526

526 . The first Chan (Zen) patriarch, Bodhidharma, arrives in the southern Chinese port city of Canton (Guanzhou) and proceeds north to meet Emperor Wu (502–549) of the Liang dynasty (502–557). The emperor does not receive the iconoclastic monk warmly.

Bodhidharma eventually moves on to the Shao Lin Temple in northern China and meditates in a cave there for nine years. He dies at the age of 160, after passing the secret teachings to his disciple, Hui Ke.

The tradition later called Chan Buddhism developed into a major movement highly critical of other schools of the time. The emphasis of this school was clearly on direct enlightenment. It later spread widely into Japan, Korea, and Vietnam.