The phrase vedānāṃ vāk ekayānam translates approximately to "the one destination of the Vedas is the spirit of the word".
[citation needed] This problem was solved by Chinese Buddhist teachers by taking up one or more of the Ekayana Sutras as central to the understanding of the diversity of Buddhism.
[citation needed] Chan Buddhism affected this synthesis in a unique way by focusing on the practice of meditation as taught in the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra as the core method of personally realizing the Ekayana teachings while at the same time acknowledging the transcendental and devotional aspects represented by the Avatamsaka Sutra and the Lotus Sutra, respectively.
[citation needed] The Indian Buddhist monk Bodhidharma (c. 5th to 6th century), who is considered the founder of Chan Buddhism, was said to have brought the "Ekayāna school of Southern India" to China and passed it down along with the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra to his primary disciple, Dazu Huike (487-593), known as the Second Founding Ancestor of the Chan lineage.
In his treatise, The Original Person Debate (Chinese: 原人論), he explicitly identifies the Ekayāna teachings as the most profound type of spiritual realization and equates it with the direct realization of one's own nature: Buddha's teaching itself goes from shallow to profound.