East Mountain Teaching - History

History

The East Mountain School was established by Daoxin (道信 580–651)at East Mountain Temple on Potou (Broken Head) Mountain, which was later renamed Shuangfeng (Twin Peaks). Daoxin taught there for 30 years. He established the first monastic home for "Bodhidharma's Zen".

The tradition holds that Hongren (弘忍 601–674) left home at an early age (between seven and fourteen) and lived at East Mountain Temple on Twin Peaks, where Daoxiin was the abbot.

Upon Daoxin's death . at the age of seventy-two, Hongren assumed the abbacy. He then moved East Mountain Temple approximately ten kilometers east to the flanks of Mt. Pingmu. Soon, Hongren's fame eclipsed that of his teacher.

Read more about this topic:  East Mountain Teaching

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    “What is most interesting and valuable in it, however, is not the materials for the history of Pontiac, or Braddock, or the Northwest, which it furnishes; not the annals of the country, but the natural facts, or perennials, which are ever without date. When out of history the truth shall be extracted, it will have shed its dates like withered leaves.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “The principal office of history I take to be this: to prevent virtuous actions from being forgotten, and that evil words and deeds should fear an infamous reputation with posterity.”
    —Tacitus (c. 55–c. 120)

    “We have need of history in its entirety, not to fall back into it, but to see if we can escape from it.”
    —José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)