Yün-men Wen-yen

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Yün-men Wen-yen (Jap., Ummon Bunʾen; 864–949). Founder of the Chʾan/Zen Ummon school. He was dharma-successor (hassu) of Hsueh-feng I-ts'un. A ruler from the Liu family built a monastery for him on Mount Yün-men (hence his name), where many disciples gathered. Yün-men used the stick-and-shout method (katsu see HO, kyosaku), but is better known for his careful use of word structures in dialogue, leading into kōans—e.g. he would offer different answers, or answer for the student, or make the answer a question. He is particularly renowned for introducing ‘one-word barriers’, single-word, challenging answers (though in fact they may be of more than one character), thus: ‘What are the words of the revered Buddhas and great patriarchs?’ ‘Dumplings’; ‘What is Zen?’ ‘It’; ‘What is the eye of the true Dharma?’ ‘Everywhere’.