Zen

Important school of Buddhism that claims to transmit the experience of enlightenment achieved by the Buddha Gautama. Arising as Chan in China in the 6th century (introduced by Bodhidharma), it divided into two schools, the Southern school, which believed in sudden enlightenment, and the Northern school, which believed in gradual enlightenment. By the 8th century only the Northern school survived. Zen developed fully in Japan by the 12th century and had a significant following in the West by the later 20th century. Zen teaches that the potential to achieve enlightenment is inherent in everyone but lies dormant because of ignorance. It is best awakened not by the study of scripture, the practice of good deeds, rites and ceremonies, or worship of images, but by breaking through the boundaries of mundane logical thought. Methods employed vary among different schools and may emphasize the practice of zazen (in the Soto school), the use of koans (in the Rinzai school), or the continual invocation of Amida (in the Obaku school; see Amitabha).

Zen Buddhism

a Japanese school, of 12th-century Chinese origin, teaching that contemplation of one's essential nature to the exclusion of all else is the only way of achieving pure enlightenment

Zen

Buddhist sect; truth found in contemplation and self-mastery. [Buddhism: Brewer Dictionary, 1174]

See : Mysticism

one of the currents of Far Eastern Buddhism. The word “zen” itself is the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese character transcribing the Sanskrit term dhyana (meditation, self-absorption); the Chinese pronunciation is ch’an. Zen developed in China during the sixth and seventh centuries under the strong influence of Taoism, from which Zen borrowed the disregard for knowledge and the conviction that the truth cannot be expressed in words but can only be attained by an internal leap, freeing the consciousness not only from the beaten paths of thought but from thought in general. Zen is characterized by a rejection of the established norms of intellect and morality and by a love of paradox, intuitivism, and spontaneity. The conceptual and artistic language of Zen is based on the laconic hint and rhythmic pause. Improvisation and intuitive action without any plan are of primary importance. These features of Zen can be understood as an expression of “freedom of the spirit” in a society where freedom is possible only as the unexpected, the unplanned, and the eccentric.

The first patriarch of Zen in China was the Indian prophet Bodhidharma (beginning of the sixth century), but the decisive role was played by the sixth patriarch Hui-neng (638-713) and Shen-hsiu (605-706). Zen flourished in China until the ninth century; in Japan it appeared in the 12th or 13th century. Zen has continued to exert an extensive influence on culture and ideology up to the present. In Zen the creative act is interpreted as a religious act, and this has had an enormous influence on Chinese painting, calligraphy, and poetry and on Japanese culture, especially since the Muromachi period (14th-16th centuries).

An idiosyncratic (vulgarized) variant of Zen flourishes among beatniks, who understand Zen as an ideology that rejects civilization.

REFERENCES

Pomerants, G. “Dzen i ego nasledie.” Narody Azii i Afriki, 1964, no. 4.
Zavadskaia, E. V., and A. M. Piatigorskii. “Otzvuki kul’tury Vostoka v proizvedeniiakh Dzh. D. Selindzhera.” Narody Azii i Afriki, 1966, no. 3.
Suzuki, D. T. Essays in Zen Buddhism, series 1-3. London, 1953.
Watts, A. The Way of Zen. New York, 1957.
Blyth, R. H. Zen and Zen Classics, vols. 1-5. Tokyo, 1960-66.

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Zen (redirected from Southern Chan)

Zen

REFERENCES

Zen
(redirected from Southern Chan)