school towards the end of the Southern Song dynasty (~1127 CE). The lineage still lives on to this day through Chan Master Hsu Yun (1840–1959). He rebuilt the Yunmen Temple as well as Huineng's temple, Nanhua Temple. The Yunmen school continues through Master Hsu Yun, Fo Yuan, and Master Ming Zhao Shakya, who have disciples in America and abroad. Legacy Despite being a popular place for pilgrimages, the legendary Mount Wutai in Shanxi was ordered off-limits by Yunmen and his dharmic descendent, Linji Yixuan. When the legendary monk Ikkyū was studying under Kaso, he was assigned kōan no. 15 from the Gateless Gate where Yunmen/Ummon rebukes Tozan for wandering from one monastery to another; after being reprimanded, Tozan experiences enlightenment. When Ikkyū 'penetrated' into understanding this kōan, he was rewarded his dharma name. The Rinzai master Shuho Myocho experienced great enlightenment after contemplating a Yunmen kōan for ten days. After the moment of enlightenment, his master Nanpo Shomyo told him: "Yesterday I dreamed that the great Ummon (Yunmen) personally came to my room. Today, it is you - the second Ummon." By its preservation in the Blue Cliff Record, Yunmen's famous saying "Nichinichi kore kōnichi" ("Every day is a good day") became a useful phrase for later Zen teachers, including Kōdō Sawaki and his student Taisen Deshimaru. The avant-garde composer John Cage featured the saying in his Song Books as "Solo for Voice 64", specifically as a repetition of “kichi kichi kiri ko nichi”. The shit stick kōan of Yunmen (case no. 21, The Gateless Gate) became renowned for its incomprehensibility. American Zen teacher Robert Baker Aitken explained that the term was used as "a soft stick that was used the way our ancestors used a corncob in their outhouses" Jack Kerouac paraphrased the kōan in his book The Dharma Bums as "The Buddha is a dried piece of turd." Wumen Huikai appended the kōan with the following verse: Yunmen's Japanese name, Ummon, was the namesake for a prominent character in Dan Simmons's Hyperion Cantos science fiction series; Simmon's Ummon was a vastly advanced AI from the "TechnoCore", who reveals key plot elements to the main characters through kōans and mondo (dialogue). See also Jingde (era) Record of the Transmission of the Lamp The Gateless Gate The Blue Cliff Record Notes References Sources Sørensen, Henrik Hjort. "The Life and Times of the Ch'an Master Yūn-men Wen-yan", pp. 105–131, Vol. 49