{ "model": { "rank": 1949, "code": "thing-q7953", "model_id": "vr.tr.zen", "name": "Zen", "purpose": "Let an agent describe Zen and its schools with attribution to the traditions and scholarship, explain practices such as meditation and koan study, support respectful engagement and visiting, and separate popular uses of the word.", "family": "Thing Registry", "category": "Society, people and institutions", "status": "research-draft", "kind": "thing", "plane": "SOC", "domain": "SOC.ORG", "industry": "", "version": "", "url": "/models/thing/q7953/", "tier": 2, "score": 121, "payload": { "layer": "wikidata", "aliases": [ "Zen in the United States", "Taiwanese Chan Buddhism", "Daruma-shū", "Chan Buddhism", "Japanese Zen", "Korean Seon", "Yunmen School", "Southern School of Zen", "East Mountain Teaching", "Caodong school", "Fayan school", "Vietnamese Thiền", "Northern School", "Five Houses of Chán", "Linji school", "Guiyang school", "Seon Buddhism in late Joseon dynasty" ], "aliasCount": 17, "merged": 17, "knownIn": 121, "facets": null, "markers": [], "lexicalClass": "", "senseRank": null, "alsoRegisteredAs": null, "source": { "dataset": "wikidata", "item": "Q7953", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7953", "license": "CC0 1.0" } }, "research": { "vercy": "1.0-draft", "publication": { "status": "research-draft", "adjudicationStatus": "unreviewed", "publishableCanonical": false, "generatedAt": "2026-09-11T23:11:19Z", "providers": [ "Claude" ], "breadth": "written by Claude from model knowledge without web access - no source was read, every claim is a lead to verify", "pass": 2, "wave": 2, "engine": "claude" }, "metaModel": { "id": "THING-Q7953", "registryId": "vr.tr.zen", "name": "Zen", "version": "0.2.0-wave.2", "entryKind": "thing", "family": "Thing Registry", "domain": [ "SOC.ORG" ], "status": "research-draft" }, "canonicalUrl": "https://ver.cy/models/thing/q7953/", "model": { "registry_id": "vr.tr.zen", "name": "Zen", "purpose": "Let an agent describe Zen and its schools with attribution to the traditions and scholarship, explain practices such as meditation and koan study, support respectful engagement and visiting, and separate popular uses of the word.", "definition": "A school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China as Chan and spread to Korea as Seon, Vietnam as Thien and Japan as Zen, emphasising meditation, direct insight and teacher-to-student transmission, with lineages such as Soto and Rinzai and historical schools such as the Daruma-shu, and today practised worldwide including in the United States; Zen is described here as understood by its traditions and by scholars.", "what_it_is_for": "A Buddhist school of meditation.", "affordances": [ "describe Zen and its schools", "explain practices", "support respectful engagement", "separate popular uses" ], "distinguishing_features": [ "Meditation-centred", "Lineage transmission", "Multiple national forms", "Global spread" ], "appearance": "Not physical as such; temples, meditation halls and practice communities.", "visual_identification": [ "Mahayana school centred on meditation", "Chan, Seon, Thien and Zen forms", "Popular use of zen for calm is a loose sense" ], "physical_properties": [], "families_and_kinds": [ "Chinese Chan", "Korean Seon", "Japanese Zen including Soto and Rinzai", "Vietnamese Thien", "Zen in the West" ], "related_models": [ { "relation": "is a kind of", "target": "Mahayana", "why": "category" }, { "relation": "is related to", "target": "religious organization", "why": "Zen temples and orders" }, { "relation": "is related to", "target": "calligraphy", "why": "Zen calligraphy" }, { "relation": "is related to", "target": "samurai", "why": "historical patronage in Japan" } ], "identifiers": [], "standards_and_regulation": [ "Religious corporation law in relevant countries", "Monastic rules of each lineage", "Safeguarding norms in practice communities" ], "failure_modes_and_hazards": [ "Presenting one lineage as the whole", "Trivialising Zen through popular usage", "Ignoring documented abuses in some communities" ], "in_scope": [], "out_of_scope": [], "characteristics": [] }, "sources": [], "structure": { "bundles": [ { "id": "understand", "name": "Understand", "description": "What Zen is.", "rationale": "Attribution.", "layers": [ { "id": "teaching", "name": "Teaching", "description": "Teachings and schools.", "findings": [ { "id": "teaching-finding", "name": "Teaching", "description": "Teachings.", "questions": [ { "text": "What are the core teachings and practices of Zen, and how do Chan, Seon, Thien and Japanese schools differ, in their own terms and according to scholars?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Is the Buddhist school or a popular sense of zen meant?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] }, { "id": "history", "name": "History", "description": "History.", "findings": [ { "id": "history-finding", "name": "History", "description": "History.", "questions": [ { "text": "How did Chan arise in China and spread to Korea, Vietnam, Japan and the West, according to historians?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "What was the Daruma-shu?", "kind": "provenance" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "practice", "name": "Practice", "description": "Practising Zen.", "rationale": "Engagement.", "layers": [ { "id": "meditation", "name": "Meditation", "description": "Meditation and koans.", "findings": [ { "id": "meditation-finding", "name": "Meditation", "description": "Meditation.", "questions": [ { "text": "What are zazen, koan study and other Zen practices, as taught by the traditions?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "How can a beginner start respectfully, and which centres exist here?", "kind": "provenance" } ] } ] }, { "id": "visit", "name": "Visit", "description": "Visiting temples.", "findings": [ { "id": "visit-finding", "name": "Visit", "description": "Visiting.", "questions": [ { "text": "What etiquette applies at Zen temples and meditation halls?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Which entry fits a specific temple?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "culture", "name": "Culture", "description": "Zen and culture.", "rationale": "Context.", "layers": [ { "id": "arts", "name": "Arts", "description": "Zen arts.", "findings": [ { "id": "arts-finding", "name": "Arts", "description": "Arts.", "questions": [ { "text": "How has Zen influenced arts such as calligraphy, gardens, tea and poetry?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "How is this influence sometimes overstated, according to scholars?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] }, { "id": "west", "name": "West", "description": "Zen in the West.", "findings": [ { "id": "west-finding", "name": "West", "description": "Zen in the West.", "questions": [ { "text": "How did Zen spread to the United States and Europe, and how has it adapted?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Which documented controversies exist, with positions attributed?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "learn", "name": "Learn", "description": "Study.", "rationale": "Education.", "layers": [ { "id": "sources", "name": "Sources", "description": "Texts and scholarship.", "findings": [ { "id": "sources-finding", "name": "Sources", "description": "Sources.", "questions": [ { "text": "Which texts and scholarly works are standard for studying Zen?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "How do devotional and scholarly accounts differ?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] }, { "id": "teach", "name": "Teach", "description": "Teaching about Zen.", "findings": [ { "id": "teach-finding", "name": "Teach", "description": "Teaching.", "questions": [ { "text": "How can Zen be taught in religious studies respectfully?", "kind": "action" }, { "text": "Which misconceptions arise?", "kind": "provenance" } ] } ] } ] } ] }, "openQuestions": [ "Should each school be a separate entry?", "How should scholarly sources be linked?", "How should practice centres be localised?" ], "statistics": { "bundles": 4, "layers": 8, "findings": 8, "questions": 16 } }, "draft": { "generator": "vr.draft.v3", "status": "draft-generated", "researched": false, "archetype": "organisation or institution", "method": "Written from the archetype playbook - what this kind of thing needs beyond identity and provenance - and from the structure that recurred across 6,333 models already researched by two engines. Applied to this entry by rule. No source was read for this thing and no claim here is researched. This entry carries no facets of its own, so they were inferred from its domain - a guess about a whole domain applied to one thing.", "facetsInferred": true, "nextPass": "A researcher replaces this draft with a sourced specification. Treat every sentence below as a proposal to argue with.", "purpose": "Give an agent a durable, checkable way to recognise a Zen, record what state it is in, and decide what may be done with it.", "whatItIs": "Let an agent describe Zen and its schools with attribution to the traditions and scholarship, explain practices such as meditation and koan study, support respectful engagement and visiting, and separate popular uses of the word.", "characteristics": { "substance": "social", "origin": "conceptual", "agency": "collective" }, "whatYouCanDoWithIt": [ "observed and measured" ], "distinguishingFeatures": [ "Names folded into this entry, which a task may need to split apart again: Zen in the United States, Taiwanese Chan Buddhism, Daruma-shū, Chan Buddhism, Japanese Zen, Korean Seon, Yunmen School, Southern School of Zen, East Mountain Teaching, Caodong school, Fayan school, Vietnamese Thiền.", "17 finer distinctions are held as aliases rather than separate entries, because telling them apart needs a task that asks for it.", "Described in 121 Wikipedia languages, which is a measure of how widely the thing is known, not of how important it is." ], "openQuestionsForResearch": [ "Which of the bundles below does a real task actually need, and which are ceremony?", "What does this thing have that the facets do not capture at all?", "Which neighbouring kind is most often confused with a Zen, and on what evidence are they told apart?" ], "whatItIsMadeOf": "a social arrangement between people", "physicalCharacter": [ "Acts through people, and only through them.", "These come from the domain this entry sits in rather than from the entry itself, so treat them as a first guess about the whole domain applied to one thing." ], "whatCanBeDoneWithIt": [ "observe it, measure it, record its state" ], "howItIsRecognised": [ "Nothing to see. Recognised by name, register entry and the people acting in its name, and those change while it stays the same body." ], "relatedModels": [ { "relation": "covers", "note": "Finer kinds folded into this entry because telling them apart needs a task that asks for it. Each is a model waiting to be split out when one does.", "targets": [ "Zen in the United States", "Taiwanese Chan Buddhism", "Daruma-shū", "Chan Buddhism", "Japanese Zen", "Korean Seon", "Yunmen School", "Southern School of Zen", "East Mountain Teaching", "Caodong school", "Fayan school", "Vietnamese Thiền" ] } ], "standing": "Described in 121 Wikipedia languages, which measures how widely it is written about rather than how important or how common it is. 17 finer distinctions are held inside this entry as names rather than as separate models.", "structure": { "bundles": [ { "id": "identity-and-classification", "name": "Identity, naming and classification", "description": "How an agent tells one Zen from another, and a Zen from things that resemble it.", "rationale": "Recognition comes before every other claim. Without stable identity nothing else in the model can be trusted to be about the same thing twice.", "layers": [ { "id": "naming-and-identifiers", "name": "Names and identifiers", "description": "The names this thing goes by and the identifiers that survive translation and time.", "findings": [ { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases", "name": "Preferred name, aliases and local names", "description": "Which name to use, which names mean the same thing, and which merely sound similar.", "questions": [ { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the name of a Zen, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the name of a Zen, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the name of a Zen is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers", "name": "Stable identifiers and external keys", "description": "Identifiers that keep pointing at this kind of thing across systems and languages.", "questions": [ { "id": "stable-identifiers-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes an identifier for a Zen, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about an identifier for a Zen, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once an identifier for a Zen is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "classification-and-granularity", "name": "Classification and granularity", "description": "Where a Zen sits among kinds, and how finely a task needs to cut it.", "findings": [ { "id": "kind-and-parents", "name": "Kind, parents and neighbouring kinds", "description": "The classes this thing belongs to and the ones it is next to.", "questions": [ { "id": "kind-and-parents-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the kind of a Zen, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "kind-and-parents-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the kind of a Zen, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "kind-and-parents-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the kind of a Zen is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features", "name": "Distinguishing features", "description": "What separates a Zen from the things most often confused with it.", "questions": [ { "id": "distinguishing-features-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes what distinguishes a Zen, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about what distinguishes a Zen, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once what distinguishes a Zen is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "state-and-lifecycle", "name": "State and lifecycle", "description": "The states a Zen passes through and the events that move it between them.", "rationale": "Most decisions about a thing depend on what state it is in now, which is a claim with a time on it, not a property.", "layers": [ { "id": "lifecycle-stages", "name": "Lifecycle stages", "description": "From coming into existence to ceasing to be one of these.", "findings": [ { "id": "stages-and-transitions", "name": "Stages and transitions", "description": "The stages worth naming and what moves a Zen between them.", "questions": [ { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the lifecycle of a Zen, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the lifecycle of a Zen, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the lifecycle of a Zen is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "observations-and-status", "name": "Observations and current status", "description": "What is observed about a Zen, how often and by whom.", "findings": [ { "id": "observation-record", "name": "Observation record", "description": "How an observation of a Zen is recorded so that it can be superseded rather than overwritten.", "questions": [ { "id": "observation-record-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes an observation of a Zen, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "observation-record-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about an observation of a Zen, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "observation-record-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once an observation of a Zen is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "people-and-responsibility", "name": "People, roles and responsibility", "description": "Who stands in what relation to a Zen.", "rationale": "Social things are defined by the relations people hold to them, and those relations change without the thing changing.", "layers": [ { "id": "roles-and-parties", "name": "Roles and parties", "description": "The roles that exist around a Zen and who fills them.", "findings": [ { "id": "role-assignments", "name": "Role assignments and their validity", "description": "Who holds which role over a Zen, from when, and on whose authority.", "questions": [ { "id": "role-assignments-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes a role over a Zen, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "role-assignments-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about a role over a Zen, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "role-assignments-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once a role over a Zen is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "ownership-and-accountability", "name": "Ownership and accountability", "description": "Who answers for a Zen and who may decide about it.", "findings": [ { "id": "accountability", "name": "Accountability and decision rights", "description": "Where responsibility for a Zen sits when something goes wrong.", "questions": [ { "id": "accountability-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes responsibility for a Zen, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "accountability-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about responsibility for a Zen, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "accountability-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once responsibility for a Zen is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "legal-identity", "name": "Legal identity and mandate", "description": "What Zen is in law and what it exists to do.", "rationale": "Legal identity survives changes of name, address, staff and premises, which is exactly why it must be recorded separately from all of them.", "layers": [ { "id": "registration", "name": "Legal form and registration", "description": "Form, register, identifiers and jurisdiction.", "findings": [ { "id": "registration-record", "name": "Registration and identifiers", "description": "What names this body unambiguously in law.", "questions": [ { "id": "registration-record-q01", "text": "What legal form does Zen take, in which register, under which identifier?", "kind": "definition" }, { "id": "registration-record-q02", "text": "What survives a rename, a merger or a move of premises, and what does not?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] }, { "id": "mandate", "name": "Mandate and governing instrument", "description": "The purpose it is bound to and the document that binds it.", "findings": [ { "id": "mandate-record", "name": "Mandate and its source", "description": "What it may do, and the instrument that says so.", "questions": [ { "id": "mandate-record-q01", "text": "What is the mandate of Zen, and which founding or governing instrument grants it?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "id": "mandate-record-q02", "text": "What lies outside the mandate, and what should an agent do when asked for it?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "governance-and-membership", "name": "Governance, membership and decision rights", "description": "Who decides in Zen and who belongs to it.", "rationale": "Authority inside an organisation is held by roles, not people, and an agent needs to know which role can commit it.", "layers": [ { "id": "decision-rights", "name": "Decision rights", "description": "Bodies, offices and what each may bind.", "findings": [ { "id": "authority-map", "name": "Who may bind the organisation", "description": "The offices that can commit it and their limits.", "questions": [ { "id": "authority-map-q01", "text": "Which bodies or offices of Zen may take which decisions, and up to what limit?", "kind": "definition" }, { "id": "authority-map-q02", "text": "What evidence shows that a given person currently holds that office?", "kind": "provenance" } ] } ] }, { "id": "membership", "name": "Membership and affiliation", "description": "Who counts as part of it and on what terms.", "findings": [ { "id": "membership-rules", "name": "Membership and its evidence", "description": "Classes of member, how membership starts and ends.", "questions": [ { "id": "membership-rules-q01", "text": "What kinds of membership or affiliation does Zen have, and how does each begin and end?", "kind": "definition" }, { "id": "membership-rules-q02", "text": "What may a member do in its name, and what may they not?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "provenance-and-evidence", "name": "Provenance, evidence and time", "description": "Where every claim about a Zen came from and when it held.", "rationale": "A claim without a source and a time cannot be superseded, only overwritten, and an agent that overwrites loses the ability to explain itself.", "layers": [ { "id": "source-and-authority", "name": "Source and authority", "description": "Who said it, on what evidence, and how strongly.", "findings": [ { "id": "claim-provenance", "name": "Claim provenance and confidence", "description": "The authority behind each claim about a Zen and how confident it is.", "questions": [ { "id": "claim-provenance-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes a claim about a Zen, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "claim-provenance-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about a claim about a Zen, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "claim-provenance-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once a claim about a Zen is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "time-and-versions", "name": "Time, versions and supersession", "description": "When a claim was true, when it was learnt, and what replaced it.", "findings": [ { "id": "validity-and-supersession", "name": "Validity period and supersession", "description": "How an old claim about a Zen is retired without being erased.", "questions": [ { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the validity of a claim about a Zen, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the validity of a claim about a Zen, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the validity of a claim about a Zen is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] } ] }, "statistics": { "bundles": 6, "layers": 12, "findings": 14, "questions": 38 } } } }