Chan Buddhism is a Chinese school of Mahāyāna Buddhism that centers on direct meditative insight into Buddha‑nature, rather than reliance on scripture, ritual, or elaborate philosophical systems. It is often characterized by the motto of a “special transmission outside the scriptures; not relying on words and letters; pointing directly to the human mind; seeing one’s nature and becoming Buddha.” In this vision, every moment of life—whether sitting in meditation or engaging in ordinary tasks—is treated as an opportunity to recognize the mind’s inherent purity. The emphasis falls on practice and realization, not on belief alone, and on an awakening that is intimately woven into everyday experience.

Historically, Chan traces its legendary origins to Bodhidharma, an Indian monk said to have arrived in China around the 5th–6th century, associated with intense meditative practice and direct realization. Over time, Indian Buddhist meditation methods were absorbed into Chinese culture and expressed through a distinctly Chinese lens, drawing on existing currents such as Daoist ideas of naturalness and spontaneity and Confucian concern for practical wisdom. Early Chan communities cultivated teachings on emptiness and Buddha‑nature, and framed authority in terms of a mind‑to‑mind transmission from master to disciple, symbolically linking the lineage back to the historical Buddha. Rather than emerging all at once, the tradition coalesced gradually through the activity of various teachers and communities.

During the Tang dynasty, Chan came into its own as a recognizable school, especially through the figure of Huineng, later honored as the Sixth Patriarch. His teaching, preserved in the Platform Sūtra, gave classic expression to the doctrine of sudden enlightenment: the view that one’s original nature is already pure, and that awakening is a direct, immediate seeing rather than a slow accumulation of merit. This perspective was contrasted with more gradualist approaches, and the tension between “sudden” and “gradual” became a defining theme in the self‑understanding of Chan. The period also saw the emergence of several lineages or “houses,” such as Linji and Caodong, each developing distinctive teaching styles and meditative emphases while sharing a common core of direct insight and disciplined practice.

By the Song dynasty, Chan had become a dominant force in Chinese Buddhism, and its methods grew more refined and varied. The Linji lineage became known for vigorous encounter dialogues and the use of gong’an (koans), paradoxical cases designed to cut through conceptual thinking and provoke direct realization. The Caodong lineage emphasized forms of seated meditation that came to be described as “silent illumination,” a quiet, open awareness in which the mind rests in its own clarity. Over the centuries, Chan also entered into close relationship with other Buddhist practices, especially Pure Land devotion, and its spirit permeated Chinese poetry, calligraphy, and other arts. From this Chinese matrix, related traditions later spread to Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, where the same contemplative impulse took on new names and cultural forms while retaining the Chan emphasis on direct experience of reality.