Tianyi Yihuai

Tianyi Yihuai was a Yunmen school master who contributed to the tradition's development during the Song dynasty. He maintained the school's distinctive methods and trained students in the Yunmen approach to Chan practice.

Yihuai's teaching continued the Yunmen tradition's emphasis on the spontaneous, precisely targeted response as the primary teaching tool. This approach—meeting each student's question with a response that is neither predictable nor random but exactly appropriate to the moment—represents one of the highest achievements of Chan pedagogy.