Abstract: This chapter outlines the history of the Japanese Zen appropriation and adaptation of Chinese rules of purity attributed to master Baizhang, from the Kamakura period down to the present. The so-called transmission of Zen from China to Japan in the Kamakura period (1185-1333) was a complex event with many facets, but it is convenient to analyze it as having two distinct dimensions: (1) the communication to Japan of Chan mythology, ideology, and teaching styles, accomplished largely through the media of texts such as Chanyuan qinggui (Rules of Purity for Chan Monasteries), in which the distinctive rhetorical and pedagogical forms of Chan were re-enacted; and (2) the establishment in Japan of monastic institutions modeled after the great public monasteries of Southern Song China. This was facilitated by the travels of mainly Myan Eisai, Enni Ben’en, and Dgen to China, who brought various “rules of purity”.

Keywords: rules of purity, Chanyuan qinggui, Baizhang, Myan Eisai, Enni Ben’en, Dgen,