Zen Buddhism is based on the practice of meditation to achieve enlightenment status. Known simply as Zen, this form of Buddhism began formalization in China way back in the 6 C.E. and its founding is attributed to Bodhidharma, an Indian monk who introduced it to the Chinese. Zen spread quickly in China and flourished during the ‘Golden Age’, and was introduced to Japan and Korea by 13th Century.
During it’s early years of practice, Zen drew a lot of influences from the Taoism religion that was already widespread in China. For this reason, it is considered a combination of Mahayana Buddhism and Taoism. When it was taken to Japan in the thirteenth century, it took some time to catch on but became the most prominent Buddhism sect by the 16th century.
It’s often difficult to explain the concept of Zen. But first, the word Zen itself is the Japanese term for ‘meditation’. The Chinese equivalent for Zen is “Ch’an”. The practice of Zen Buddhism differs in some ways to traditional Buddhism. While the focus of Zen is to achieve a state of enlightenment through meditation, traditional Buddhism actually places a lot of emphasis on the need for high self-discipline combined with meditation and instruction. And while Zen believes that enlightenment can happen to human beings while still alive, traditional Buddhism only believes in after-death enlightenment.
Lately, Zen has gained much acceptance in the west and several schools teaching the practice exist in Europe and North America. But it was not until after the Second World War that the West began to embrace Zen which has five distinctive schools, two of them known as Soto and Rinzai in Japanese.
In china, Japan, Korea and Vietnam, Zen has great impact today on the people’s way of life. It has influenced their music, poetry, art and even ways of arranging flowers. This is also taking root in the West.
Zen Buddhism Beliefs and Principles as Practiced
Zen emphasizes on the need to be spontaneous in thought. While meditating, one should not await enlightenment, but rather expect it to happen spontaneously. In practice, people will just “sit” and try to clear the mind of any distracting thoughts. This would be so as to focus completely on the ultimate aim: discovery of oneself. To achieve this, the mind has to very clear but still not attempt to reason out.
The essence of Zen Buddhism is centered on self-knowledge. It is believed that a human being is a Buddha, or simply truly human in nature. The Buddha must look within them, as that is only where the truth lies. The truth cannot exist outside of oneself. This means that all questions we ask of ourselves as human beings have the answers – the enlightmet within us.
There’s also a lot of emphasis on the need for simplicity. Simplicity exists within nature, and it works to stimulate the mind and the emotions. For instance, a beautifully done silver plate would do great in pleasing the human senses, whereas a simple, roughly finished wooden plate owned by a poor person would arouse the emotions to bring out true human feelings.
Human beings have the need to discover themselves, and this truth already exists. As such, Zen does not believe in the use of spiritual scriptures or performing religious rights and rituals, which will in the end, not lead to the discovery of any truth. It is actually all about what people do, something that cannot be described in words. Zen considers using words for explanation as a form of slavery.
Apart from the bar on using words, the pupil is also advised not to try out rationalizing as a means of finding the truth. In that case, intellectual thinking and philosophical reasoning methods are strongly prohibited. Only by engaging the mind to look inside oneself can the truth be discovered. And it doesn’t matter how long it takes for that to happen. Pupils who go contrary to this principle incur the wrath of their masters, who may resort to a degree physical violence in an attempt discipline them.
Learning Zen
As books and other written forms should not be used to learn Zen Buddhism, the only true and accepted way for a student to master Ch’an is through a teacher. These teachers, if genuine have the ability trace their own lineage of teachers all the way back to the Bodhidharna, who is considered my many as the father of the practice. They could also trace their lineage even father backwards to the Historical Buddha. Of course, all this is based on faith.
The teachers only accept the modest term “teacher” and not “master” as many people who do not understand Zen like to call them. This fact can be a defining factor in distinguishing genuine teachers from the fake ones; anyone claiming to be a master is highly unlikely to be genuine. Still, a lot of learning and reference material is available on the web and in the form of books in the West.
Pupils of Zen are taught to approach truth and enlightenment by their mental actions and steer away from intellectual or philosophical efforts. Some schools believe in spontaneous occurrences of enlightenment, while others believe this to be a continuous process.
Zazen Meditation
“Zazen” is a Japanese word that represents the meditation practice. This forms the foundation on which Zen is entirely based on. While Zazen can be learned through books and instructive videos, the best way to improve on it is by doing it together with other people to get even more absorbed.
Beginners first learn breathing techniques that are necessary for maximizing concentration. This is not so easy to achieve and take a few months to reach a great level of ability to concentrate. Once the desired level is reached, the next action is to just sit, or study koan (involving face-face presentation of a case to a student by a teacher. Intellect should not, and cannot be used to solve this). Zazen is an important part of Zen Buddhism as this is how mind-training occurs, leading to an intimate path of self discovery and enlightenment.
