Huanyou Zhengchuan

Huanyou Zhengchuan (1549–1614) was a late Ming dynasty Linji Chan master who played a crucial role in the revival of orthodox Linji Chan Buddhism. He served as abbot of Longchiyuan monastery in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province, and was the direct teacher of Miyun Yuanwu, through whom the Linji school would undergo its most dramatic resurgence.

Huanyou's significance lies in his role as the bridge between the declining Linji tradition of the mid-Ming period and its explosive revival under his student Miyun. During the late sixteenth century, Chinese Buddhism was dominated by syncretic approaches mixing Chan with Pure Land, scholastic study, and Confucian dialogue. Huanyou represented a more conservative strand, insisting on the purity of lineage and the centrality of direct experiential awakening. In 1595, the young Miyun became his disciple, receiving formal ordination in 1598 and dharma transmission in 1611. Upon Huanyou's death in 1614, Miyun assumed the abbacy of Longchiyuan, beginning the extraordinary expansion that would dominate seventeenth-century Chinese Buddhism and spread to Vietnam and Japan.