History of Zen Buddhism: Paradox and Tension

so today we're going to talk about the history and development of Zen Buddhism coming right up [Music] hey folks so I'm Doug Smith I'm study director at the secular Buddhist Association that secular Buddhism dot-org if you're new to the channel and interested in living wiser and a kinder and a less stress filled life consider subscribing to the channel so many of you will be familiar with Zen Buddhism it's one of the ways that many of us actually look to do what I just said to live wiser and a kinder and a less stressful life is to practice the practices in Zen Buddhism but I think there isn't as much of an understanding or appreciation of the history of Zen and although we don't need to know the history in order to practice at all nevertheless I think it can be interesting at least to learn it now I think it gives us more insight into the practice it gives us more insight into the school it gives us insight into some of the things we'll hear when we go to a Zen doe and listen to talks and I should say for myself I got into Buddhism through Zen when I was actually in grade school reading Cohen's books of Cohen's these sort of paradoxical stories that you will hear in Zen and we'll get to some of those later on and being interested in the the aesthetics the beautiful artwork rock gardens the Zen structures Zen paintings Zen calligraphy there's so much there's so much aesthetically beautiful that comes out of Zen Zen poem Zen koans Zen haikus like Bosch shows narrow road to the deep north which is just a wonderful book and these are things that that got me into the practice now eventually I left that and became much more interested in the early Buddhist belief in practice because I found it a little bit more understandable nevertheless for many peoples then ends up being what they find the most beneficial entrance into Buddhism and so and we'll get to the reef for some of the reasons for that at the end of the video so let's go let's turn to the history and here when we talk about the history we'll go from the more legendary history to the less legendary history because the history of Zen to be sort of wrapped up with myths and legends I think and the legendary history behind the origin of Zen is the the flower sermon the so-called flower sermon so it said that the Buddha at one point raised a flower in front of his group of monastics and the only one who understood this wordlist sermon was mahakasyapa who was one of his monastics one of his monks there was a kind of a direct transmission of doctrine of Dharma from the Buddha to maha kassapa through the rock through the holding up of this flower and that this was a direct transmission of wisdom that was mediated without concepts without words that was simply as it were mind to mind and then the idea is from mahakasyapa it went down the lineage to even the present-day Zen masters so that there was this sort of unbroken lineage of Dharma transmission from one to the other from the Buddha to Maha Shiva and so on this story as a matter of fact the story of the flower sermon is not something we find in the canonical early texts it seems to be 11th century of the Common Era Apocrypha it's an apocryphal text nevertheless I think it does point up several important features within all of Zen first of all we've discussed I've just I've mentioned the sort of non conceptual transmission of the Dharma also the other part of that is the transmission itself where there in order for the Dharma to be to be authentic it has to be transmitted authentically it has to be transmitted directly from teacher to student and so there has to be or there is in Zen a very strong notion of of lineage of master to student over the millennia and so if you go to a Zen doe they will awful a talk of often talk about the lineage and I know in some Zen doze I've been to they will actually chant the lineage at the beginning of a of a sit let's say or of a sermon and I did an earlier lecture on Vajrayana or tantric Buddhism and there there are similarities between Zen and and Navarre on our tantric Buddhism in that regard because in both of these we seem to have a very very important dar transmission because these teachings are if you like secret in both in both cases and now in the case of Vadra Jana of course they're they're literally kept secret in Zen it's not so much that they're secret but but that since they're beyond words since they're non conceptual they're not the sort of things that one can get across in word so they are functionally secret that is they function as secrets or as direct transmissions between two people that the rest of the audience is not included in in the same way we saw with Maha Kashyap on the Buddha in this apocryphal story the rest of the audience missed the teaching entirely to them it was a secret so that's the sort of legendary history of Zen the semi legendary history comes through Bodhidharma who is a an Indian monk monastic who grew up who was raised in the Mahayana tradition supposedly came from India into China sometime around the fifth or sixth century of the Common Era now Bodhi Dharma is I think we could call a semi legendary figure there's not a lot that we know about him that we can be confident about there a lot of what we call hagiographical stories or stories that make him out to be something more than an ordinary human that seemed to puff up his his abilities one of the famous stories is that when he got to China he spent nine years in meditation facing a wall now I mean again it's possible this is true but another hand it has the flavor of of a hagiographical story that was cooked up at some later time and there are various stories about Bodhi Dharma one of them is that he went and talked to one of the Emperor's and the Emperor asked him what is the result of all of my great karmic work on behalf of Buddhism you know pepper clearly expected some kind of effusive praise to come from Bodhi Dharma and instead Bodhi Dharma said that there isn't any any good result at all from anything that you've done the Emperor responded to bodhidharma saying who are you to tell me that and Bodhi Dharma said I don't know and left and that is a I think a pretty classic kind of Zen koans story where it's not clear we make of this and Bodhidharma is immediate successor was named week a and there is also a famous story when we K was able to rate to reach Awakening under Bodhi Dharma because we came to Bodhi Dharma one day and said that he was having trouble meditating that he was that his mind was not stable that his mind was not pacified and so Bodhi Dharma said to qui K well bring me your mind and I'll pacify it for you and week I said well Bodhi Dharma no matter where I look no matter how I try I can't find my mind to bring it to you and then Bodhi Dharma said well that I've pacified it for you and those words apparently led to week as Awakening and this this very story I think highlights some of the paradoxes within Zen that we'll get to later some of the conflicts and contradictions because of course you know to an extent we case awakening did come through words and concepts I mean it was a group of words and concepts that that he and and Bodhi Dharma were exchanging that led to his awakening on the other hand there's a certain sense of which what was being discussed is nonsensical there's a sense in which it's paradoxical it's not the sort of thing you can make make a kind of rational argument about maybe someone less legendary story about the origins of Zen goes back to India probably in the third century will we have the origins of the school of thought in Mahayana called Buddha nature or takata Garba this idea that the Buddha is still around the Buddha did never died the Buddha is in a sense or what's important about the Buddha what's important about the two takata is emptiness is the emptiness that he portrayed that he embodied and that that emptiness is something that we all share that I should that that we share in our minds that kind of luminous empty clear unstained unsullied kind of consciousness it sort of pervades all things and it is in a certain sense the sort of ground of being of the entire universe that kind of view grew up in about the third century of the Common Era in India and was transmitted eventually by people probably Bodhi Dharma was one of them he seems to been a follower of this in India again I'm sorry into China again in in sometime around the 5th 6th century at the end of the 6th century we get the origin of attacks two famous texts not called the the treatise on the two entrances and four practices and that seems to be as much as anything the origin of Zen in China because the Zen originated really in China was called Chon China as in as a Japanese term Chan as the Chinese term it originated Ruffus begin with that tax roughly speaking at the end of the 6th century and this treatise on the to enter two entrances and four practices talks about two entrances to the Dharma and four practices so I'll go through that now the the two entrances the first one is by principle and the second one is by practice and then of course once we get to the second when we get the four practices so principle first the first entrance to the Dharma is by principle and other in other words to understand the principle of wood in nature to understand the principle that we are all really in the ultimate sense Buddha nature that we are all of the nature of the Buddha we're all Buddha's underneath all of our ignorance all of a sort of adventitious ignorant that keeps us in darkness basically the problem with the world is conceptual as are our ideas our language our concepts our experiences these are all mediated through ignorance and that if we can get underneath concepts if we can get underneath perceptions if we can get underneath words and ideas then we can get to this sort of luminous mind this luminous Buddha nature that sort of lies at the base of all of reality and that is non dual in the sense that it provides no distinction between you and me between one person or another between one thing in another it simply is so that's the entrance through principle but there's also an entrance through practice that this has four practices that are recommended the first practice is to accept a misfortune without anger or complaint it mentions because misfortune is due largely to karma but whatever the case the point to accept our misfortune without anger the second practice is to accept our good fortune again without becoming moved without puffing ourselves up it's all of our good fortune just as all of our bad fortune is due to due to causes and conditions in our past and so grasping at them in any respect is going to cause us pain in the future the third practice which is related to the first two is to be without craving don't crave things don't crave things to remain a certain way don't crave for things to change in ways that would make you happy because the craving only makes things worse things will be the way they will be and craving them to be other than they are is simply gonna make a bad situation worse or it's not going to make a good situation any better at least enjoy the good without craving it now these first three are relatively standard Buddhist practices in fact they go right back to early Buddhism the fourth is where we get the Zen flavor which is to practice in accord with the Dharma which is to practice without practicing and I think we can understand that in in terms that Bodhi Dharma talked about with the Emperor where you know if you're practicing by intending to practice by putting effort that is to say getting yourself getting you're getting self involved there then we're not going to be practicing in a way that's completely skillful so the best way to practice is to practice without practicing and I think also with this fourth kind of practice we see one of the ways that Zen became so popular within China in China there are two main philosophies or religions if you like that are indigenous that don't come from outside one of them is Confucianism and the other is Taoism and Taoism is very very close to this to this view that I've just said in the fourth practice Taoism is this idea that our concepts are problematic that our training or a learning from the world are becoming enculturated is all what gives us trouble and that the antidote to that kind of learning and conceptualization and culturation the antidote is to find a more natural way of being in the world a way of being with nature or if you might say being with the Dharma being with the DAO in many ways I believe in Chinese Dharma was translated as Dao for that very reason because these are very similar kinds of terms within their respective philosophies but by being in accord with the Dao without doing it through learning in other words without doing it through conceptualization without doing it through an active form of conceptual practice that was the most authentic way to be in the world we find with this early kind of Zen practice this if you like nascent Zen practice before tea was even called Zen on this nascent Buddhist practice in China was one that would have resonated I think or certainly over time did resonate with with with Chinese people because it was very similar to the Taoist kind of belief in practiced it was already evident in China at the time and in general the notion within Zen is that is that awakenings such as it happens awakening is something that happens non conceptually something that happens if you like in an instant without any real explanation for how it happens it's simply that the right confluence of of causes and conditions come up and the awakening simply arises on its own this is somewhat different from the the picture we get in early Buddhism which is more of a gradual path that involves concepts and learning and and and dedicated focused practice but on the other hand it also is true that that this notion of immediate awakening or Satori as is called in Japanese is sort of a rhetorical device because actually within Zen you do find a lot of evidence of actually long gradual practice - so this is a kind of both and it's both a gradual practice within Zen and it's an immediate practice but it's more directly an immediate or I should say an immediate result awakening is an immediate result it's more immediate than it was really portrayed in the early texts and in general we see within all of Zen this a kind of a arguing against or inveighing against concepts the notion that all of our concepts all of our ways of viewing the world whether they be conceptual or perceptual are all radically misleading or mistaken and so the way to awakening was to get underneath them to get below them to get to get them out of the way to clean the the mirror of our minds and so that it could allow so that it would shine luminously of its of its of itself rather than mediated by concepts and ideas and perceptions that are all misleading and this importantly the all these views that I've talked about up until now and you may have noticed I've led to a number of I think tensions or conflicts within the tradition and I think but there was one main conflict and this involves two separate kinds of approaches here the first is this notion that there's really nothing we need to do in order to achieve awakening anything that we would do quote-unquote would be involving concepts and perceptions and ideas and words and those are all a problems so get them out of the way there's nothing really to do all we need to do is to be aware of the fact that we are already Buddhist that the Buddha nature is within us it's who we are it's who all things are and not only is there nothing to do but there's really nobody to do it because the idea of of you having to do something here's an idea of you as perhaps some kind of a substantial self that is existing apart from the actions and apart from the results and that's also a kind of a dualistic way of thinking and so that's sort of thing we have to get out our mind away from so really the practice is no practice because there is no one to do the practice and there's no practice to be done that's one strain within within Zen from the pretty much from the beginning the other strain which is in conflict with this in certain respects or at least in tension with it is that standardly you become aware of all these features and facts I've just described through dialogue and conversation with a Zen master in other words you don't come to it yourself alone often a field somewhere but it's through dialogue through as we mentioned at the beginning direct transmission from student from from teacher to student that is it requires this direct transmission of Dharma that goes beyond words in the same way that the Buddha supposedly held up the flower and mahakasyapa saw it immediately and understood what the what the message was there has to be a transmission in order for the Trent and in order for the knowledge to be considered authentic it has to be transmitted between a teacher and a student and let's face it often that was done linguistically through words through concepts and this this direct tension between past what we might call passive sitting and active Dharma transmission through words this this tension between these two strains then resulted in the arising of the two major schools of Zen the first one of these schools I'll refer to it by its Japanese name which is more famous as known as the Soto school of Zen arose in this probably in the second half of the 9th century sometime around then and it's known as the school of silent illumination because the idea in Soto practice is that it's the practice of no practice the there's nothing to be done so the practice is to sit is simply to sit much we might say as Bodhi Dharma sat and stared at a wall for nine years the point is simply to sit and so to calm the mind to a state at which it because it can become directly aware to allow the wood in nature as it were to arise within the mind naturally so it's kind of a strategy or practice of bypassing concepts bypassing learning bypassing words by simply sitting or what Dogen called she can't aza simply sitting Dogen being probably one of the most famous Soto Zen masters in Japan the second major school of Zen Buddhism is known at least in the Japanese the more famous and at least in the West it's called Rinzai Zen I believe it's Lin Zhi and Chinese it arose in the second half of the 10th century so about about a century after Soto began to arise in China RINs I began to arise and it was called the school of viewing the phrase and the point here was that instead of sort of bypassing concepts and ideas through simply sitting it was a more a more active approach rather than passive this is more active and the idea was to sort of break our reliance on concepts by providing these kind of shocking paradoxical riddles that were not soluble through normal conceptual means and these are known as Cohen's and in Japanese I believe it's going on in Chinese and these are the ones that we may have we may have heard when we've heard about Zen if we have koans a very famous ones include what's the sound of one hand clapping or the statement if you see the Buddha on the road kill the Buddha or the question what was your face like before your parents were born these are questions that don't admit of rational answers or or at least their situations that don't really don't really compute within the Buddhist system obviously killing the Buddha is something that is the worst thing you can do within Buddhism so what could that possibly mean these are things are supposed to shock us out of our ordinary conceptual ways of thinking because in the case of killing the Buddha for example it seems to be recommended by the co on so the question is how could this be recommended when it's so awful and of course these cones require they require direct conversation with a teacher with a master they're not the sort of things that you can undertake on your own within Rinzai Zen it's only the master who can who can deduce whether you have really solved the riddle by cutting through the the concepts involved in it and getting to the heart of the matter because our ordinary the the the reflexive tendency of our ordinary mind is to try to solve them conceptually and insofar as we're stuck in that kind of tendency now we're not getting to the point of the these cones and the master would never allow us to get away with that instead there's something more like a direct transmission of wisdom like from the Buddha to Maha Kashyap I with the flower by using the cones as kind of a method as a kind of a skillful means to get us to price out of our concepts by using the concepts themselves there's really the notion of making a heroic effort to break this conceptual boundaries or can break the bonds of our concepts whereas in Soto it's very much more this idea of passiveness because there is no practice to be done in rings I there is a practice the practice is a Cohen practice and it's something that is that involves effort it involves really heroic effort and you will often read or hear stories of students with their Zen masters struggling these Cohen's over long periods of time and then when they break through to the right answer that's because they have supposedly attained a kind of awakening what's sometimes called Satori within Japanese the thing is that it's not entirely clear what this way can wake Ihnen constitutes at least from the point of view of let's say early Buddhism or other forms of Buddhism it certainly isn't the complete extinction of greed hatred and ignorance which is the way Awakening is understood in the early system it's something more beyond concepts it's something more extra conceptual it's something closer to an awakening into a sort of a more natural or authentic or dharmic a way of living in the world whatever that might be certainly it does involve a very shocking and deeply moving experience in order to solve a cone you have to get yourself to that place that is certainly part of it but what exactly that is that's a question I think we have to leave perhaps some of you have ideas you can put them down in the comments and a very famous RINs Ireland G master in China da hua Zhang Gao who lived in the 11th and 12th centuries he actually it's I mean I think it's interesting to point out deeply criticized the Soto Zen school of China which Soto being the Japanese term but I'll just use that for convenience sake he criticized it because he felt that it would it was worthless that it didn't actually lead anywhere that's simply sitting and focusing on your breath or just silent sitting she can't Oz's called in Japanese is simply worthless his his feeling was that if he weren't making an effort to break through concepts that all you were doing was basically navel gazing that is to say that awakening for Doc we Zhang Gao required Koh on practice and many Zen practitioners that's the same the difference is that he at the very beginning here at the very early stages back in the 11th to 12th century was already putting very strong critiques to other schools and I think I want to highlight this because I think we may feel that somehow Zen practices beyond arguments and disputes by being by putting concepts to one side and I want to disabuse us of that idea in fact concepts ideas disputes arguments are central to much of Zen belief and practice throughout the centuries and in fact it's often said that Zen is one of the most valuable schools of Buddhism they write a lot there's a lot of written material about Zen in a way that's kind of ironic because you would think that they would write almost nothing but in fact they're there they're right in it as far as concepts goes Zen is also as I've said a highly aesthetic practice it's it's endearing how aesthetically beautiful Zen is and that's a huge draw for many of us even if we may not practice Zen we may love to go to a Zen monastery a Zen temple we may love to read Zen poetry or to see Zen paintings or calligraphy we may have loved to have it in our room just because it is so inspirational and I think so much of it really does a great job of illustrating core Buddhist concepts then in fact I did a earlier lecture on arts and art and Buddhism and where I highlighted Zen I think as one of the outstanding forms of Buddhist art over the years and I'll put a link to that lecture up here and I think for those of us in general who are of a more artistic bent and less sort of interested in in in and reason and concepts the Zen approach to Buddhist practice of Buddhist belief in practice can be absolutely ideal and it's easily secularized as well for those of us less interested in some of the more speculative concepts within Buddhism because then is so antagonistic to or at least questioning of ordinary concepts they're also going to question the more speculative concepts within good and so if we're practicing in a Zen monastery and don't happen to be affected by or care much about issues like rebirth or active karma will often find that we're in an environment where that doesn't matter because that's not really the point so I hope that this has been useful to you and given you some ideas for living a wiser and a kinder and a less stress filled life and if you have Zen doze near you consider going to one if you haven't already because they can be oftentimes great inspirations great to have you all here and I hope to catch you on the next one of these videos meanwhile be well

Channel: Doug's Dharma

Views: 97,054

Rating: 4.9076805 out of 5

Keywords: buddhism, buddhist, buddha, secular buddhism, secularbuddhism.org, secular buddhist association, doug's secular dharma, secular dharma, philosophy, secularism, secularbuddhism, zen buddhism, zen buddhism explained, history of zen buddhism, what is zen buddhism, what is zen, zen buddhism for beginners

Id: lRAW-GN4TUA

Length: 27min 18sec (1638 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 03 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/DirtyMangos]

Ha! Turns out listening to and quoting masters is more Buddhist while Soto (Dogen) is more original Chan (16 min/in). Pewk had it backwards all along. Those of you in his little cult have been following a moron. Way to go. lol.

[u/ewk]

The rest of the audience is not included.

This is simply not accurate. Zen Masters aren't keeping people out, and there are potentially many people in the audience who understand. Transmission refers to somebody understand for the first time if "transmission" relates to Cases/koans at all.

Nine years facing the wall

This has been misrepresented by Dogen Buddhists as a matter of doctrine.

Huike came to Bodhidharma "because he had trouble meditating".

100% wrong. Zen Masters don't teach that... it's a complete misreading of the story, with "meditation" added in.

Paradoxical

No. Paradox is a logical value, it's not anything to do with Zen.

Unstained, unsullied

Classical Gnostic Buddhism. Much like Christianity's Original Sin, certain branches of Buddhism see a fallen, sinful state. Zen doesn't have that.

Two Entrances, Four Practices

Zen Masters don't quote this text. No evidence that Bodhidharma wrote it.

That was about the 15 minute mark, where I gave up...

Note:

1. So far he doesn't seem to have quoted a single Zen Master.
2. He hasn't identified the texts written by Zen Masters, which form the foundation of the only legit history of Zen.
3. He hasn't defined "Buddhism", or said what "Buddhists believe", or linked Buddhism to Zen.

[u/[deleted]]

It seemed a man attempting to explain a thing he did not understand so he could get to the part where he could talk about that which he found very interesting, but still did not understand. He lost me at ro.. flower.