Split in Northern and Southern School
Originally Shenxiu was considered to be the "Sixth Patriarch", carrying the mantle of Bodhidharma's Zen through the East Mountain School. After the death of Shenxiu, his student Heze Shenhui started a campaign to establish Huineng as the Sixth Ancestor. Eventually Shenhui's position won the day, and Huineng was recognized as the Sixth Patriarch.
The successful promulgation of Shenhui's views led to Shenxiu's branch being widely referred to by others as the "Northern School." This nomenclature has continued in western scholarship, which for the most part has largely viewed Chinese Zen through the lens of southern Chan.
Read more about this topic: East Mountain Teaching
Famous quotes containing the words split in, split, northern, southern and/or school:
“Society cannot share a common communication system so long as it is split into warring factions.”
—Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956)
“Hunger makes you restless. You dream about food—not just any food, but perfect food, the best food, magical meals, famous and awe-inspiring, the one piece of meat, the exact taste of buttery corn, tomatoes so ripe they split and sweeten the air, beans so crisp they snap between the teeth, gravy like mother’s milk singing to your bloodstream.”
—Dorothy Allison (b. 1953)
“... in Northern Ireland, if you don’t have basic Christianity, rather than merely religion, all you get out of the experience of living is bitterness.”
—Bernadette Devlin (b. 1947)
“My mother bore me in the southern wild,
And I am black, but O! my soul is white;”
—William Blake (1757–1827)
“I go to school to youth to learn the future.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)