Zen Buddhism
Submitted By superpanda35
Words: 1925
Pages: 8
5/30/13
PM
Zen Buddhism
“To enjoy good health,to bring true happiness to one’s family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one’s mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.” as the Buddha had once said clearly shows the depth of meaning Zen Buddhism has and its ultimate goal. Zen translated means meditation meaning meditation was a big thing in Zen. Starting in India around the fourth century, Zen Buddhism widely spread through
China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. Its history, influences, teachings, and rituals is the base to how the Zen started, but Zen is much more. It has a very powerful, spiritual meaning to it.
The history of Zen goes back to when it arrived in China, and from there it continued to spread. It all started when the Indian monk, Bodhidharma, brought to
Ch’an, the Chinese Zen Buddhism, to China. He presented his Buddhist school plan to
Wu Liang, the Chinese the emperor at that time, but he unfortunately rejected it. So,
Bodhidharma withdrew to a monastery in Wei where he gathered disciples. His teachings began to spread and spread very quickly throughout China in the sixth century where it split in two, Rinzai and Soto and Japan soon caught onto it like a disease. It was introduced to Japan in 1191 C.E. during the Kamakura period and when feudalism was taking place. Eisai, a monk, went to China to study Ch’an and after
studying hard he became a Rinzai teacher. There, a shogun appointed to be abbot of a monastery where Eisai’s teachings spread. Then ten years later another monk, Dogen came to the same monastery to study. He continued to study but with some of Eisai’s followers even after Eisai died. He decided to study more so he traveled to China where he experienced a profound realization of Enlightenment. He soon became a Soto master and returned to Japan to spread what he had learned. After Zen arrived in
Japan, it started to affect the culture and through a broad range. It had a great influence on the emphasis on nature, selfdiscipline, and many of the arts. Some include paintings, poetry, literature, calligraphy, landscape gardens, tea ceremonies, music, martial arts, flower arranging, and dance. Trying to symbolize Zen, the paintings were based on the beauty of nature itself and the simplicity of eternal nature. They were landscape and painters only used a horsehair brush and some black ink. They painted on a paper of silk and used different shades of the black to create their paintings.
Another big influence was their gardens such as tea, rock ,and sand gardens. They included green scenery such as a pond, trees, flowers, leaves, plants, etc. to express to beauty of nature itself. These beautiful gardens were meant for meditation and tea ceremonies where it was quiet and calm. Now, Zen has changed overtime, as it has been modified to fit in with our modernday world. Even though much of it is yet the same such as the method of meditation and reaching Enlightenment, the method is much simpler than what it was and even some of the traditions were modified from ancient Zen. Now Zen has fewer restrictions and much more freedom.
The teachings of Zen go into a very thought processing, deep meaning where
people aim to reach absolute peace and happiness. Meditation, also known as ZaZen in Japan, was one thing everyone tried, but was very difficult. ZaZen had two methods: the koan method and the “just sitting” method. The koan method was formulated like a riddle or puzzle and is designed in such a way that intellectual reasoning alone cannot break it without breaking through the egoconsciousness by driving its limits. Koan, as
Zen believes, is fortified by the shield of dualistic conceptual paradigm with all the attendant presuppositions and conditions which is the egoconsciousness in the given cultural and historical milieu accepts to be
