Summary The goal of this essay is to consider the question of how we should look at Chan Buddhism. I argue that there should be a multiplicity of perspectives and a certain fluidity of analytical typologies in doing so，and that we should consciously work to escape the structural limitations imposed upon us by traditionalistic approaches and by the subject matter itself. By traditionalistic approaches I mean those implied by Chan lineage diagrams, which have a semiotic impact as a medium of interpretation and communication.
First，the Chan lineage scheme is a combined product of Indian and Chinese culture. This observation undercuts the chauvinistic and essentially meaningless assertions that Chan is the "most Chinese" of all the Chinese Buddhist schools. Second，there are distinct polemical implications in the definition of Chan as a "separate transmission outside the scriptures, " as fundamentally more authentic than all other Buddhist schools. Third，what counts in the Chan transmission scheme are not the "facts" of what happened in the lives of Sakyamuni, Bodhidharma, Huineng，and others, but rather how these figures were perceived in terms of Chan mythology. What is of the greatest consequence here is the process by which that mythology was generated and circulated, edited and improved，and thus transmitted throughout an entire population of Chan practitioners and devotees. Fourth, based on the rhetoric of sunyata, or emptiness, there is nothing that is actually transmitted in this transmission scheme. What occurs between each teacher and his successor is merely an approval or authorization of the successor's attainment of complete enlightenment. Fifth, since the enlightenment of each Buddha and Patriarch is complete，there is no difference of religious status between the Indian Buddhas and Patriarchs and their Chinese counterparts. This is very important in terms of the signification of Buddhism, in that it allowed Chinese Buddhists to venerate and emulate culturally Chinese role models. Sixth, the "genealogical model" is important for its impact on how Chan spiritual practice itself is carried out. That is, the Chan genealogical model implies that the most important aspect of spiritual cultivation takes place in the encounter between each teacher and his student. Seventh, the gender-restricted terminology of "each teacher and his successor" is very much appropriate，since the Chan tradition is overwhelmingly male-dominated. Although I do not have space to consider these subjects in this paper，we should be sensitive to ways in which the lineage format both allowed and suppressed different types of perspectives, and how Chan school's dominance in Chinese Buddhism may have mitigated against alternative vie
