What is Zen Buddhism?

it is a universal truth that all religions whether their adherents want to admit it or not change and evolve over time and space as a religion enters a new cultural sphere it inevitably is going to adjust and change based on that meeting Buddhism is of course no different and is indeed a religion where this phenomenon is very clearly visible Buddhism for different reasons has really had an ability to diversify and adapt existing religious and cultural features in different parts of the world into its own symbolic sphere it won't be news to anyone that Buddhism in different parts of the world can look well very different and in East Asia where Buddhism has arguably been the strongest and most widespread across history there are some really unique and fasting features that are well unique to that particular region and the Buddhism that flourished and developed there and one of the most significant and influential schools of Buddhism across history and today from East Asia is the tradition known as Chan Buddhism also known perhaps more widely by its Japanese name Zen Buddhism foreign [Music] most westerners think about Buddhism they imagine a religion primarily concerned with silent sitting meditation and perhaps with the famous Quran riddles all of these perceptions of Buddhism come from the influence of a single Branch or School of Buddhism Zen Buddhism indeed the image most quote-unquote westerners have of Buddhism is shaped perhaps by primarily at least by two things Zen Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism not only are these two very different from each other there are also only two schools within a religious tradition that is much more diverse and complex than that so much has this particular kind of Buddhism entered Western Consciousness that the word zen itself has become a kind of go-to word to describe something or someone that is in a calm or meditative content state that isn't to say that it isn't an important part of Buddhism which it absolutely is Zen is and has been one of the most widespread popular and prominent schools of Buddhism in East Asia in places like Japan in Korea where it is called son in Vietnam where it is known as Tien and in China where it originated and where it is known as Chan this word chan is actually a Chinese version of the originally Sanskrit term vyana which is usually translated as something like meditation and this name thus gives us the first clue to the characteristics of this tradition just like many people might assume it is a form of Buddhism very much focused on practice and on meditation practice in particular there were other prominent schools of Buddhism including the popular Chinese Tian Thai that were much more Scholastic in nature focusing on translated Buddhist texts and commentaries and interpretations of those texts to reach a kind of correct Doctrine Chan appeared as a reaction to that and with a much different focus on teacher-student transmission and actual experience and practice direct experience and practice taught by a teacher to a student in this kind of lineage of teachers but we should probably back up a little bit first before we dive into Chan itself I assume you know the basics of Buddhism since we don't have time to go through that properly here the religion originated in India with the figure Siddhartha Gautama known as the Buddha or the enlightened one he taught the four noble truths that life is suffering or dissatisfaction duka in in Pali that there is a reason for a solution to that suffering and offered a technique of ending that suffering a state or concept known as Nirvana which according to many isn't actually a state at all but anyways this technique of ending duka involves the so-called eight-fold path and adherence to the three jewels or three Treasures of Buddhism the Buddha as a kind of Exemplar the Dharma or the teachings of the Buddha and the Sangha the Buddhist community for a really great introduction to Buddhism as a whole check out my friend and fellow religious studies content creator Andrew Henry's amazing videos on the channel religion for breakfast which are again simply fantastic in any case after the death of the Buddha Buddhism sped far and wide and became very popular first in India itself of course but before long it had spread to other parts of the world including China where it became a dominant religious tradition alongside taoism and Confucianism and as Buddhism spread to China and gradually adjusted and accommodated itself to that cultural climate it came to develop some truly unique features so that Chinese or East Asian Buddhism very much has its own kind of flavor first of all the kind of Buddhism that came to China is the branch known as Mahayana which means great vehicle for much of History this school has stood alongside teravada as the two major branches of the religion with a possible third inclusion of vajrayana Buddhism as we talked about in our previous episode about the Buddhist scholar nagajuna different regions have been and still are dominated by different branches teravada which means something like the school of the elders is the dominant form of Buddhism in places like Cambodia Thailand Myanmar and Sri Lanka whereas Mahayana the largest school of Branch today dominates in places like China Japan Vietnam Nepal and Malaysia the history of Buddhism in China is a long one already during the Han Dynasty in the last centuries BC Buddhist monks had made their way there and in the first centuries A.D or CE Buddhism was already a significant presence Buddhist personalities and texts would make their way across the Silk Road from India to the Far East where the many sutras of the Buddha would gradually be translated into Chinese as we saw it was Mahayana Buddhism that became especially prominent here and by the 6th to 7th centuries they started developing homegrown schools and forms of Buddhism unique to China mostly these were Scholastic schools dedicated to the elucidation of Buddhist scriptures such as the Tian Thai School known in Japan as tendai the Hawaiian or flower ornament and the famous tingtu or pure land Buddhism which is still very strong today and it was in this same environment that Chan developed which we will get to soon Buddhism in China and East Asia really is unique in many ways even though it shares many core features with other forms of the religion there developed new ideas and specific things were emphasized here probably partly in response to the already existing local religions and culture when we talk about Mahayana Buddhism or East Asian Mahayana in particular there are a few things that are Central and which really characterize this kind of Buddhism primarily the bodhisattva ideal and the teachings about Buddha nature the ideal of the bodhisattva is one of the main things that distinguishes Mahayana from theravada indeed while the goal for a theravada Buddhist is essentially to become an arhat to reach nirvana and be liberated from samsara the cycle of death and rebirth Mahayana has another goal which is essentially focused on compassion the highest aim is to become a bodhisattva a borisatva is a person that has attained Awakening but still decides to so to say stay in the world of change to help others reach Awakening with the ultimate goal of everyone eventually being liberated there are many bodhisattvas in this system and they often take on a role similar to deities and other religions the goal here isn't to quote unquote escape the world but to live compassionately and virtuously in it something that will also be very important in Chan Buddhism in particular in fact in a lot of Chinese Buddhism the whole concept of Nirvana is interpreted in a way that is surprising to many there is in fact no Nirvana as understood as a particular State event or happening Nirvana isn't some otherworldly place or state of experience a Liberation from this world instead Nirvana is all of this right now everything is nirvana all the time this brings us to that second characteristic of Chinese Mahayana Buddhism the idea of Buddha nature at its core this is essentially the idea that Liberation is available to everyone at all times it isn't just specific people who have access to it those who have lived a certain collection of past lives and accumulated the karma required to reach it it isn't just monks who spend their whole life meditating in a monastery everyone can reach Awakening and right now this is because everything takes part in Buddha nature everyone is a potential Buddha because the very nature of the Buddha and of Liberation is present everywhere including in ourselves this Doctrine which is often known as tataga tagarba has been interpreted differently by different schools of Buddhism but the basic idea remains and while the term I just used is sanskrit and precursors to the idea may have appeared in India it is an idea that is strongly associated with Chinese and East Asian Buddhism in particular but in general the ideas of Buddha nature are strongly connected to the concept of emptiness or shunyata which we have explored deeply in a previous episode Buddhism teaches that everything is non-permanent that is it temporary everything is always changing it also posits the idea of no self that there is no inherent self or core to human beings or ultimately to anything the idea of the eye or the self as a fixed independent reality is an illusion the doctrine of emptiness Associated primarily with the Thinker nagajuna went even further by stating that everything is empty there are no Essences in the world at all now it should be remembered that emptiness does not mean nothingness instead what emptiness teaches is that all things are interdependent on all other things there is no independent reality or Essence to anything because any quote unquote thing we imagine is only a series of happenings related to other things the necessary consequence of the fact that everything is empty is its backside that everything is everything else that any single thing is simultaneously all of reality because it partakes of an infinitely interconnected web of events in other words it's a kind of non-dualism but one that neglects any idea of a absolute reality as such such as the Brahman of Hinduism it is very even nagarjuna in his writings are they are very careful not to posit that there is this Ultimate Reality similar to to the to the Brahman or the Atman in Hinduism there is no Ultimate Reality nothing has independent or fixed existence as such everything is empty but since everything is connected and everything is interdependent on everything else there's a kind of non-duality inherent in that idea too when we look at a tree there is no tree there as in a specific thing called the tree that's only a mental Construction on the other hand the positive outcome of that is that when we look at a tree we're looking at something that is infinitely connected to everything else that tree would not be what it is without the soil from which it grows without the Sun that gives it light and enables it to grow without the planet's specific distance from the Sun that gives it just the right heat to be able to grow the Sun and its particular place in the galaxy and literally everything else which together make that tree what it is and with that which it would be nothing in other words when we look at the tree we are looking simultaneously at emptiness at no thing at all and we are looking at a particular manifestation and showing of the entirety of reality appearing at that specific moment as something we call a tree in any case because everything is interconnected in this way every individual quote-unquote thing being part of everything else this has significant consequences because after all the Buddha lived at one point and since the Buddha lived and achieved Liberation everything is the Buddha and everything is Liberation because everything is interconnected and everything contains everything else that means that everything contains Nirvana and Buddha in other words the Buddha nature this is why Liberation is available to anyone it's right here all the time not in some distant place or other world but right here and now this idea of Buddha nature as a common feature of all reality is a central aspect of Chinese Buddhism and shows up in slightly different ways in all the schools of Buddhism that would emerge here now the school that we know as Chan developed in this very fruitful period of religious and philosophical activity that we have discussed around the 6th through 9th centuries and in many ways it's a kind of response to the approaches of the other schools there are two ways in which we can approach the history and origins in particular of Chan Buddhism the scholarly historically critical one and the traditional internal one because indeed the way that the history of chamber Buddhism is told within the tradition itself contains many aspects that we would consider legendary or at least semi-legendary and stories and aspects that is or that are very hard to to verify with you know the historical critical method that we can be sure are true or not myths for example according to this classical account there is a direct line of Chan Patriarchs that stretches back all the way to the Buddha himself so the Chand Buddhism puts a huge emphasis on on lineage and teaches student relationship and they believe that this lineage of teachers goes back all the way to the Buddha much of this is hard to verify scientifically though when many scholars today instead hold the view that Sean Buddhism actually emerged in a more eclectic way different meditation Masters in different parts of China with similar outlooks around the 6th 7th Century that sort of grew and eventually so coalesced into into a unified school in a certain sense and these stories about the Patriarchs are probably projections later on to to sort of unify and and create a more coherent story of the origins of the tradition nonetheless these are the two kind of different versions of of the story but if we explore the traditional accounts in particular while of course keeping in mind the some of the questionable historicity we found some really fascinating stories and and characters that are at the core of the history and origins of John Buddhism Chan traces its lineage to the Buddha himself of course but in particular to one of his prominent followers mahakashapa he was an important figure in the earliest Buddhist community and is often seen as the first Chan or zen master and often told story really encapsulates this role of his and some of the basics of Chan teachings in this story the Buddha gathers his followers to hold a talk or a speech but the eager students are surprised when the Buddha doesn't say anything at all instead just sitting there in complete silence holding up a flower in his hand everyone is perplexed and tries to understand what's going on is the Buddha sick is this a kind of trick of some sort everyone that is except mahakashipa instead when he sees the Buddha holding up the flower in silence he breaks into a smile the Buddha then Praises him saying that he's the only one that is truly understood his teachings this really says something about Chan and its characteristic teachings in contrast to other schools it doesn't Place its emphasis on words or texts or philosophizing but on a kind of wordless wisdom achieved through direct experience meditation and insight transmitted directly from a teacher to a student rather than from texts or teaching through words the story of the flower sermon as it has become known thus serves as a kind of archetype for chant teachings in a way and claims mahakashapa as its original representative but Chan as such Doesn't truly begin until much later from around the 6th century and in China its development is associated with a few Patriarchs often six in particular founding figures that made the school what it is the first of these is often said to be the figure body Dharma followed by dazo huike yanchi sengchan Dai daochin Daman hongren and daijan Hui ning it might be worthwhile to explore that first patriarch body Dharma a bit further since he is so foundational and frankly just really fascinating body Dharma is actually a kind of semi-legendary figure it isn't entirely certain that he was a historical person and if he was the stories about him are dubious in terms of historicity in any case it is thought that he lived in the 5th or 6th century and came from the West either from India or maybe Central Asia after training as a Buddhist monk he was tasked to go to China and spread the tradition there representing a direct lineage the 28th person in a lineage going back to the Buddha himself he would establish what would become known as Chan Buddhism in China in one story he is taken to Emperor Wu of the Liang Dynasty who asks him what is the true meaning of Buddhism says something to the effect that Buddhism has nothing to do with true and false the emperor is taken aback by this and asks what is the purpose or Merit then for his sponsoring the building of temples translations of scriptures and other projects but the Dharma simply replies that it has no merit at all and the emperor is shocked having upset the emperor the patriarch then leaves probably smart and it is said that he went to mount song where he would sit in meditation facing a wall for nine years body Dharma would then serve as the archetype and key figure in the emergence of Chan with its focus on meditation in particular there are many stories sayings and texts attributed to him but it's hard to say how much is accurate many modern Scholars argue however that a work entitled something like two entrances and four practices can probably be attributed at least partly to the man himself if he was a historical person in this text we find the characteristic teachings of bodhidharma much of which would become important to Chan as a whole as the title suggests there are two entrances to the Buddhist path principle and practice principle is simply that one realizes reality for what it is the emptiness of all things to see past the illusions of our regular mind bodhidharma says himself quote to enter by principle means to realize the essence through instruction and to believe that all living things share the same true nature which isn't apparent because it's shrouded by sensation and delusion the second entrance of practice involves four practices as the title of the Treatise also suggests while there can be some variants in terms of how these are translated they are generally accepting apparent Injustice corresponding with or kind of accepting present conditions seeking nothing including not seeking Awakening or liberation and expressing the Dharma for the benefit of others these teachings as well as those that his successors would add and contribute to it are some of the core features of Chan Buddhism so what is it that makes Chan or Zen Buddhism what it is what is unique about it among other Buddhist schools even in China we have already answered some of those questions and it's not an easy subject to tackle but the basic characteristics of Chan Buddhism is first and foremost this focus on a lineage of Masters some Scholars have argued that this is a direct result of the very strong ancestor cult in Chinese culture which was then adapted in this way to the Buddhist tradition whatever the case this idea of lineage is highly emphasized as well as the teacher-student relationship in general Chan is a kind of response to these Scholastic schools of Buddhism that dominated China at the time the schools that focused on interpreting texts from India in Chan Awakening or wisdom is not reached through words or teachings as such but through wordless experience and virtuosity taught directly by a teacher the last of the Chon Patriarchs Hui Nang is thought to have said that quote a finger points at the moon but the Moon is not at the tip of the finger words point at the truth but the truth is not in words the goal is not to be liberated to enter some otherworldly States or to be concerned with the rituals or word word related teachings or such things instead the goal of Chan practice and Liberation is something to be lived a way of being in the world and in relationship to other people and beings The Scholar Peter D hershock says quote practicing Chan is not a spiritual discipline that requires us to retreat into a cave or a remote Forest it is a way of being present that can and finally must be undertaken in the midst of everyday circumstances it is not an exercise of single poignant concentration but of Illuminating and bringing to full expression the enlightening character and non-duality of all things when people imagine Chan or Zen they tend to imagine a monk sitting in meditation for a long period of time indeed as we said in the beginning this is often the image of Buddhism in general that many people have that meditation is indeed very important to Chan the word chan after all comes from the Sanskrit dhyana meaning meditation and that is often mentioned as one of the things that characterize it the most chance focus on meditation the emergence of the tradition of Chan can be said to have been a Loosely connected group of meditation Masters as we saw with bodhidharma for example now meditation is of course present in basically all Buddhist schools at least in some way it was after all through meditation under the body tree that the Buddha himself reached nirvana but Buddhist Meditation can take many different forms not all of which is simply sitting still and focusing on your breathing or emptying your mind for example a lot of Buddhist Meditation is a lot more involved and complex than that involving chanting sutras or visualization and other techniques but in Chan or Zen there is a particular focus on that kind of meditation that we are most familiar with what is called in the tradition or in Chinese zazen which translates as sitting meditation this is a kind of meditation where you do precisely what it sounds like simply sitting often with open eyes facing a wall or sometimes with eyes closed sometimes specific things are focused on to help concentration such as a breath but the basic idea is simply to sit involves specific postures such as the Lotus position and the image of a Zen monk meditating is perhaps one of the most iconic images associated with Buddhism this kind of meditation existed in other schools as well but often this form of meditation was simply an initial technique to prepare or calm the mind for the actual meditations that followed which would often be a lot more involved in Chan instead this particular form is emphasized as a primary practice but why how come this practice is so important to Chon in particular if you remember what I mentioned earlier East Asian Buddhism and therefore Chan has some characteristic teachings including very significantly that of Buddha nature everything has Buddha nature and Enlightenment as its own very nature suffering and Nirvana are one and the same thing and everything is Buddha nature Enlightenment is right there in front of us the whole time it's not some sort of gradual Journey where we leave everything behind and eventually Reach This High State it's eternally present the whole time as our very nature everything that keeps us from being awakened are all things that we have added to our nature all the things we misunderstand about ourselves that get in the way of realizing the fact that our self is illusory and that all things are empty as such to reach Enlightenment all we need to do is let go of those false constructs we have added to ourselves and to Simply recognize what was there all along what was truly there which is identical to Nirvana when we sit in meditation in zazan we simply allow ourselves to be to where the analytic mind is silenced and we can hopefully fall into an unobstructed vision of ourselves and there is Awakening when sitting in meditation we aren't supposed to focus on anything at all in particular we aren't doing anything at all not even meditating it's actually a kind of non-meditation the whole purpose of sitting in meditation is to sit in meditation there is no goal or ultimate purpose other than the very action itself sitting if we do that properly we can fall into an unobstructed way of being where all the constructs about who we are and what all of this is Falls away and we awaken to the Nirvana that was there all along according to tradition someone once asked the first John patriarch body Dharma where is the place of enlightenment to which he replied quote the place you are walking on is to play some Enlightenment the place you are lying on is to play some Enlightenment the place you are sitting is the place of Enlightenment the place you are standing is the place of enlightenment wherever you pick up your feet or put them down that is the place of enlightenment indeed the common understanding of Nirvana that most people would have if you ask a random person on the streets it's actually false according to the school usually when we ask someone what Nirvana is they will say that Nirvana is the ending of suffering or the the somehow that the person has reached the state where he transcends suffering somehow but this is actually not true at least according to this interpretation even after reaching Nirvana we still experience the world and everything in it just as it is including suffering we don't stop hurting when someone punches Us in the face we don't stop feeling sad when a family member or a friend passes away and we feel that terrible sense of loss that's all still experienced instead Nirvana is simply The Disappearance of any resistance to suffering and a resistance to pain it is after all often resistance to suffering that is the most painful if we fully accept a situation that we are in um or any suffering or pain that we are feeling it becomes at least less difficult to go through in other words it is to some degree our state of mind that determines our experience it's the Core teaching of Chan Buddhism that is our state of mind that determines our well how we experience the world including how we experience suffering or in this case not experience suffering because we don't attach any will to ending suffering for example we just let things be as they are and when we do that we stop suffering even from things like pain I remember one time I was walking home in the middle of winter at night with two large bags in my hands I had quite a long way to go before I came home and it was really freezing outside I could already tell as I was walking in that my hands were starting to hurt from that from the from the cold it was terrible I was having a just an awful time but suddenly I realized you know it's gonna take me a while to get home there's nothing I can do about this I'm going to be cold it's going to hurt and I simply accepted the fact that my hands are going to hurt a lot in in the coming 15 minutes once I accepted that while the pain didn't necessarily go away I completely stopped suffering from that pain to some degree it wasn't a problem for me anymore because I had completely accepted that things were going to hurt and when I accepted that it was a lot more bearable I don't mean to say that I've reached nirvana of course but to point out there is often resistance to suffering or being attached to a certain outcome that creates suffering and to be rid of all such resistance and attachments is something close to what is meant by Nirvana here it is from this that another characteristic teaching in Chan comes the idea of sudden Awakening rather than like in most other schools of Buddhism the road to Enlightenment is a gradual Journey where we let go of attachments and Illusions until we find Awakening in Chan Awakening happens all at once and suddenly because Nirvana is right here all the time when we awaken to it we do it suddenly that isn't to say of course that Chan doesn't involve practice or isn't a difficult path to reaching that state but the event of Awakening itself is looked at very differently quote if we find ourselves in the position of wanting Liberation or Awakening we are already stuck in delusion if Awakening lies Somewhere Over the Horizon of our present situation in some other time or some other place then it is nothing more than a figment of one's imagination this is actually a big debate in early childhood Buddhism with two schools the Southern and Northern schools are presenting different perspectives one favoring sudden Awakening the other gradual Awakening eventually the so-called Southern School represented by the last of these six Patriarchs queeneng became the Paradigm and sudden Enlightenment would characterize most of Chan from then on so meditation or sitting meditation is one of the core practices that characterized Chan Buddhism another core concept associated with the tradition which is also partly connected to the doctrine of sudden Enlightenment is the employment of gong on or Koons in Japanese these are literally public cases often misunderstood as riddles but really they are stories or short sentences sometimes stories of the Chan Patriarchs or other such things that have the aim of rattling the mind the koans are to be meditated on and are often very confusing or strange without any seemingly clear answer they always have an answer though and a prominent tradition in Chan especially in the linji and rinzai school is that students are given a koan and are tasked with presenting an answer to their Master a process that can take a long time and many attempts before being completed some of these koans have become famous even outside a Buddhist framework such as the question what is the sound of one hand clapping or when lingi one of the great masters of Chan Buddhism is thought to have said if you see the Buddha on the road kill him a Quran in the best cases can break the mind so to say it can jolt the person out of his regular way of looking at things and lead to a sudden Awakening there are stories of the Patriarchs having such experiences being told something just someone telling saying a sentence and the person just reaching Enlightenment right away from hearing that sentence this is a common kind of thing in Chan or Zen Buddhism so these are some of the key features of Chan or Zen Buddhism in particular but this can sometimes also be misleading it is true that meditation both sitting meditation and Quran meditation is essential practice but as we said earlier the ultimate goal in Mahayana in general is not to become liberated and end the cycle of rebirths remember Nirvana and suffering are one in the same thing sitting meditation is great and can be very helpful but according to many Chan Buddhists true practice is a kind of non-practice it is to cultivate a mind that lives virtuously in the world being able to meet basically any situation with spontaneous Genius Like a master musician who has cultivated his playing to such a level that he never has to think about what he's playing he simply does it effortlessly the chuchan master is a person who confronts all of life in this way being able to respond appropriately to any situation without obstruction and live an awakened life in relationship to other people in a way everything is thus meditation in Chan there is the idea that even the most mundane tasks are also meditation when approached correctly something that resembles the modern idea of mindfulness there is a Zen saying that basically goes when you're walking walk when you're eating eat in other words every situation however ordinary and mundane it may be is to be approached with total presence and Care ideally with as little obstruction and effort as possible this is why you will see Zen monks frequently doing things like raking leaves or washing the dishes even in washing your dirty plates Awakening or Nirvana is present and is a perfect opportunity for meditation ideally every moment of life is a kind of meditation now many of these ideas especially these latter ones might remind you of other Chinese traditions such as taoism and this is a very significant Point Buddhism of course adapted and changed depending on the environment into which it spread and this was equally true in China local Traditions like taoism and Confucianism undeniably had an effect on East Asian forms of Buddhism and when it comes to Chan it is often said that this is the school where we can most clearly see influences from taoism in particular many of the characteristic features of Chan such as the focus on unobstructed mind and virtuous spontaneity in life have clear parallels in taoism and in the classic literature of that tradition such as in the Dao de Jing or the dronsu not just these techniques either but also some meditation techniques in general as well as the fact that the idea of Buddha nature is in some ways pretty similar to the idea of the Dao I have even encountered people who claim that the Chan Buddhists are the true heirs or successors to the early so-called philosophical taoists like laozzi and Johnson which is often placed in you know in contrast to later religious taoism now I completely disagree with these categories as a whole but it really shows you how much Chand Buddhism in particular seems to have in common or have have taken inspiration perhaps from the early Taoist literature it's a fascinating topic but it shouldn't be overemphasized too much either John differs in significant ways too and the relationship between the two Traditions were not always on friendly terms with many episodes of Oppression of Buddhists and vice versa the Patriarchs and early representatives of Chan and China shaped much of the tradition of course and we have discussed some of those key features but the school also continued to evolve and develop over time even within Chan different sub-schools emerge that differed on certain fronts not to mention the differences between geographical divisions such as Zen son and Tien there were various sub-schools of charm that emerged in the Middle Ages not all of which we have time to dive into here there's often talk about the five houses of Chan five recognized Chan lineages that emerged during the Song Dynasty often considered the Golden Age of Chan Buddhism essentially only two of these schools have survived to any significant degree the cow dong school and the lingi school to this day Chan Buddhism is generally divided into these two major schools or branches so what are the differences well at its core it's simply a question of lineage but they've also emphasized different things historically there is no way of talking about this without just completely oversimplifying everything but one thing that is often said is that the cow dong School focuses more on sitting meditation and Silent illumination this school is thought to have been founded by the figures dongshan Liang ji and kaoshang Benji and the name Cow dong being a kind of combination of their names this is at least one Theory there's a major focus in the school on those zazen techniques that we mentioned earlier the cancer meditation that are non-meditation where the goal is simply to sit the other lean G school is named after the Indie yichuan who is considered the defining figure in that lineage he and his successors became famous among other things for Sometimes using violence in their teaching techniques a master could actually strike a student to jolt him out of his regular state of mind and help them Reach Enlightenment it's also generally said that this goal is more focused on the koans meditating on these stories or these cons and the more ritualized aspects of the students you know discussing contemplating and giving answers to qurans to their master and the school sometimes instead has less so focus on silent meditation like the cow dong school but again these are all huge generalizations the Lindy school has been the dominant for most of History these schools are perhaps better known in the west however by their Japanese names or equivalents as Chan Buddhism eventually spread to Japan and became known as Zen these different schools also came to have a presence there and in Japan the Lindy School became known as rinzai or rinzai Zen whereas the cow dong School became known as Soto Sen the man responsible for bringing soto-sen to Japan is perhaps the most famous Zen Buddhist in history Dogan zenji dorgan was originally from Japan and earlier in his life was an ordained monk in the Scholastic Tian Thai School known in Japan as tendai but he became dissatisfied with their teachings and eventually traveled to China where he studied Chan specifically the cow dong School Upon returning to Japan a few years later he brought this school with him and established it in his native country where it became known as Soto in his teachings and extensive writings which included the Masterworks showbogenzo treasury on the true Dharma eye he put a major emphasis on zazen sitting meditation specifically in the form often called shikantasa in Japanese which translated as something like nothing but sitting we talked about this concept earlier as common to all of Zen but dogen seems to put an even bigger emphasis on it the idea is that zazen meditation as the core practice of Zen and technique for Liberation is simply about sitting it is that non-meditation that has no specific purpose other than to Simply Be and with no specific technique this is the famous idea associated with Dogan that the practice is the goal it is only through this kind of non-meditation that we can get an unobstructed experience of our true nature and the nature of all things that nature which is after all identical to Nirvana dogen and his teachings have characterized Zen particularly Soto sen in Japan for the rest of history and a lot of our ideas about Zan here in the west are also strongly colored by the influence of dogen in particular similar to China the Soto and rinzai schools have been the dominant forms of Zen Buddhism in Japan but these in themselves are of course divided into their own branches and sub-branches and so on in many ways the Zen tradition of Japan differs from Chan in China even though they have a common origin indeed the different geographical schools Chan in China Zen in Japan sawn in Korea and Tien in Vietnam were often considered separate traditions of their own since they have often developed independently of each other across history and being colored by local traditions and contexts we don't have time to go through all these differences and nuances here of course but it's an interesting point to consider if you visit a Japanese Zen Center in Europe or North America compared to a Chinese Chan Center there can be significant differences between the two today one such difference that is often brought up between you know Chinese Chan and Japanese Zen is that Zen Buddhists in Japan have at least since the Meiji restoration or revolution in the 19th century Zen monks are allowed to marry so they will often have families and children while also being Zen monks whereas in China and in the Chan tradition so to say the monks still generally take a vow of celibacy but Zen hasn't just spread to other parts of East Asia but also to the West especially in the last century indeed Zen is one of the most famous and prominent forms of Buddhism that we find in a western context it seems to really appeal to a European and American audience perhaps partly due to its somewhat iconoclastic nature compared to other schools of Buddhism it isn't as ritualistic or focused on Sacred Scriptures thus appearing to be less quote unquote religious according to Western conceptions that is my favorite list Zen is more egalitarian too it doesn't require you to become a monk or study scriptures deeply to understand the doctrines of Buddhism it simply tells us to sit and be what we are something that is available to everyone and which doesn't sound all that difficult although as many of you probably know just simply sitting is easier said than done many of the famous Buddhist teachers who had a significant presence in the west come from the Chan tradition in particular for example the popular teacher tiknat Han who passed away last year belonged to the Vietnamese Tien School in conclusion Chan Buddhism has been one of the dominant and most influential schools of Buddhism in East Asia and lately also across the whole world its teachings appeared partly as a kind of respond to the scholasticism of its fellow Chinese schools and instead emphasize teachers student transmission wordless teachings direct experience and sitting silent meditation it teaches the profound idea that Nirvana is available to anyone at any time since the Buddha nature is our own very reality and can be awakened to by simply looking past all the constructions of our mind to where our unobstructed view of our true nature leads to a sudden Awakening to Nirvana a Nirvana there is not some other worldly state but simply a way of being in this world a way of confronting the happenings of Life suffering and all with virtuosity and compassion for all fellow beings some of its characteristic features such as zazen meditation and koans have become famous around the world outside of Buddhism and can even provide spiritual meaning to the secular modern person certainly then Chan or Zen is a significant piece of the puzzle when we try to understand the vast and significant tradition that is Buddhism as always I would like to thank all my patrons for supporting this channel without whom I would not be able to do any of this and so I I owe everything to to my supporters over on patreon I would highly appreciate if anyone else wanted to become a supporter of this channel so I will leave links to all that stuff in the description and in append comment you can also support this channel by making a one-time donation through PayPal or simply through liking commenting or subscribing to the channel which obviously helps a lot so thank you all so much for watching and I'll see you next time [Music] foreign

Channel: Let's Talk Religion

Views: 237,175

Keywords: what is zen, what is chan, chan, zen, thien, son, soto zen, dogen, china, mahayana buddhism, buddhism explained, what is buddhism, zen teachings, alan watts, rinzai, koan, daoism, chinese religion, eastern religion, eastern spirituality, spirituality, madhyamika, zen explained

Id: yMC_8BjG3Cc

Length: 44min 30sec (2670 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 04 2023