Fayan Wenyi

Fayan Wenyi (法眼文益, 885–958) was the founder of the Fayan house (法眼宗), the latest of the canonical Five Houses of Chan. He was a scholar-monk of unusual breadth before he turned to Chan: the *Sòng Gāosēng Zhuàn* records his early mastery of Huayan and Yogācāra philosophy, and the lamp records preserve his awakening under Luohan Guichen during a snowed-in pilgrimage when Luohan answered his "I don't know" with "Not knowing is most intimate"^[1]. He went on to receive Dharma transmission from Luohan and was patronised by the kings of the Southern Tang at the Qingliang Temple in Jinling (modern Nanjing)^[2].

The Fayan house was distinctive among the Five Houses for the explicit philosophical use it made of Huayan's *shi-li wu'ai* (the unobstructed interpenetration of phenomenon and principle), while insisting on direct experiential realisation; Fayan's polemical *Zōngmén Shíguīlùn* ("Ten Admonitions for the Lineage") set out standards for teaching honesty and against showy method-mongering that later writers across schools cited approvingly^[3]. The Fayan line flourished for three generations through Tiantai Deshao and Yongming Yanshou before being absorbed into the Linji house during the Song; its synthetic, philosophically literate temperament left its mark on Chan-Pure-Land integration and on Korean Seon^[4].