Category: Philosophy

First, a general background to Zen, then a brief, as long as it may be, this is a brief description of Japanese Zen and a summary of Western Zen as well, both in no way conclusive, followed by thoughts for the future of Zen. I won’t go too deeply into explaining the practice of Zen except where it’s appropriate for context. I suggest going to other sources for that. However, any comments on contemporary Zen and its future must be understood in some context of past and present East and West development and practice. I’ll use the conventional term Western Zen, though there is no such thing as such, for shorthand discussing Zen in the West, just as it can be argued there is no such thing as ‘Japanese Zen’ in much the same way, ultimately, there is only Zen. The influence of Korean and Vietnamese Zen is substantial, but for reasons I’ll outline as I go, I will concentrate here on the relationship between Japanese Zen and Western Zen. Overall, Zen Buddhism is a Mahayana school and, as such, carries characteristics and framework of the tradition and, therefore, some familiar to other traditions in the Mahayana movement as well. That means teachings of the Bodhisattva Way – Compassion doctrine, religious rituals, and customs from India intermingled with the development of Chinese customs and the development of Chinese Mahayana scriptures and practices. Its meditation practices combine and evolve Samatha and Vipassana and are mainly developed in India. It’s challenging to go into the development of Zen in India, and I won’t try here in any great detail; that would be an essay on its undertaking after Venerable Sakyamuni, the historical Buddha, but Zen claims to continue his example of personal searching and direct insight, and this forms the core of the tradition that was transmitted to China. The notion of evolving Dharma is quite crucial in Zen. This, among other things, sets Zen apart and is quite crucial to this discussion; the capacity for evolution sets Zen and other Mahayana schools apart from contemporary Theravada Buddhism, which in any country or epoch looks the same and stands in principle on that. Zen Buddhism is considered to have spread from India to China in the 5th century C.E., and traditional dates and people are somewhat representative. It’s questionable whether the exact historical details will ever be known. Nonetheless, the school continued to develop in China, and by the 9th Century, its distinctiveness had taken shape sufficiently to spread from there to Vietnam and Korea and, finally, during the Sung Dynasty, to Japan. This staged spread resulted in differences between lineages in the development of thought and practice, with their ethnic dimension and temporal characteristics depending on when they split from the main lineage in China. Rinzai Zen amalgamates several Sung dynasty schools and their methodologies, known for the Chinese Zen master Rinzai Kigen. Zen in Asia remained mainly monastic, though as a Mahayana school, it has civil characteristics, and it is impossible not to consider a solid relationship to culture. Buddhism and the Arts have always gone hand in hand in China and Japan, hence the narrative in China that Bodhidharma introduced Tea, Martial Arts and painting into China. Naturally, this is a legend; of course, there’s broad archaeological evidence that China’s cultural arts predate the introduction of Zen Buddhism, but the narrative illustrates the role Zen has played in providing metaphorical inspiration and spiritual depth in all the societies it has been practised in. Both Artists and Monks work to ‘See’ and to ‘act’ truthfully, so it’s naturally convergent that Zen training provides a vehicle to do that, and the world of the temple is also that of the artist and many others who seek the same. Zen entered Japan in the 12th century, corresponding with the late Chinese Sung dynasty; well-developed Rinzai teaching centred for the most part on Zen meditation, which developed in India as a combination of Samatha and Vipassana practices, and koan practice developed in China, often misunderstood as enigmatic riddles but in fact tools for triggering metaphorical understanding. Chinese and Indian literature and ritual liturgy are similar to any other school of Mahayana Buddhism. To understand the development of Koans in the Zen tradition, see Hogen Sori’s work Zen Sand, in which he gives an in-depth discussion of the format and function of the tradition, I’ll say here that koans form a unique metaphorical insight method of Zen. Shingon and Tendai Buddhism were introduced into Japan by the priests Kukai and Saicho, respectively, in the 8th century, and it was predominantly from these two sects of monks who took up Zen, among the most famous was Esai, a Japanese Tendai sect monk, regarded as the founder of Kenninji Zen Temple, and Enni Bennin a former Shingon monk regarded as the founder of Tofukuji Zen Temple, Ehei Dogen founder of Soto Zen in Japan was also a former Tendai master. This relationship has left a character on Japanese Rinzai and Soto Zen. 13 Chinese Rinzai Zen masters were invited to Japan, and numerous Japanese monks travelled to China in the 11th and 12th centuries, and together established the Rinzai and Soto lineages that survive today. A second wave of Chinese Zen teachers arrived in Japan in the 1600s, introducing latter-day Rinzai practice as it was in China by then, and that lineage became known as Obaku Zen in Japan to differentiate its practices and lineage from those established earlier. Obaku Zen never became widespread and has largely died out in the post-war period. To briefly mention, though it’s of solid importance both in Japan’s past and the future of global Zen, the introduction of Zen into Japan concurred with the rise of the Samurai warrior class as a power in Japanese society, and this too contributed to the establishment of Zen Buddhism, and Zen to the growth in cultural arts which the Samurai wished to take up in emulation of the Japanese aristocracy. This interstate…