Southern school (Chin., Nan-tsung-ch’an; Jap., Nanshū-zen); the school of Ch’an (Zen) that derives from , Hui-neng, the sixth patri arch of Ch’an, and that produced all the impor tant masters and lineages of transmission of Ch’an (Zen) (also , goke-shichishū and the Ch’an/Zen Lineage Chart). The term Southern school is used in counterdistinction to the school deriving from , Shen-hsiu, the representatives of which lived in northern China and which is thus called the Northern school. While the latter was still strongly influenced by traditional Indi an Meditation Buddhism (Dhyāna Buddhism), which had shaped the Ch’an of the patriarchs prior to Hui-neng, the Ch’an of the Southern school represented an unorthodox approach to realization and transmission of the , buddha-dharma, which was strongly marked by indigenous Chinese Taoism and the Chinese folk character. While the Northern school placed great value on the study and intellectual pene tration of the scriptures of Buddhism, especially the , Lankāvatāra-sūtra, and held the view that enlightenment is reached “gradually” through slow progress on the path of meditative training (zengo), the Southern school stresses the “suddeness” of the enlightenment experience (tongo) and the primacy of direct insight into the true nature of existence (kenshō) over occupation with conceptual affirmations about this.
In many kōans handed down in the Southern school, we learn of adherents of the Northern school, who armed with their erudition in the scriptures, sought out masters of the Southern school in order to expose their ignorance. However, the adepts of the Southern school made clear with a single question or comment that the erudition of the northerners was impotent to grasp the profound sense of the scriptures and rather hindered the experience of enlightenment than furthered it.
While the Southern school flourished in the T’ang and Sung periods and produced literally hundreds of profoundly enlightened masters, the Northern school declined in a few generations and finally died out altogether. (Also , Hui-neng, , Shen-hsiu.) The Ch’an of the Southern school is also called “Patriarch Ch’an” (Chin., Tsu-shih ch’an; Jap., Soshi-zen).
Source: The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion: Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Zen. Shambhala Publications, Inc.
Books on Southern school of Zen
External links: Hui-neng / goke-shichishū / Shen-hsiu / Northern school / Buddhism / Dhyāna Buddhism / buddha-dharma / Taoism / Lankāvatāra-sūtra / zengo / tongo / kenshō / kōans