works of Vinītaruci. It flourished under the Lý and Trần dynasties. Trúc Lâm Zen is the only native school of Buddhism in Vietnam. Pure Land Pure Land Buddhism is a broad branch of Mahayana Buddhism and is said to be one of the most popular schools of Buddhism in Vietnam, in which practitioners commonly recite sutras, chants and dharanis looking to gain protection from bodhisattvas or Dharma-Protectors. While Pure Land traditions, practices and concepts are found within Mahayana cosmology, and form an important component of Buddhist traditions in Vietnam, Pure Land Buddhism was not independently recognized as a sect of Buddhism (as Pure Land schools have been recognized, for example, in Japan) until 2007, with the official recognition of the Vietnamese Pure Land Buddhism Association as an independent and legal religious organization. Bửu Sơn Kỳ Hương Hòa Hảo Hòa Hảo is a religious tradition, based on Buddhism, founded in 1939 by Huỳnh Phú Sổ, a native of the Mekong Delta region of southern Vietnam. Adherents consider Sổ to be a prophet, and Hòa Hảo a continuation of a 19th-century Buddhist ministry known as Bửu Sơn Kỳ Hương ("Strange Perfume from Precious Mountains", referring to the Thất Sơn range on the Vietnam-Cambodia border). The founders of these traditions are regarded by Hòa Hảo followers as living Buddhas—destined to save mankind from suffering and to protect the Vietnamese nation. An important characteristic of Hòa Hảo is its emphasis on peasant farmers, exemplified by the old slogan "Practicing Buddhism While Farming Your Land." Hòa Hảo also stresses the practice of Buddhism by lay people in the home, rather than focusing primarily on temple worship and ordination. Aid to the poor is favored over pagoda building or expensive rituals. Today, as an officially recognized religion, it claims approximately two million followers throughout Vietnam; in certain parts of the Mekong Delta, as many as 90 percent of the population of this region practice this tradition. Since many of the teachings of Huỳnh Phú Sổ related in some way to Vietnamese nationalism, adherence to Hòa Hảo outside of Vietnam has been minimal, with a largely quiescent group of followers presumed to exist among the Vietnamese diaspora in the United States. Tứ Ân Hiếu Nghĩa Tứ Ân Hiếu Nghĩa ("Four Debts of Gratitude"), a Buddhist sect based in An Giang Province, is one of the most recently registered religions in Vietnam. It is based on the teachings