It is often said that Zen offers "NOTHING": no teaching, no mystery, no answers.
In a koan, the Zen master Ikkyū Sōjun speaks to a despairing man:
"I would like to offer anything to help you, but in Zen we have NOTHING at all."
It means living life - in all its fullness. However, direct access to this simplest thing of all is blocked to the intellectual being - it seems as if the never-silent voice of thoughts blocks it with stubborn ideas and judgmental imaginations. Attachment to the illusion of an individual's 'I' only causes new suffering (dukkha) over and over again. Zen can resolve this confusion - eventually one can even eat when hungry and sleep when tired. Zen is nothing special. It has no goal.
ZEN Buddhism or Zen (Chinese Chan, Korean Seon, Vietnamese Thiền - SINKING) is a current or lineage of MAHAYANA Buddhism that emerged in China from around the 5th century of the Christian era, which essentially derives from the DAOISM (Taoism) was influenced. The Chinese term CHAN, loosely translated, means something like "state of meditative immersion", which refers to the basic characteristics of this Buddhist current, which is therefore also sometimes referred to as meditation Buddhism.
ZEN Buddhism was spread in Southeast Asia by monks.
From the 12th century, Chan also came to Japan and received a new form there as Zen, which in modern times came to the West in a new interpretation. The Zen terms used in Europe and the USA mostly come from Japanese. However, Korean, Vietnamese and Chinese schools have also recently gained influence in Western culture.
Zen Buddhism can be characterized by the following lines:
"A special tradition outside the scriptures,
regardless of words and characters:
show the human heart directly,
look at (your own) nature and become a Buddha.
The four verses were written together as a stanza for the first time108attributed to Bodhidharma in the work Zǔtíng Shìyuàn by Mùān Shànqīng. The lines appeared individually or in various combinations earlier in Chinese Mahayana Buddhism. The attribution to the legendary founding figure is seen today as a definition of the self-image after a phase of dispute over direction.
The characterization that Zen offers "NOTHING" is often expressed by Zen masters to their students in order to dispel the illusion that Zen offers acquireable knowledge or can be something "useful". On another level, however, the opposite is also claimed: Zen offers the "whole universe" since it includes the abolition of the separation of the inner and outer world, i.e. "EVERYTHING".
Zen eludes "reason" and is often perceived as "irrational", also because it fundamentally resists any conceptual definition. The seeming mystery of Zen, however, stems solely from the paradoxes that attempting to speak about Zen produces.
Zen always aims at experiencing and doing in the present moment, and thus includes feeling, thinking, feeling, etc.
But Zen also has philosophical-religious aspects and historically grown teachings, for example in the Sōtō or Rinzai direction. These can of course be described in words, even if they are not absolutely necessary for the subjective experience of Zen.
In Sōtō-Zen, the experience of enlightenment takes a back seat. The central concept of Zen practice becomes shikantaza, "just sitting," ie, the unintentional, nonselective attention of the mind in zazen, without following or repressing a thought. In Sōtō, zazen is not understood as a means to the end of the search for enlightenment, but is itself the goal and end point, which does not mean that no state of enlightenment can or may occur during zazen or other activities. The great koan of Sōtō-Zen is the zazen posture itself. Hishiryō, non-thinking, ie going beyond ordinary, categorizing thinking, is central to the realization of this aimless sitting. Dōgen writes the following passage in the Shōbōgenzō Genjokoan:
“To study the way is to study oneself, to study oneself is to forget oneself. Forgetting yourself means becoming one with all existences.”
Objects of Zen practice (selection)
The keisaku (Japanese警策) is a stick that Zen practitioners use to hit their shoulder muscles two to three times during longer periods of sitting in order to stay awake.
Zen as we know it today has been influenced and enriched by many cultures over a millennium and a half. According to legend, after Bodhidharma brought the teachings of meditation Buddhism to China in the 6th century AD, where when it became Chan Buddhism, elements of Daoism and Confucianism/Neo-Confucianism were incorporated. Many elements of the teaching that are typical of Zen originated in China. A large number of writings containing poems, instructions, talks and koans date from this period. For this reason, many terms and personal names can be found today in both Chinese and Japanese pronunciation. The transmission of the teachings to Japan by Eisai and Dōgen in the 12th and 13th centuries in turn contributed to the transformation of Zen, through general Japanese influences, but also mikkyō and local religions.
In the 19th and especially in the 20th century, the Zen schools in Japan underwent rapid changes. A new form of Zen was founded by lay people. This reached Europe and America and was also inculturated and expanded. Since the 20th century, even some Christian monks and laypeople have turned to meditation and Zen, which, partly supported by authorized Zen teachers who remained connected to Christianity, has given rise to what is known as “Christian Zen”.
origin
According to legend, after the famous sermon on the Geierberg, the historical Buddha Siddhartha Gautama gathered a crowd of disciples who wanted to hear his exposition of the Dharma. Instead of speaking, he silently held up a flower. Only his disciple Mahakashyapa immediately understood this gesture as the central point of the Buddha's teaching and smiled. He suddenly became enlightened. This is said to be the first transmission of the wordless teaching from heart-mind to heart-mind (Jap. Ishin Denshin).[4]
Since this insight of Kāshyapa cannot be recorded in writing, it has since been transmitted personally from teacher to student. One speaks of so-called Dharma lines (ie roughly: teaching directions).
ENSO -the circle- embodies emptiness and completion
symbol of ZEN
