Mind & Self-Cultivation

Chinese-style wisdom of sudden awakening: not clinging to words, pointing straight at the mind itself.

Buddhism entered China at the turn of the Common Era and, in collision with Confucianism and Daoism, produced Chan (Zen) — the most thoroughly Chinese form of Buddhism. When Chinese speak of yuanfen (fated affinity), fangxia (letting go) or pingchangxin (an ordinary mind), they are speaking Buddhism's everyday legacy.

A major sinicized branch of Buddhism, shaping literati aesthetics and the philosophy of life.

The only sutra of Chinese origin: see the nature and know the mind — anyone may awaken by themselves.

The recorded teaching of Huineng, the Sixth Patriarch — "the Buddha-dharma is in the world; awakening is not apart from the world."

Investigate things to exhaust their principle; keep principle and put away desire — building the inner order of the scholar-official.

Fusing Confucianism, Buddhism and Daoism, it shaped the spiritual world of the literati after the Song and Ming.

Knowledge and action are one; extend the innate knowing — awakening the power of initiative and the heart itself.

Founded at Wang Yangming’s Longchang awakening; carried to Japan it lit the spirit of the Meiji reformers.