Zen Zen Buddhism is a branch of Mahayana Buddhism, and, as such, its  teachings are deeply rooted in those of the Buddha. It draws primarily  on Mahāyāna sutras composed in India and China, particularly the  Heart Sutra; the Diamond Sutra; the Lankavatara Sutra; the  Samantamukha Parivarta, a chapter of the Lotus Sutra; and the  Platform Sutra of Huineng. The body of Zen doctrine also includes the  recorded teachings of masters in the various Zen traditions. Traditionally, Zen traces its roots back to Indian Buddhism; it takes its  name from the Sanskrit term, dhyāna, which means meditative  concentration (zen is short for the rarely-used form zenna). According to  traditional accounts, Chinese Zen was established in approximately 500  CE by an Indian monk named Bodhidharma. Bodhidharma is said to  have been the twenty-eighth patriarch of Zen and the last Indian  successor in a line begun by the Buddha's disciple Mahakaśyapa. His  school was also known as the Buddha Heart School. An early Zen text, the Jingde Record of the Transmission of the Lamp,  describes Bodhidharma travelling by sea, circa 520, to the territory of the  Liang Dynasty in southern China. There, in a famous exchange with  Emperor Wu, he explained that good deeds done with selfish intention  were useless for gaining enlightenment. This argument having met with  imperial disapproval, Bodhidharma travelled north to Shaolin Temple  near the Song Mountains, where he established himself as a teacher.  Martial arts legend also states that kung fu was also taught by  Bodhidharma at Shaolin. Shortly before his death, Bodhidharma appointed his disciple Huike to  succeed him, making Huike the first Chinese patriarch and the second  patriarch of Zen in China. The transmission then passed to the second,  third, and fourth patriarchs, of whom little is known beyond their names.  The sixth and last patriarch, Huineng (638-713), was one of the giants of  Zen history, and all surviving schools regard him as their ancestor.  However, the dramatic story of Huineng's life tells that there was a  controversy over his claim to the title of patriarch: after being chosen by  the Hongren, the fifth patriarch, he had to flee by night to Nanhua  Temple in the south to avoid the wrath of Hongren's jealous senior  disciples. In the middle of the 8th century, monks claiming to be the  successors to Huineng, calling themselves the Southern school, cast  themselves in opposition to those claiming to succeed Hongren's  student Shenxiu. It was at this point—the debates between these rival  factions—that Zen enters the realm of fully documented history. The  Southern school eventually became predominant and their rivals died  out. In the following centuries, Zen grew to become the largest sect in  Chinese Buddhism. The teachers claiming Huineng's posterity began to  branch off into numerous different schools, each with their own special  emphasis, but all of which kept the same basic focus on meditational  practice, personal instruction and personal experience. During the late  Tang and the Song periods, the tradition truly flowered, as a wide  number of eminent teachers, such as Mazu (WG: Ma-tsu), Baizhang  (Pai-chang; Japanese: Hyakujo), Huangbo (Huang-po; Japanese:  Obaku), Linji (Lin-chi; Japanese: Rinzai), and Yunmen (Japanese:  Ummon) developed specialized teaching methods, which would  variously become characteristic of the five houses of mature Chinese  Zen. The traditional five houses were Caodong, Linji, Guiyang, Fayan,  and Yunmen. This list does not include earlier schools such as the  Hongzhou of Mazu. Over the course of Song Dynasty (960-1279) the Guiyang, Fayan, and  Yunmen schools were gradually absorbed into the Linji. During the same  period, the various developments of Zen teaching methods crystallized  into a technique that was unique to Zen Buddhism: koan practice  (described below). According to Miura and Sasaki, "it was during the  lifetime of Yüan-wu's successor, Ta-hui Tsung-kao (Daie Sōkō, 1089-1163) that Koan Zen entered its determinative stage."  Koan practice was prevalent in the Linji school, to which Yuanwu and  Ta-hui (pinyin: Dahui) belonged, but it was also employed on a more  limited basis by the Caodong school. The teaching styles and words of  the classical masters were collected in such important Zen texts as the  Blue Cliff Record (1125) of Yuanwu and The Gateless Gate (1228) of  Wumen, recording classic koan cases which would be studied by later  generations of students down to the present. Zen, which had developed into a distinctively Chinese school of  Buddhism, became an international phenomenon early in its history. This  first occurred in Vietnam, according to the traditional accounts of that  country. These traditions state that, in 580, an Indian monk named  Vinitaruci (Vietnamese: Tì-ni-đa-lưu-chi) travelled to Vietnam after  completing his studies with Sengcan, the third patriarch of Chinese Zen.  This, then, would be the first appearance of Vietnamese Zen, or Thien  (thiền) Buddhism. The sect that Vinitaruci and his lone Vietnamese  disciple founded would become known as the oldest branch of Thien.  After a period of obscurity, the Vinitaruci School became one of the  most influential Buddhist groups in Vietnam by the 10th century,  particularly so under the patriarch Vạn-Hạnh (died 1018). Other early  Vietnamese Zen schools included the Vo Ngon Thong (Vô Ngôn Thông),  which was associated with the teaching of Mazu, and the Thao Duong  (Thảo Đường), which incorporated nianfo chanting techniques; both  were founded by Chinese monks. All three of the early schools appear to  have largely disintegrated during the Mongol invasions of the 13th  century. A new school was founded by one of Vietnam's religious kings;  this was the Truc Lam (Trúc Lâm) school, which evinced a deep  influence from Confucian and Taoist philosophy. Nevertheless, Truc Lam's  prestige waned over the following centuries as Confucianism became  dominant in the royal court. In the 17th century, a group of Chinese  monks led by Nguyen Thieu (Nguyên Thiều) established a vigorous new  school, the Lam Te (Lâm Tế), which is the Vietnamese pronunciation of  Linji. A more domesticated offshoot of Lam Te, the Lieu Quan (Liễu  Quán) school, was founded in the 18th century and has since been the  predominant branch of Vietnamese Zen. The Zen school began to appear in Korea in the 9th century. During his  lifetime, Mazu had begun to attract students from Korea; by tradition,  the first Korean to study Zen was named Peomnang. Mazu's successors  had numerous Korean students, some of whom returned to Korea and  established the Nine Mountain Schools. This was the beginning of Korean  Zen, which is called Seon. Among the most notable Seon masters were  Jinul (1158 – 1210), who established a reform movement and introduced  koan practice to Korea, and Taego Bou (1301 - 1382), who studied in  China with Linji teacher and returned to unite the Nine Mountain  Schools. In modern Korea, by far the largest Buddhist denomination is  the Jogye Order, which is essentially a Zen sect; the name Jogye is the  Korean equivalent of Caoxi, another name for Huineng. Although the Japanese had known of Zen for centuries, it was not  introduced as a separate school until the 12th century, when Myōan  Eisai travelled to China and returned to establish a Linji lineage, which is  known in Japan as Rinzai. Decades later, Nanpo Jomyo also studied Linji  teachings in China before founding the Japanese Otokan lineage, the  most influential branch of Rinzai. In 1215, Dogen, a younger  contemporary of Eisai's, journeyed to China himself, where he became a  disciple of the Caodong master Tiantong Rujing. After his return, Dogen  established the Soto school, the Japanese branch of Caodong. The Zen schools also continued to develop in China up to the present.  Chinese Zen is known as Chan, which is the name for Zen in modern  Standard Mandarin Chinese.