Zen lineage charts
In the Long Scroll of the Treatise on the Two Entrances and Four Practices and the Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks, Daoyu and Dazu Huike are the only explicitly identified disciples of Bodhidharma.
[6] It is a combined product of Indian and Chinese culture, which inherited elements "from the larger tradition of East Asian Mahayana Buddhism" such as the seven Buddhas of the past:[6] [T]he origins of this lineage-based transmission scheme are to be found in Indian Buddhism and the fourth- and fifth-century Buddhist meditation tradition of Kashmir.
The idea of a line of descent from Śākyamuni Buddha is the basis for the distinctive lineage tradition of the Chán school.
[web 1] The principle teachers of the Chan, Seon and Zen traditions are commonly known in the first English translations as Patriarchs; however, the current trend is to use the more precise terminology of "Ancestors" or "Founders" (祖) and "Ancestral Masters" or "Founding Masters" (祖師) as the original terms are gender neutral.
[11] According to tradition, the sixth and last ancestral founder, Huineng (惠能; 638–713), was one of the giants of Chan history, and all surviving schools regard him as their ancestor.
[17] Sayings to the effect that Shitou and Mazu Daoyi were the two great masters of their day date from decades after their respective deaths.
This connection between Huineng and Nanyue Huairang is doubtful, being the product of later rewritings of Chan history to place Mazu Daoyi in the traditional lineages.
[30] The Zutang ji (祖堂集 "Anthology of the Patriarchal Hall), compiled in 952, the first document which mentions Linji Yixuan, was written to support the Xuefeng Yicun lineage.
The Fayan school was the first faction to gain recognition at the Song court, due to the influence of the buddhist scholar-official Zanning (919-1001).
[web 3] According to Welter, the real founder of the Linji-school was Shoushan (or Baoying) Shengnian (首山省念) (926-993), a fourth generation dharma-heir of Linji.
The Tiansheng Guangdeng lu (天聖廣燈錄), "Tiansheng Era Expanded Lamp Record", compiled by the official Li Zunxu (李遵勗) (988-1038) confirms the status of Shoushan Shengnian, but also pictures Linji as a major Chan patriarch and heir to the Hongzhou school of Mazu Daoyi, displacing the prominence of the Fayan-lineage.
Sōtō was transmitted to Japan by Dogen, who travelled to China for Chan training in the 13th century CE.
[46] To make the history of Soto even more complicated, the Caodong-lineage that Dogen inherited through Rujing was passed on previously from the Caodong-master Dayang Jingxuan to Touzi Yiqing via the Rinzai-master Fushan Fayuan.
The Otokan lineage was founded by Nanpo Jōmyō 南浦紹明 (1235–1308), who received transmission in China from the monk Xutang Zhiyu 虚堂智愚 (Japanese Kido Chigu, 1185–1269) in 1265, who then returned to Japan in 1267.
It was during the late 1950s and the early 1960s that the number of Westerners, other than the descendants of Asian immigrants, pursuing a serious interest in Zen began to reach a significant level.
Shunryu Suzuki (鈴木 俊隆 Suzuki Shunryū, dharma name Shōgaku Shunryū 祥岳俊隆, often called Suzuki Roshi) (born May 18, 1904, Kanagawa Prefecture of Japan; died December 4, 1971, in San Francisco, CA, USA) was a Sōtō Zen monk and teacher who helped popularize Zen Buddhism in the United States, and is renowned for founding the first Buddhist monastery outside Asia (Tassajara Zen Mountain Center).
The Sanbõ Kyõdan incorporates Rinzai Kōan study as well as much of Soto tradition, a style Yasutani had learned from his teacher Harada Daiun Sogaku.
As founder of the Sanbo Kyodan, and teacher of Taizan Maezumi, Yasutani has been one of the most influential persons in bringing Zen practice to the west.
Although the membership of Sanbo Kyodan is small, 3,790 registered followers and 24 instructors in 1988,[53] "the Sanbõkyõdan has had an inordinate influence on Zen in the West".
