The East Mountain School (persisting from roughly the early-600s – mid-700s), commonly known as the "Northern School", was the first organized Chan community with a stable location (or set of locations). While the Lankavatara School was one of many competing Buddhist sects that had faded into relative obscurity, the East Mountain School, in contrast, received widespread attention in metropolitan centers and acclaim from the throne. The school collapsed due to a variety of factors in the late 700s, not the least of which were its waning popularity in the face of Shenhui's polemics. The most prominent figures were Hongren and his student, Shenxiu.
The name “East Mountain teaching,” is based on the location where Hongren (601–74) taught in Huangmei. The reference is to one of the “twin peaks,” Shuangfeng, of Huangmei. Hongren’s teacher, Daoxin (580–651), actually resided on the other peak - however, the name “East Mountain teaching” is used for both masters. The term was likely coined by Shenxiu (606?–706) or his immediate successors in reference to the teachings they had inherited from Daoxin and Hongren, so it is also appropriate to include Shenxiu’s quarter-century of residence at Jade Spring Temple (675–701) in Jingzhou as well. The biographies assert that “eight or nine of every ten” spiritual practitioners in all China practiced under the East Mountain teachers, but this is probably an embellishment. All the same, there is a clear trend of increasing attendance with each generation. Of the documented students, a half-dozen or so individuals were recorded as having studied with Daoxin and about twenty-five studied with Hongren; the figure for Shenxiu is about seventy. Shenxiu's disciples Puji, Yifu, and others continued the teaching for some time after his death, but the East Mountain School began to fade in popularity very rapidly at that point.
Meditation seems to have been the key focus of the school, especially during the time of Daoxin and Hongren. While there are some references to Amitabha and instructions that suggest devotional teachings (possibly the influence of the Pure Land School), these practices, as well as scriptural analysis seem to have taken a reduced role in the East Mountain teaching. Almost all of the references from others sources to Daoxin or Hongren suggest that meditation was what they were teaching, possibly to the exclusion of all else. That being said, there was an East Mountain tradition of reinterpreting scriptures in metaphorical terms, effectively recasting doctrinal points into metaphors for practice. The historical record points to increasing diversity of interest in the East Mountain teaching, probably due in part to the variety of attendees. Students of Madhyamaka philosophy, members of the Pure Land school, experts on the Vinaya and many others from different monastic backgrounds attended the East Mountain to learn meditation. Particularly in the case of Hongren, it seems that most students attended him for a limited period of time before moving on, but for varying time periods - as we can see from the cases of Faru (16 years), Shenxiu (6 years), and Huineng (eight months).
Shenxiu and his entourage moved into Luoyang in 701, they presented themselves as transmitters of the “pure teaching of East Mountain” and circulated a text attributed to Hongren as the content of their teachings. At the time, the imperial centers of Chang'an and Luoyang were the greatest urban centers in the world. Shenxiu was said to have been welcomed with imperial fanfare, speaking to the popularity and influence of the East Mountain school at the time:
Empress Wu Zetian sent a palace messenger to escort Shenxiu to Luoyang. Monks and laypeople spread flowers in his path, and the banners and canopies [on the vehicles of the wealthy and prestigious] filled the streets. He entered the palace riding on an imperial palanquin decked with palm leaves. Empress Wu, following him, touched her forehead to the ground and knelt for a long time in a spirit of reverent dedication and chaste purity. When Shenxiu administered the precepts to the court ladies, all the four classes of Buddhists took refuge in him with the same feelings of veneration that they had for their own parents. From princes and nobles on down, everyone in the capital took refuge in him.
As recorded in the record of the Masters and Disciples of the Lankavatara School, Shenxiu and the East Mountain were specifically honored by the Empress as 'unexcelled':
The Great Sage Empress Wu Zetian inquired of him: “Whose teaching is it that you transmit?” He answered, “I have inherited the East Mountain teaching of Qizhou [i.e., Huangmei, the location of Hongren’s monastery].” Empress Wu Zetian said, “In considering the cultivation of enlightenment, the East Mountain teaching is unexcelled.”
Dating from the time of Shenxiu (though often attributed to earlier teachers), a wide variety of sutras and sastras was references and analyzed in the extant East Mountain literature. It is not possible to know with total certainty whether the Record of Daoxin accurately represents his teaching, as it was composed after the records of Hongren and Shenxiu himself. Hongren's text is a bit more certain in terms of how accurately it represents his teaching, but was still composed a generation or so after his death by his students.