East Mountain Teaching

East Mountain Teaching (traditional Chinese: 東山法門; ; pinyin: Dōngshān Fǎmén; literally: "East Mountain Dharma Gate") denotes the teachings of the Fourth Ancestor Dayi Daoxin, his student and heir the Fifth Ancestor Daman Hongren, and their students and lineage of Chan Buddhism.

East Mountain Teaching gets its name from the East Mountain Temple on the "Twin Peaks" (Chinese: 雙峰) of Huangmei (modern Hubei). The East Mountain Temple was on the easternmost peak of the two. Its modern name is Wuzu Temple (Chinese: 五祖寺).

The two most famous disciples of Hongren, Huineng and Yuquan Shenxiu, both continued the East Mountain teaching.

The East Mountain School was established by Daoxin (道信 580–651) at East Mountain Temple on Potou (Broken Head) Mountain, which was later renamed Shuangfeng (Twin Peaks). Daoxin taught there for 30 years. He established the first monastic home for "Bodhidharma's Zen".

The tradition holds that Hongren (弘忍 601–674) left home at an early age (between seven and fourteen) and lived at East Mountain Temple on Twin Peaks, where Daoxiin was the abbot.

Upon Daoxin's death [in 651 C.E]. at the age of seventy-two, Hongren assumed the abbacy. He then moved East Mountain Temple approximately ten kilometers east to the flanks of Mt. Pingmu. Soon, Hongren's fame eclipsed that of his teacher.

The East Mountain community was a specialized meditation training centre. The establishment of a community in one location was a change from the wandering lives of Bodhiharma and Huike and their followers. It fitted better into the Chinese society, which highly valued community-oriented behaviour, instead of solitary practice

An important aspect of the East Mountain Teachings was its nonreliance on a single sutra or a single set of sutras for its doctrinal foundation as was done by most of the other Buddhist sects of the time.

The East Mountain School incorporated both the Lankavatara Sutra and the Mahaprajnaparamita Sutras.

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