Talk:Zhaozhou

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[edit] dates

Zhaozhou's dates of birth and death are effectively unknown and the 119-year lifespan given by some sources is most unlikely. Jpatokal 04:55, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Maybe so, but I don't know if you'd call it 'unlikely', given that the relatively recent Ch'an master Hsu-Yun lived to 119. --Hidoshi 02:22, Jun 12, 2005 (UTC)

As far as I know (told by my Zen teacher), Joshu entered the monastery being 20 years old. After studying 40 years under Nansen's guidance, he left the monastery to live as a travelling monk. This was quite common practice among ascending zen masters to further enhance their skills by meeting other masters. He finally founded his own monastery being 80 years old.--The Heinz 12:03, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mu vs Wu

Considering this article is about a Chinese monk, shouldn't "Wu" be used in place of "Mu"? It's not a huge difference, but it makes sense. --Hidoshi 05:30, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

True, but mu is by far more common in what I've read. --Gwern (contribs) 16:52, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
Granted, but we still have to deal with a cultural inconsistency. Just because it's more commonly called "Zen" doesn't mean we should address Chao-chou/Zhaozhou as a Zen master as opposed to a "Ch'an" master should we? -- Hidoshi 19:06, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
You have a point there. Let's be consistent and call him a Zen master - hardly anyone has heard of Ch'an. --Gwern (contribs) 20:28, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
I hope that was facetious, considering how many people are Chinese in the world. At any rate, I for one vote cultural consistency over known nomenclature. Ignorance on the part of the mass importer is no excuse to continue these inconsistencies. -- Hidoshi 22:50, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
Given that Zhaozhou lived 1200 years ago, shouldn't we be using a word in medieval Chinese, rather than modern Mandarin? Whatever it was, it probably started with an [m].—Nat Krause(Talk!·What have I done?) 06:31, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
According to this document, wu seems to have been pronounced something like mju back in them days. —Saposcat 08:42, 4 September 2007 (UTC)