Fǎyǎn 法演
Yángqí-branch Línjì Chán master of the late Northern Sòng, conventionally styled Wǔzǔ Fǎyǎn 五祖法演 after his long residence at the Wǔzǔ shān 五祖山 (Dōngshān 東山) in Qízhōu 蘄州 (present-day Húběi) — the traditional seat of the Fifth Patriarch Hóngrěn 弘忍. Native of Bāxī 巴西 in Miánzhōu 綿州 (present-day Sìchuān), lay surname Dèng 鄧. Lifedates per DILA A000733 and Suzuki Shōkun’s foundational study: 1018 – Chóngníng 3.6.25 (25 July 1104), shì 87.
Unusually for a major Chán teacher, Fǎyǎn came to Buddhism late: tonsured and ordained only at thirty-five, he first studied the Yogācāra treatises Bǎifǎ lùn 百法論 and Wéishí lùn 唯識論 in Chéngdū under Yuánzhào Zōngběn 圓照宗本 and the Miàoyùn school, then took up Chán under Fúshān Fǎyuǎn 浮山法遠 before being redirected to Báiyún Shǒuduān 白雲守端 (1025–1072), under whom he attained transmission in the Yángqí line descending from 方會 Yángqí Fānghuì through Shǒuduān. Taught successively at Sìmiàn 四面, Báiyún 白雲, Tàipíng 太平, Dōngshān, and finally Wǔzǔ shān in Qízhōu.
His recorded sayings in four juan (three in the catalog meta count; the Taishō prints as three plus appended material) are preserved as the Fǎyǎn chánshī yǔlù (KR6q0058), compiled by his disciple 才良 Cáiliáng. Fǎyǎn’s house produced the “three buddhas” (Fǎyǎn sānfó 法演三佛, or Fǎyǎn sānjié 法演三傑) — Yuánwù Kèqín 圓悟克勤, Fóyǎn Qīngyuǎn 佛眼清遠 (KR6q0064), and Tàipíng Huìqín 太平慧懃 (Fójiàn) — whose generation dominated late-Northern-Sòng and early-Southern-Sòng Chán. Yuánwù in turn produced Dàhuì Zōnggǎo 大慧宗杲, so that the entire mainstream of later Chinese Chán flows from Fǎyǎn. A persistent strand of his teaching — the cultivation of “doubt” (yí 疑) over a keyword or case — is the recognised source-point for the kànhuà 看話 method codified by his grand-disciple Dàhuì.