Zen

Spread of Zen

Traditionally, Zen traces its roots back to Indian Buddhism, where it was known by "dhyāna" (ध्यान), a Sanskrit term for meditation. This name was transliterated into Chinese as Chán (禪 / simplified 禅); "Chán" was later borrowed into Korean as Seon, Vietnamese as Thiền and into Japanese as "Zen."

According to traditional accounts, Zen was founded in China by a Central Asian or Indian Buddhist monk, Bodhidharma (Daruma in Japanese). He was the 28th in the line of transmission from the Buddha's disciple Kasyapa. He traveled from Conjeeveram, near Madras (now Chennai), India, to Guangzhou (Canton), China in 520, where he met the Liang-dynasty (502-557) emperor Wudi and had a famous exchange declaring that good deeds were useless (conferred no merit) for gaining enlightenment. He then went to a monastery near Luoyang in eastern China and, according to legend, spent nine years meditating before a cliff wall before accepting any disciples.

As a legendary culture hero Bodhidharma has also been linked to the Shaolin Temple and the subsequent spread of East Asian martial arts in the oral traditions of schools like Karate and T'ai Chi Ch'uan, as well as in much popular wuxia fiction.

Later, Korean monks studying in China learned what was by then called Chan, and which had by then been influenced somewhat by Chinese Taoism. After the tradition was expanded to Korea, it came to be called Seon there. Korean monks then brought it to Japan around the seventh century, where it came to be called Zen.

It is important to note, however, that Chan, Seon and Zen continued to develop separately in their home countries, and all maintain separate identities to this day. Although lineage lines in China, Korea, Japan and elsewhere appear to show direct descent from Bodhidharma, changes in belief and practice have inevitably appeared with the profusion of Chan/Seon/Zen.

The Japanese Zen scholar D.T. Suzuki maintained that a Zen satori (awakening) was the goal of the training, but that what distinguished the tradition as it developed in China, Korea, and Japan was a way of life radically different from that of Indian Buddhists. In India, the tradition of the mendicant (holy beggar, bhikku in Pali) prevailed, but in China social circumstances led to the development of a temple and training-center system in which the abbot and the monks all performed mundane tasks. These included food gardening or farming, carpentry, architecture, housekeeping, administration, and the practice of folk medicine. Consequently, the enlightenment sought in Zen had to stand up well to the demands and potential frustrations of everyday life.

Zen in Japan

The following Zen traditions still exist in Japan: Rinzai, Soto, and Obaku. Originally formulated by the eponymous Chinese master Linji (Rinzai in Japanese), the Rinzai school was introduced to Japan in 1191 by Eisai. Dogen, who studied under Eisai, would later carry the Caodong, or "Soto" Zen school to Japan from China. Obaku was introduced in the 17th century by Ingen, an Chinese monk.

Some contemporary Japanese zen teachers, such as Daiun Harada and Shunryu Suzuki have criticized Japanese Zen as being a formalized system of empty rituals with very few Zen practitioners ever actually attaining realization. They assert that almost all Japanese temples have become family businesses handed down from father to son, and the Zen priest's function has largely been reduced to officiating at funerals.

Zen and Buddhism

Zen is not necessarily a Buddhist religion (but see the next section on Practices). There are a number of non-Buddhists, particularly Christians, who have been acknowledged as Zen masters. Zen is a way of life. And this way of life depends on no externals. At the same time the institutions that support Zen practice have historically all been Buddhist. Even today there are very few non-Buddhist Zen teachers and fewer organizations to support non-Buddhist practice. So, for all practical purposes Zen is Zen Buddhism.

Though Zen meditation practice does derive from the Buddha's original Eightfold Path teaching, where dhyana is one element of the eightfold way, Zen has been occasionally criticized by other Buddhists for not adequately emphasizing the other elements of the Eightfold Path and for not emphasizing study of the traditional Buddhist canon or for being ignorant of or unconcerned with Buddhist philosophy in general.

Such claims are often overpublicized. In practice, most Zen teachers, monks and centers have good relationships with those of other Buddhist schools and often cooperate with them. Much of those claims is probably due to the personal, sometimes paradoxal and often disconcerting methods of transmission that Zen uses.

Zen teachings and practices

Zen teachings often criticize textual study and the pursuit of worldly accomplishments, concentrating primarily on meditation in pursuit of an unmediated awareness of the processes of the world and the mind. Zen, however, is no mere quietistic doctrine: the Chinese Chan master Baizhang (720-814 CE), (Japanese: Hyakujo), left behind a famous saying which had been the guiding principle of his life, "A day without work is a day of no eating." When Baizhan was thought to be too old to work in the garden, his devotees hid his gardening tools. In response to this, the master then refused to eat, saying "No working, no living."

These teachings are in turn deeply rooted in the Buddhist textual tradition, drawing primarily on Mahāyāna sutras composed in India and China, particularly the Heart Sutra, the Diamond Sutra, the Lankavatara Sutra, and the Samantamukha Parivarta, a chapter of the Lotus Sutra. The body of Zen doctrine also includes the recorded teachings of masters in the various Zen traditions.

Zen is not primarily an intellectual philosophy nor a solitary pursuit. Zen centers emphasize practice: meticulous daily practice, and intense and demanding retreats. Practicing with others is valued as a way to avoid the traps of ego. In explaining the Zen Buddhist path to Westerners, Japanese Zen teachers have frequently pointed out, moreover, that Zen is a way of life and not solely a state of consciousness. D.T. Suzuki wrote that the aspects of this life were: a life of humility; a life of labor; a life of service; a life of prayer and gratitude; and a life of meditation.

Zazen

Zen meditation is called zazen. Zazen translates approximately to "sitting meditation", although it can be applied to practice in any posture. During zazen, practitioners usually assume a lotus, half-lotus, Burmese, or seiza sitting position. Rinzai practitioners typically sit facing the center of the room, while Soto practitioners sit facing a wall. Awareness is directed towards complete cognizance of one's posture and breathing. In this way, practitioners seek to transcend thought and be directly aware of the universe.

In Soto, shikantaza meditation ("just-sitting") that is, a meditation with no objects, anchors, "seeds," or content, is the primary form of practice. Considerable textual, philosophical, and phenomenological justification of this practice can be found in Dogen's Shobogenzo.

The teacher

Because the Zen tradition emphasizes direct communication over scriptural study, the role of the Zen teacher is crucial. Generally speaking, a Zen teacher is a person ordained in any tradition of Zen to teach the dharma, guide students of meditation and perform rituals; in some cases, especially in modern western Zen movements, a person not ordained may be able to fulfill some or all of these roles. Part of the myth of Zen is "Dharma transmission," the claim of a line of authority that goes back to the Buddha. While this is mythic, particularly the Indian lineage, it becomes a historical fact within the formal Zen movement since the Middle Ages. All Zen teachers stand within one lineage or another.

Honorific titles associated with teachers typically include, in Chinese: Fashi (法師) or Chanshi (禪師); in Korean, Sunim or Seon Sa; in Japanese: Osho (priest) Roshi (old master) or Sensei (teacher); and in Vietnamese, Thich adopted in place of a surname. Note that many of these titles are common among Buddhist priests of all schools present in the specific cultural context. Some titles, such as the Japanese sensei are also used beyond the Buddhist schools.

The term Zen master is often used to refer to important teachers, especially ancient and medieval ones. However, there is no specific criterion by which one can be called a Zen master. The term is less common in reference to modern teachers, because they are generally reluctant to proclaim themselves "masters." At the same time these teachers willingly acknowledge their lineage connections, naming who authorized them as teachers.

This is important as there are a number of people in the west, some leading relatively large centers, who claim to be Zen teachers but who will not say where they trained or who authorized them to teach. This is a radical departure from normative Zen where "lineage" is considered crucial. As such it is reasonable to assume such people are not what they claim to be. People seeking a teacher should be aware that there are a surprisingly large number of such self-declared masters.

Some schools such as the Kwan Um publish lists of their teachers. The American Zen Teachers Association is in the process of providing lists of their members at the Association's website. When posted, while not a complete record of legitimately authorized Zen teachers in North America, it will be an enormous help to those attempting to find people who at least have formal authorization in some traditional lineage.

Of course even formal authorization should not be considered "enough." The moral lapses of any number of contemporary Zen teachers should be a warning in this regard. As the relationship between a teacher and a student requires complete intimacy and a profound trust on the part of the student, any one seriously considering studying with a Zen teacher should read widely about the prospective teacher, ask people who've studied Zen for some years, do web searches, and perhaps most importantly look closely at the teacher's students. Much can be discovered in such simple acts.

Koan practice

for wú (Japanese: mu).
The Zen schools (especially but not exclusively Rinzai) are associated
with koans (Japanese; Chinese: gongan; Korean: gong'an). The
term originally referred to legal cases in
Tang-dynasty China.

In some sense, a koan embodies a realized principle, or law of reality. Koans often appear paradoxical or linguistically meaningless. The 'answer' to the koan involves a transformation of perspectve or consciousness, which may be either radical or subtle, akin to the experience of metanoia in Christianity.

An example of a Zen koan is: "Two hands clap and there is
a sound. What is the sound of one hand?" It is sometimes said that
after diligent practice, the practitioner and the koan become one.
Though most Zen groups aim for a "sudden" enlightenment, this usually
comes only after a great deal of preparation.

For examples of 'successful' koan practice resulting in enlightenment experiences, see the anecdotes of Rinzai koan practice recounted in the book 'The Three Pillars of Zen' by Philip Kapleau. For examples of years of futile and fruitless koan practice see the book 'After Zen' by Janwillem van de Wetering.

Zen teachers advise that the problem posed by a koan is to be taken quite seriously, and to be approached quite literally as a matter of life and death. There is a sharp distinction between right and wrong ways of answering a koan — though there may be many "right answers", practitioners are expected
to demonstrate their understanding of the koan and of Zen with their whole being.

The Zen student's mastery of a given koan is presented to the teacher
in a private session (called dokusan in Japanese). The answer to a
koan is more dependent on "how" it is answered rather than the
correctness of the answer. Or, to put it somewhat differently, the
answer is a function not merely of a reply, but of a whole
modification of the student's experience; he or she must live the
answer to the koan rather than merely offering a correct statement.

There is no single correct answer for any given koan, though there may
be a set of correct and a set of incorrect answers, and, indeed,
students in a cheating mindset would often compile books of
accepted answers to koans to help prepare for the interview. These
collections are of great value to modern scholarship on the subject.

Some Zen teachers advise that traditional Zen koan practice is not for everyone, and that it may be too foreign for most westerners to relate to sufficiently to get 'results'. Consequently, some western Zen teachers have been known to use some of the paradoxical sayings from the Bible, for those western students who have an affinity for it, to meditate on as a form of koan practice.

Radical teachings

Some of the traditional zen fables describe Zen masters using controversial methods of 'teaching', which modern zen enthusiasts may have a tendency to interpret too literally. For example, though Zen and Buddhism deeply respect life and teach non-violence, the founder of the Zen Rinzai school, Linji said: "If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha. If you meet a Patriarch, kill the Patriarch."
A contemporary Zen Master, Seung Sahn, has echoed this teaching in saying that in this life we must all 'kill' three things: first we must kill parents; second we must kill Buddha; and last, we must kill the zen teacher (e.g. Seung Sahn). Of course, kill here is not literally killing. What is meant is to kill one's devotion to teachers or other external objects. Rather than see concepts outside of themselves, zen practitioners must integrate these objects with their concepts of self.

When visiting Zen centers people who began with the stories featuring apparent iconoclastic encounters are often disapointed. In practice, most zen centers in the west, like their counterparts in the east emphasize regular meditation on both a daily basis and in retreat as well as a discpline based in practice schedules, and everyday household chores such as cooking, cleaning, and gardening as the path of enlightenment.

Zen and Western culture

Since the 1930s in the United Kingdom, and at least since the
1950s in the United States, the West has had a growing interest
in Zen. The Expressionist and Dada movements in art tend to
have much in common thematically with the study of koans and
actual Zen.

The British-American philosopher Alan Watts had a personal
interest in the Zen school of Buddhism and wrote and lectured
extensively on it. He was interested in it as a vehicle for a mystical
transformation of consciousness, and also in the historical example of
a non-Western, non-Christian way of life that had
fostered both the practical and fine arts.

The Dharma Bums, a novel written by Jack Kerouac and
published in 1959, gave its readers a look at how a fascination
with Buddhism and Zen was being absorbed into lifestyle
experimentation by a small group of mainly west-coast American
youths. Besides the narrator, the main character in this novel was
Gary Snyder, thinly veiled as "Japhy Ryder" by his friend
Kerouac. The story was based on actual events that occurred when
Snyder pursued formal Zen studies in Japanese monasteries between
1956 and 1968.

Many youths in the Beat generation and among the hippies of the
1960s and 1970s misunderstood the goals and methods of Zen.
While the scholar D.T. Suzuki may have brought attention to
concepts in Zen such as humility, labor, service, prayer, gratitude,
and meditation, the "hip" subculture often focused on states of
consciousness in themselves. Japanese Zen master
Zenkei Shibayama commented: "It may be true that the effect which
such scientifically prepared drugss [as LSD] produce
may have some superficial resemblance to some aspects of Zen
experience.... When the effect of the drug is gone, the psychological
experience one may have had is also weakened and dispersed, and does
not endure as a living fact."

The book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by
Robert M. Pirsig, deals with the notion of "quality" from the
point of view of the main character. The book is largely based on the
author's experience with archery instruction. Pirsig explains in
the book that, despite its title, the book "should in no way be associated
with that great body of factual information relating to orthodox Zen Buddhist
practice."

Many modern students have made the mistake of thinking that since much
of Zen sounds like nonsense, especially in translation and out of
context, any clever nonsense is also Zen. This is not the case
— see koan — although the Church of the SubGenius
and especially Discordianism have been influenced by this idea.

More "main stream" forms of Zen, led by teachers who trained in East Asia or were trained by such teachers have begun to take root in the west. In North America the largest "lineages" are derived from the Japanese Soto school, followed in number by the Korean derived Kwan Um School of Zen. There are also a number of Japanese derived Rinzai centers and a few centers based in Chinese Chan. The Vietnamese teacher Thich Nhat Hanh has developed the Order of Interbeing, an independent school that combines Zen with other disciplines. There is now an American Zen Teachers Association, which gathers the majority of Zen teachers in North America and sponsors an annual conference. Soto lineages teachers in North America have also recently formed a Soto Zen Buddhist Association where they are exploring the possibilities of a "western Soto."

See also

Hakuin Ekaku

Huangbo Xiyun

karesansui

Ryokan

Tathagatagarbha doctrine

External links

Open Directory Project: Zen Centers

Digital Dictionary of Buddhism

Zen Buddhism WWW Virtual Library