What Is Zen Essay Research Paper IntroductionZen

What Is Zen Essay, Research Paper

Introduction

Zen is simply a way for us to awaken from our slumber. It is just a way for us to focus on our present experience, living in the moment. It is simply paying attention to our actual experiences as they are: a breeze brushing through your hair, pristine water wetting your lips, a stomach ache, the laughter of children playing seeing what you see, feeling what you feel. It is being aware of all the colors, forms, sights, sounds, touch, taste, and smell of your surroundings.

Zen is entering into things as they are, beyond concept and cosmology, beyond separation and duality, beyond personality, and into the intimacy and richness of this whole moment. Zen is the day to day and moment to moment method of focusing on the moment. It has spanned two thousand, six hundred years from India to China to Japan to right here.

Zen is a philosophy designed to accomplish the Buddhist goal of seeing the world just as it is, that is, without the mind being cluttered by thoughts and feelings. This attitude is called no-mind , a state of consciousness where thoughts come and go without leaving any trace. Unlike other forms of Buddhism, Zen holds that such freedom of mind cannot be attained by gradual practice but must come through direct and immediate insight. Zen students prepare themselves to be receptive to such answers by sitting in meditation (Japanese za-zen) while they simply observe, without thought, whatever may be happening. The Zen belief is that nature cannot be grasped by any system of fixed definitions or classifications. Reality is the world as it is, apart from any thoughts an individual has about it. One of the original teachers of Zen, Shakyamuni Buddha said to his students one day in a talk that has been recorded as the Satipatthana sutta, the Discourse on Mindfulness, that, There is but one way to liberation and that is mindfulness. Mindfulness is paying attention with the entire body and mind to the present experience. It is going past hesitation and reference points, past confusion and fabrication and into our actual lives. Liberation means freedom from the need to hide from our world and ourselves; it means finding out who and what this really is, what this world really is. Buddhadharma, the Teaching of Awakening, is the practice of sitting, walking, breathing, working and speaking with mindfulness and insight. As such Buddhadharma is not a religion, a dogma, a skill, a science, an art, or a philosophy. It is the presentation of our own natures. Zen is just this. True Zen consists of sitting quietly in the correct posture. It is not a special state, it is the normal state: silent, peaceful, without agitation. Zen means to put the mind at rest and to concentrate the mind and body. There is no purpose, no seeking to gain something, no special effort or imagination. It is not knowledge to be grasped by the brain. It is solely a practice that is the true gate to happiness, peace and freedom.

History

Historically, it could be said that Zen originated from the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama. Around 500 BC he was born a Sakyan prince. At the age of twenty-nine, deeply troubled by the suffering he saw around him, he renounced his privileged life, his wife and child, and went out among the shamans to seek enlightenment. After six years of struggle, he finally understood the meaning of enlightenment under the legendary Bo tree. After this he was recognized as a Buddha (meaning The Awakened One ). He taught for about forty years and then died in Oudh, India.

Zen, itself, originated from a blend between the Mahayana form of Buddhism originating in India and the Chinese philosophy of Taoism. Zen is the Japanese (Ch’an, which is often used interchangeably with Zen is the Chinese way of pronouncing dhayna) way of pronouncing the Sanskrit term dhyana, which can be roughly defined as meditation. Dhyana denotes specifically the state of consciousness of a Buddha, one whose mind is free from the assumption that the distinct individuality of oneself and other things is real. The school of Zen Buddhism begins with a Buddhist monk named Bodhidharma, an Indian Buddhist monk who arrived in China in 520. Bodhidharma began the Lanka School which later became known as Ch an (Zen). The doctrine of the Lanka School mainly concerned itself with the study of the mind. The members of the Lanka School were noted for the ascetic life, living faraway from communities. Not until the ninth century, did the name Ch an (Zen) become adopted. Early Zen became associated with enlightenment rather than physical seated meditation. Around 1200 AD, Ch an spread from China to Japan where it became to be known as Zen.

There are two main sects of Zen. They are Rinzai Zen and Soto Zen. The Soto sect seems to put more emphasis on the discipline of zazen, while the Rinzai sect puts more emphasis on koans (meditation problems). However, Zazen and koans are both integral parts of both sects. Japanese who had studied in China brought the two main sects of Zen to Japan. The Buddhist monk Eisai introduced Rinzai Zen in 1191, and the Buddhist monk Dogen introduced Soto Zen in 1227. Both sects continue to flourish in Japan.

Meditation

Meditation is an integral part of Zen and almost all other eastern philosophies. Meditation was first introduced by the Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, a religion dating bac