Yōgi school (Chin., Yang-ch’i-tsung or Yang ch’i-p’ai; Jap. Yōgi-shu or Yōgi-ha [Chin., p’ai and Jap. ha, “wing”]); a school of Ch’an (Zen) originating with the Chinese Ch’an master Yang-ch’i Fang-hui (Jap., Yōgi Hōe). It is one of the “seven schools” (goke-shichishū) of Ch’an (Zen) in China and is the more important of the two lineages into which the Rinzai school split after Shih-shuang Ch’u-yuan (Jap., Sekisō Soen). As a traditional lineage of Rinzai Zen, it is also called the Rinzai-Yōgi lineage.
The Yogi school produced important Ch’an masters like Wu-men Hui-k’ai (Jap., Mumon Ekai), the compiler of the wu-men-kuan, and his dharma successor (Kakushin), who brought the Ch’an of the Rinzai-Yōgi lineage to Japan, where as Zen it still flourishes today.
As Ch’an gradually declined in China after the end of the Sung period, the Rinzai-Yōgi school became the catchment basin for all the other Ch’an schools, which increasingly lost importance and finally vanished. After becoming mixed with the Pure Land school of Buddhism, in the Ming period Ch’an lost its distinctive character and ceased to exist as an authentic lineage of transmission of the buddha-dharma “from heart-mind to heart-mind” (ishin-denshin).
Source: The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion: Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Zen. Shambhala Publications, Inc.
Books on Yōgi school
External links: Goke-shichishū / Rinzai school / Yōgi school / Wu-men Hui-k’ai (Jap., Mumon Ekai) / wu-men-kuan / dharma / Buddhism / buddha-dharma / ishin-denshin