Zen

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Zen refers to both Zen Buddhism and ordinary Zen. Zen Buddhism is the Japanese name of a well known branch of Mahāyāna Buddhism, practiced especially in China, Japan, Vietnam and Korea. Ordinary Zen is guided by the teachings of Buddhism but has removed the Buddha as an iconic figurehead (to emphasize that reality itself is the only true teacher). Zen stresses the role of meditation in pursuing enlightenment. Because Zen is the common name in Japanese as well as in English, this article will concern itself both with Zen as practiced in Japan and with Zen as an international phenomenon. For information specific to Asian countries other than Japan, please follow the appropriate links above.

Contents

1 Spread of Zen

2 Zen in Japan

3 Zen teachings and practices

3.1 Zazen
3.2 Koan practice

4 "Zen" in Western pop-culture

5 See also

6 External links

7 Further reading

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); "Chán" was later transliterated into Korean as Seon, Vietnamese as Thien and then into Japanese as "Zen."

According to these traditional accounts, an Indian monk named Bodhidharma brought Zen Buddhism to China in the fifth century. Later, Korean monks studying in China learned of Zen and spread it as far as Japan around the seventh century.

Zen in Japan

Zen
Chinese Name
Pinyin	Chán
Wade-Giles	Ch'an
Chinese	禪
Japanese Name
Romaji	Zen
Kanji	禅
Korean Name
Revised Romanization	Seon
McCune-Reischauer	Sŏn
Hangul	선
Hanja	禪
Sanskrit Name
Sanskrit	ध्यान dhyāna

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, a Chinese monk.

Zen teachings and practices

Zen teachings often criticize textual study and the pursuit of wordly 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 Zen master Baizhang (720-814 CE), (Japanese: Hyakujo), left behind a famous saying which had been the guiding principal of his life, "A day without work is a day of no eating." When Hyakujo 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.

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 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, sometimes translated as "just-sitting," i.e., 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.

Koan practice

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 but are not meant to be apprehended rationally. Rather, Zen practitioners are said to recognize and actualize a koan in experience. An example of a Zen koan: "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.

According to some interpretations, koans are by design absolute nonsense. This is in an effort to exhaust the intellect. Once the intellect is no longer relied upon, then enlightenment is more readily received or apprehended. However, other accounts hold that the problem posed by a koan is quite serious, and there there is a sharp distinction between right and wrong answers to it.

The principle in more detail, is that the only way one can stop the intellect from getting in the way of achieving enlightment is to force it to consider impossible scenarios (the koans) until it finally realizes the futility and gives up entirely. Once the intellect is out of the way, enlightenment is more readily attained. Though Rinzai aims for a "sudden" enlightenment, this usually only comes after a great deal of preparation.

The Zen student's mastery of a given koan is presented to the teacher (Roshi) in a private session called dokusan. 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.

"Zen" in Western pop-culture

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, but see Discordianism and the Church of the SubGenius for modern semiserious religions influenced by this idea.