The name “Ōbaku” (Chinese: Huangbo) points directly to a particular mountain in Fujian, China—Mount Huangbo—where the Chan master Huangbo Xiyun lived and taught. When this lineage was later transmitted to Japan, its roots on that mountain remained central to how the tradition understood itself. The name therefore functions not merely as a label, but as a constant reminder of a specific geographical and spiritual source. It evokes a landscape in which a distinctive form of Chan practice took shape and matured.

When the Chinese monk Ingen Ryūki brought this lineage to Japan, he established Manpuku-ji and named the school “Ōbaku” after that same mountain. In doing so, he preserved an explicit link between the Japanese school and its Chinese origin, signaling that the living current of practice flowed from Mount Huangbo into a new cultural setting. The name thus honors both the mountain and the master associated with it, Huangbo Xiyun, whose presence is felt as a kind of ancestral spirit within the school. To speak of Ōbaku is therefore to acknowledge a transmission that is at once historical, geographical, and deeply devotional.

Within the broader landscape of Japanese Zen, the name also marks Ōbaku as a distinct stream, standing alongside Rinzai and Sōtō while maintaining especially strong ties to Chinese Chan forms. The school’s identity is shaped by this conscious remembrance of its origin, and the name functions as a continual act of recollection. It signals a Zen that carries with it the flavor of its Chinese homeland, including practices that harmonize meditative discipline with elements such as devotional recitation. In this way, “Ōbaku” becomes a symbol of continuity across cultures, a bridge between mountain and monastery, between teacher and disciple, and between different expressions of the Buddhist path.