Chan
Chan (Chinese: 禪; pinyin: Chán) is a major school of East Asian Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China around the sixth century CE, emphasizing direct insight into the Buddha-nature through meditation and the sudden realization of enlightenment, rather than reliance on scriptural study or gradual accumulation of merit.[1][2] The term "Chan" derives from the Chinese transliteration of the Sanskrit dhyāna (meditation), reflecting its roots in contemplative practices adapted from Indian Buddhist traditions, particularly those associated with meditation masters like Bodhidharma, traditionally regarded as the school's founding patriarch who transmitted the "mind-to-mind" Dharma from India to China in the fifth or sixth century.[2][1] Historically, Chan coalesced during the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE), evolving through lineages of patriarchs such as Huineng, the sixth patriarch whose teachings in the Platform Sutra promoted the inherent purity of mind and iconoclastic rejection of doctrinal rigidity, influencing the school's distinctive use of paradoxical language, public case records (gong'an), and embodied practice over ritualistic observance.[1][2] By the Song dynasty (960–1279 CE), Chan had diversified into five major houses—Linji, Caodong, Yunmen, Fayan, and Weiyang—with Linji (Rinzai in Japanese) and Caodong (Sōtō) becoming dominant and emphasizing sudden versus gradual awakening, respectively, though both prioritized zazen (seated meditation) as the core method for verifying enlightenment.[1][3] Chan's transmission outside China led to its adaptation as Seon in Korea, Thiền in Vietnam, and Zen in Japan starting in the twelfth century, where it integrated with local cultures while retaining core emphases on non-dual awareness and teacher-student lineages authenticated through direct encounter rather than textual authority.[1][4] Notable for its departure from scholastic Buddhism, Chan valorized everyday activities and spontaneous wisdom, as seen in encounters like those compiled in lamp records tracing patriarchal succession, though modern scholarship questions the historicity of early figures and highlights Chan's syncretic borrowings from Daoism and indigenous Chinese thought in shaping its rhetoric of "special transmission outside the teachings."[1] Controversies arise from retrospective genealogies that mythologize origins to legitimize authority, with empirical evidence suggesting Chan's mature form emerged from broader Tang-era meditation movements rather than a singular Indian import, underscoring its pragmatic evolution amid imperial patronage and monastic reforms.[1]Religious traditions
Chan Buddhism
Chan Buddhism, also known as the Chan school (禪宗, Chán zōng), emerged in China as an indigenous Mahayana Buddhist tradition emphasizing direct insight into the Buddha-nature through meditation and mind-to-mind transmission, distinct from scriptural study.[1] It traces its legendary origins to the monk Bodhidharma, an Indian or Central Asian figure said to have arrived in China around 520 CE during the Northern Wei dynasty, introducing the practice of "wall-gazing" meditation (壁觀, bìguān) as a means to realize one's inherent enlightenment without reliance on texts.[1] Historical evidence for Bodhidharma's life remains sparse and largely hagiographic, with early records appearing centuries later, suggesting the narrative served to legitimize the school's patriarchal lineage.[5] The school's doctrinal foundations solidified during the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE), particularly through the sixth patriarch Huineng (638–713 CE), whose teachings in the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch advocated sudden enlightenment (頓悟, dùnwù) via the direct apprehension of one's original mind, rejecting gradualist approaches and ritualistic practices.[6] The Platform Sutra, compiled by Huineng's disciples shortly after his death, asserts that "from the outset, there is nothing at all [that obstructs realization]," prioritizing innate wisdom (prajñā) over meditative absorption (samādhi) alone, though its attribution to Huineng verbatim is debated among scholars due to textual variations and later interpolations.[7] This southern sudden-enlightenment paradigm, promoted by Heze Shenhui (684–758 CE), triumphed over the northern gradualist school led by Shenxiu (606–706 CE), reshaping Chan as a "separate transmission outside the teachings" (教外別傳, jiàowài biéchuán), independent of sutras and focused on "no reliance upon words and letters" (不立文字, bù lì wénzì).[1] By the mid-Tang period, Chan diversified into lineages such as the Oxhead school and the Hongzhou school under Mazu Daoyi (709–788 CE), which emphasized everyday activities as expressions of enlightenment ("ordinary mind is the Way").[1] The Song dynasty (960–1279 CE) saw the maturation of the "five houses" (五家七宗, wǔjiā qīzōng): Guiyang, Linji (emphasizing shout-and-beat methods and koans), Caodong (stressing "silent illumination"), Yunmen (concise one-word responses), and Fayan, with Linji and Caodong enduring as primary branches.[8] Practices evolved from silent meditation to include gong'an (public case) study—paradoxical anecdotes like "What is the sound of one hand clapping?"—to provoke non-conceptual insight, alongside huatou (critical phrase) inquiry.[1] These methods aimed at "seeing one's nature" (見性, jiànxìng) to attain Buddhahood, viewing all phenomena as empty of inherent existence yet vividly present.[6] Chan transmitted to Korea as Seon in the 8th century via monks like Bojo Jinul (1158–1210 CE), to Vietnam as Thiền through Võ Ngôn Thông (died 1134 CE), and to Japan as Zen in the 12th–13th centuries, with Eisai (1141–1215 CE) founding Rinzai (from Linji) and Dōgen (1200–1253 CE) establishing Sōtō (from Caodong).[9] In China, Chan peaked in influence during the Song but declined under Mongol rule and later Neo-Confucian dominance, integrating with Pure Land elements for lay practice; modern revivals occurred in the 20th century through figures like Hsu Yun (1840–1959 CE), who restored monasteries post-Imperial era.[8] Despite historical claims of iconoclasm, Chan's institutionalization involved hierarchical certification (印可, yīnkě) by masters, ensuring orthodox transmission.[1]Personal names and titles
Surname origins and notable bearers
Chan is the Cantonese romanization of the Chinese surname 陳 (Chén in Mandarin pinyin), one of the most prevalent surnames in Chinese history, borne by over 70 million people worldwide as of recent genealogical surveys.[10] The surname traces its origins to the ancient State of Chen, established in 1046 BCE during the Zhou dynasty in present-day Henan Province, when King Wu enfeoffed the territory to Hu Gongman (also known as Gui Man), a descendant of the legendary Emperor Shun who had aided in overthrowing the preceding Xia dynasty.[11] [12] The character 陳 originally connoted "to exhibit" or "to arrange" in ancient Chinese, later acquiring meanings like "old" or "antiquated," reflecting the state's role in ritual and governance.[12] This lineage persisted through the Chen dynasty (557–589 CE) in southern China, solidifying the surname's prominence among Han Chinese populations, particularly in southern provinces like Guangdong and Fujian, from where many overseas bearers emigrated.[11] Notable bearers of the surname Chan include:- Jackie Chan (born Chan Kong-sang, April 7, 1954), a Hong Kong-born actor, martial artist, filmmaker, and stunt performer renowned for blending comedy with acrobatic fight choreography in over 150 films, including Rush Hour (1998) and Police Story (1985).[13] [14]
- Lien Chan (born August 27, 1936), a Taiwanese politician who served as Vice President of the Republic of China (Taiwan) from 1996 to 2000 and Chairman of the Kuomintang party from 2000 to 2005, playing a key role in cross-strait relations with mainland China.[15]
- Johnny Chan (born December 10, 1957), a Chinese-American professional poker player who has won 10 World Series of Poker bracelets, including back-to-back main events in 1987 and 1988, amassing career tournament earnings exceeding $8.7 million as of 2023.[16] [17]
Given names and honorifics
Chan serves as a unisex given name with roots primarily in Chinese culture, where it derives from Mandarin and translates to "snow," evoking purity and rarity.[18] In Khmer contexts, it stems from the Sanskrit-derived term for "moon," symbolizing luminosity and cycles.[19] While occasionally used for males, it appears more frequently as a female name in Western records, with associations to grace and brevity.[20] In the United States, Chan ranks as the 1,508th most common given name, borne by an estimated 17,719 individuals as of recent census-derived data, placing it in the 99th percentile for uniqueness.[21] Its popularity peaked nationally at 1,142nd in 1986, with higher incidence in states like California and Kansas, reflecting immigration patterns from East and Southeast Asia.[22] Globally, usage as a first name shows modest growth, particularly in multicultural naming trends, though it remains overshadowed by its prevalence as a surname.[23] As an honorific, "chan" (ちゃん in Japanese) functions as a diminutive suffix appended to names or nouns, conveying familiarity, affection, or cuteness, akin to English diminutives like "-ie" or "-y."[24] Originating from children's mispronunciations of "-san" (a polite title), it is most commonly applied to young girls, children, pets, or endearing figures, regardless of gender, but usage on adult males or superiors can imply condescension or intimacy.[25] In formal or encyclopedic contexts, -chan underscores hierarchical and relational nuances in Japanese social etiquette, avoiding application in professional settings to prevent perceived infantilization.[26]Internet and media
Online imageboards and communities
Online imageboards, commonly referred to as "chans," are anonymous, thread-based forums where users post images and text without registration, with content structured in ephemeral threads that automatically archive or delete when no longer active. These platforms emphasize rapid, unmoderated discussion, often leading to the creation and dissemination of internet memes, but also facilitating controversial or illegal material due to minimal oversight. The format originated in Japan with Futaba Channel, launched on February 20, 2001, which adapted the textboard style of 2channel (established May 30, 1999) by incorporating image uploads via GazouBBS software, enabling visual collage-style posting.[27][28] The English-language adaptation, 4chan, was founded on October 1, 2003, by then-15-year-old Christopher Poole (known as "moot") as a Western equivalent to Futaba Channel, initially dedicated to anime and manga images under the /a/ board.[29] By 2005, 4chan expanded to over 20 boards, attracting millions of posts daily through its anonymous, ephemeral model where users are identified only by optional tripcodes and threads bump off the catalog after 300-750 replies depending on the board.[30] Poole sold the site to Hiroyuki Nishimura, founder of 2channel, in 2015 amid financial pressures and controversies over content moderation.[31] Other significant chan sites include 8chan (relaunched as 8kun in 2019), established in September 2013 by Fredrick Brennan to provide freer speech than 4chan, featuring user-created boards and peaking at over 2 million posts per day before deplatforming in 2019 due to associations with mass shootings.[31] Additional platforms like 7chan (founded 2005 for downtime during 4chan outages) and endchan (2013, emphasizing decentralization) maintain similar structures, often hosting niche or alternative communities post-4chan migrations.[32] These sites collectively host hundreds of boards, though traffic concentrates on a few majors like 4chan (averaging 20-30 million visitors monthly as of 2022).[31] Communities on chans coalesce around specialized boards denoted by prefixes like /b/ for random, unstructured discussions encompassing humor, shock images, and early meme incubation—such as the origin of the Anonymous collective around 2006 via /b/'s raids on sites like Habbo Hotel.[30] The /pol/ board on 4chan, created in 2011 for politically incorrect content, has influenced broader discourse through meme propagation (e.g., Pepe the Frog's politicization) and off-site movements, though analyses note its role in amplifying fringe views amid anonymity's double-edged facilitation of both innovation and toxicity.[29][33] Other boards like /vg/ for video games or /x/ for paranormal topics foster dedicated subcultures, with cross-board interactions driving viral trends, but academic studies highlight how ephemerality and anonymity reduce accountability, correlating with higher rates of hate speech compared to named platforms.[30] Chans have profoundly shaped internet culture by pioneering remixable memes and grassroots activism, with 4chan credited for phenomena like Copypasta and early hacktivism, yet their unmoderated nature has drawn scrutiny for enabling extremism—evident in links to events like the 2019 Christchurch shooting manifesto posted on 8chan—prompting deplatforming by cloud providers despite arguments for their value in unfiltered expression.[31][30] Mainstream academic and media portrayals often emphasize far-right radicalization, but such narratives warrant caution given institutional biases toward pathologizing anonymous dissent over acknowledging the platforms' role in challenging elite consensuses.[29]Computing terms and media references
In the Go programming language, developed by Google and first released on November 10, 2009, "chan" is the built-in type keyword denoting a channel, a typed conduit for synchronous communication between concurrently executing goroutines. Channels enable lock-free data passing, where a sender uses the<- operator to transmit values into the channel (e.g., ch <- value), and a receiver extracts them (e.g., value := <-ch), blocking until the counterpart operation completes unless buffered.[34] Unidirectional variants, such as chan<- T (send-only) or <-chan T (receive-only), enforce directionality at compile time to prevent misuse in concurrent code.[35] This design draws from Communicating Sequential Processes (CSP) theory, prioritizing simplicity in concurrency over traditional mutexes, though critics note potential complexity in buffering and deadlock scenarios.[36]
The Chan algorithm refers to a closed-form, two-stage weighted least squares method for estimating the position of a signal source using time-of-arrival (TOA) measurements from multiple sensors, proposed by Y. T. Chan and K. C. Ho in their 2004 IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing paper.[37] The first stage solves a linear approximation via least squares to obtain an intermediate location estimate, followed by a second stage that refines it by accounting for nonlinear error terms, yielding near-optimal performance under Gaussian noise assumptions without iterative optimization.[38] Widely applied in wireless sensor networks, ultra-wideband (UWB) localization, and acoustic source tracking, variants like the Chan-Taylor extension incorporate time-difference-of-arrival (TDOA) for improved robustness in non-line-of-sight environments.[39] Its efficiency stems from algebraic closed-form solutions, contrasting with computationally intensive maximum likelihood estimators, though it assumes known sensor positions and synchronized clocks.[40]
Sports and competitions
African Nations Championship
The African Nations Championship (CHAN), officially known as the TotalEnergies African Nations Championship, is a biennial international football tournament contested by national teams from member associations of the Confederation of African Football (CAF).[41] Unlike the Africa Cup of Nations, CHAN restricts eligibility to players who are exclusively registered with clubs in their home country's domestic leagues during the qualifying period, with the intent to showcase and develop talent from African leagues while limiting the participation of expatriates.[42] The tournament typically features 16 or 18 teams, divided into groups followed by knockout stages, and is held every two years in odd-numbered calendar years, though scheduling disruptions have occurred due to organizational and global events.[43] Inaugurated in 2009 to fill a gap in competitive opportunities for domestic-based players, CHAN has grown in prominence, with Morocco emerging as the most successful nation, securing three titles as of 2025.[44] The competition emphasizes tactical discipline and local talent development, often producing surprises due to the absence of star players abroad, and has been hosted across various African nations to promote regional football infrastructure.[45] Qualifying rounds precede the finals, drawing from CAF's 54 member associations, though not all participate due to logistical or qualification failures.[42]| Edition | Year | Host Nation(s) | Winner | Score | Runner-up |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | 2009 | Côte d'Ivoire | DR Congo | 2–0 | Ghana |
| 2nd | 2011 | Sudan | Tunisia | 3–0 | Angola |
| 3rd | 2014 | South Africa | Libya | 0–0 (4–2 pens) | Ghana |
| 4th | 2016 | Rwanda | DR Congo | 2–1 (aet) | Mali |
| 5th | 2018 | Morocco | Morocco | 1–0 | Nigeria |
| 6th | 2020 | Morocco | Morocco | 2–0 (aet) | Sudan |
| 7th | 2022 | Algeria | Senegal | 0–0 (5–4 pens) | Algeria |
| 8th | 2024 | Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda | Morocco | 3–2 | Madagascar |