Southern school of Zen
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Southern school of Zen
南宗禅 ( Jpn NanshuZen)
The school derived from Huineng (638-713), the sixth patriarch of Chinese Zen (Ch'an). His teacher was Hung-jen, the fifth patriarch. Hung-jen had another able disciple named Shen-hsiu, who spread Zen in northern China and started what came to be called the Northern school of Zen. While the Northern school soon declined, the Southern school prospered and became the mainstream of Chinese Zen. It is divided into five branches—Ts'ao-tung ( Jpn Soto), Yün-men (Ummon), Fa-yen (Hogen), Kuei-yang (Igyo), and Lin-chi (Rinzai). The Lin-chi school eventually produced two more schools, the Huang-lung (Oryu) and Yang-ch'i (Yogi).
