佛教發展至宋代，在政教關係、管理制度、宗派平衡等方面都已抵達臨界點，故政府在佛教界的配合下發動了一場影響深遠的改革運動。這次改革一方面加速了「甲乙制」向「十方制」的轉化，另一方面對寺院空間格局進行了整合與重組。改革後的寺院空間更加適應叢林式的集體生活，從而奠定了後世漢傳寺院的基本模式。

Buddhism in Song Dynasty had developed to the extent where the government in cooperation with Buddhist community launched influential reforms in aspects of government-Buddhist relation, managerial system and balancing different sects. The reforms, on the one hand, accelerated the monkish inheritance from the hereditary monastery to a public monastery, and on the other, promoted the space restructuring of the monasteries. The reformed monastery space after reforms conforms more to the collective life in monastery, thus laying solid foundation for the basic mode of the succeeding Chinese monasteries.