About Furong Daokai

Furong Daokai (1043-1118), was a Zen Buddhist monk during the Song Dynasty. He was born in a city known at the time as Yizhou, which is the present-day city of Linyi in the southern part of Shandong Province. Along with his fellow student Dahong Baoen, Daokai is considered to have returned the Caodong/Sōtō Zen lineage to prominence after its near extinction a generation earlier. He was so prominent, in fact, that an extensive biography appeared in the Xudeng lu, a compendium of biographies of prominent monks, in 1101, before he had even reached the height of his career, which was quite unusual for such biographies. The earliest full account of his life appears in Juefan Huihong's biographical compilation of 1119, the Chanlin sengbao zhuan. This source speaks very highly of Daokai, despite the fact that its author was a member of the competing Rinzai school. According to his funerary inscription of 1127, he ordained 93 students during his life, and many of these went on to become prominent teachers themselves.
Bodhidharma with Dazu Huike. Painting by Sesshū Tōyō, 15th century.

Chan Buddhist monks – The spirit of the Bodhidharma

Bodhidharma was a semi-legendary Buddhist monk who lived during the 5th or 6th century. He is traditionally credited as the transmitter of Buddhism to China, and regarded as its first Chinese patriarch. According to Chinese legend, he also began the physical training of the monks of Shaolin Monastery that led to the creation of Shaolin kungfu. The Chan ( in Japanese) school of Chinese Buddhism began when, in the 7th century, a small religious community gathered .