Linji Yixuan c. 810 – 866

Linji Yixuan was a Chinese Chan Buddhist master of the late Tang dynasty and the founder of the Linji school, the dominant Chan and later Zen lineage in China, Korea, and Japan. After training under Huangbo Xiyun, he established his teaching seat at the Linji monastery in Hebei, from which the school takes its name. His sayings, gathered after his death by his disciples in the Record of Linji, are celebrated for their fierce, paradoxical style and for the famous shouting and beating with which he addressed students who clung to concepts. The Japanese branch of his school was founded by Eisai, and the Linji-Rinzai tradition shaped East Asian Buddhism for over a thousand years.