Huoan Shiti

Huoan Shiti was a Linji school master of the Song dynasty known for his penetrating teaching style. He maintained a community of practitioners and contributed to the ongoing vitality of the Linji tradition during a period of intense activity and development. His dialogues reflect the school's emphasis on direct confrontation with the student's own mind.

Huoan's teaching maintained the essential Linji character—the demand for immediate, personal realization that cannot be mediated by doctrine, scripture, or any form of secondhand understanding. His encounters with students, recorded in the lamp literature, show a teacher who was thoroughly grounded in the tradition while bringing his own distinctive clarity to each meeting.