, the school that would later become known as Chan is sometimes even referred to as simply the "Laṅkāvatāra school" (Ch. 楞伽宗, "Léngqié Zōng"). Accounts recording the history of this early period are to be found in the "Records of the Laṅkāvatāra Masters" (").
Bodhidharma.
Bodhidharma is recorded as having come into China during the time of Southern and Northern Dynasties to teach a "special transmission outside scriptures" which "did not stand upon words". Throughout Buddhist art, Bodhidharma is depicted as a rather ill-tempered, profusely bearded and wide-eyed barbarian. He is referred to as "The Blue-Eyed Barbarian" () in Chinese Chan texts. Only scarce historical information is available about him but his hagiography developed when the Chan tradition grew stronger and gained prominence in the early 8th century. By this time a lineage of the six ancestral founders of Chan in China was developed.
Little contemporary biographical information on Bodhidharma is extant, and subsequent accounts became layered with legend. There are three principal sources for Bodhidharma's biography: "The Record of the Buddhist Monasteries of Luoyang" by Yáng Xuànzhī's (楊衒之, 547), Tan Lin's preface to the "Long Scroll of the Treatise on the Two Entrances and Four Practices" (6th century CE), and Dayi Daoxin's "Further Biographies of Eminent Monks" (7th century CE).
These sources vary in their account of Bodhidharma being either "from Persia" (547 CE), "a Brahman monk from South India" (645 CE), "the third son of a Brahman king of South India" (c. 715 CE). Some traditions specifically describe Bodhidharma to be the third son of a Pallava king from Kanchipuram.
The "Long Scroll of the Treatise on the Two Entrances and Four Practices" written by Tan Lin (曇林; 506–574), contains teachings that are attributed to Bodhidharma. The text is known from the Dunhuang manuscripts. The two entrances to enlightenment are the entrance of principle and the entrance of practice:
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;The entrance of practice includes the following four increments:
This text was used and studied by Huike and his students. The True Nature refers to the Buddha-nature.
Huike.
Bodhidharma settled in Northern Wei China. Shortly before his death, Bodhidharma appointed his disciple Dazu Huike to succeed him, making Huike the first Chinese-born ancestral founder and the second ancestral founder of Chan in China. Bodhidharma is said to have passed three items to Huike as