Zen expected to become familiar with the classics of the Zen canon". A review of the early historical documents and literature of early Zen masters clearly reveals that they were well versed in numerous Mahāyāna Buddhist sūtras, including Madhyamaka. Especially the Lotus Sutra played a large role in the development of East Asian Buddhism, including Zen. Nevertheless, Zen is often pictured as anti-intellectual. This picture of Zen emerged during the Song Dynasty (960–1297), when Chán became the dominant form of Buddhism in China, and gained great popularity among the educated and literary classes of Chinese society. The use of koans, which
Opportunistic reasoning Opportunistic reasoning Opportunistic reasoning is a method of selecting a suitable logical inference strategy within artificial intelligence applications. Specific reasoning methods may be used to draw conclusions from a set of given facts in a knowledge base, e.g. forward chaining versus backward chaining. However, in opportunistic reasoning, pieces of knowledge may be applied either forward or backward, at the "most opportune time". An opportunistic reasoning system may combine elements of both forward and backward reasoning. It is useful when the number of possible inferences is very large and the reasoning system must be responsive to new data that may become