Buddhism and Zen are sisters when it comes to beliefs and practices. A way of life is what it is. Being the pioneer, Buddhism donates a lot of resemblance to its branched out sibling Zen religion. When it comes to cultural intermingling and religion overlapping Zen and Buddhism can be the best example. Buddhists do not believe in one supreme deity, they believe in karma and the achievement of nirvana through meditations and purification of the tainted souls. Buddhists are those who follow the teachings of the Buddha.
They believe in the cycle of life and death and attain the path of enlightenment. Zen is largely touched by the Taoism. On the other hand, Zen may be considered as a Chinese form of Buddhism, which lays emphasis on experience, and has fewer adherences to teachings and theoretical concepts.
Zen is a school of thought based on Mahayana Buddhism, which is a translation of the Chinese word Chan. The derivation of this word is attributed to a Sanskrit word meaning Meditation. Buddhism is largely based on the teachings and principles advocated by Lord Buddha, who has been acknowledged as an awakened teacher for sharing his knowledge and aiding the ailing people.
His ideologies basically transcended that the sole aim of the human being is to achieve NIRVANA, and get rid of the vicious cycle of birth and rebirth. Zen stresses on the experiential prajna, which is largely realized as a form of meditation so that a person can get enlightenment. So in practice, it does not emphasize the theoretical conventions and it focuses on the direct, experiential realization through meditation, along with practicing dharma.
The establishment of Zen is conventionally accredited to be in a Shaolin Temple in China, where a South Indian prince from the Pallava Dynasty Bodhidharma came to lecture the special transmission outside scriptures that did not stand upon words. The appearance of Zen as a distinctive school of Buddhism was first recognized in China in the 7th century AD. It is noted to have grown as a combination of various currents in the Mahayana Buddhist School of Thoughts, that includes Yogacara and Madhyamaka philosophies and is also based upon Prajnaparamita literature.
Followers of Zen visit the temple to offer prayers to Buddha. Summary: Buddhism originated in Nepal, and Zen originated in China. There were centuries of tradition behind this prodigious failure to communicate. In Asia, lineages through the generations tended to be separate and usually of opposing congregations.
Thankfully, in the West there is now much more sharing between the various lineages. In recent years in America, two organizations have been created to promote warm communication between the Zen lineages: the American Zen Teachers Association, which includes teachers from all lineages, and the Soto Zen Buddhist Association, which is made up of teachers of the various lineages of Soto Zen, the largest Zen tradition in the West.
A Zen wave broke on North American shores in the middle of the twentieth century. Instead it was bringing large-scale suffering and dehumanization. What was the alternative? Alan Watts , whose popular books on Zen were hugely influential, was there. Cage influenced Merce Cunningham, the dancer-choreographer, who in turn influenced many others in the performance art field.
The Zen-derived notion of spontaneous improvisation became the essence of bebop, the post-war jazz movement. For Allen Ginsberg , Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen and the other Beat-generation poets, Zen was a primary source, a sharp tool for prying the lid off literary culture as they knew it. Within ten years, lively Japanese Zen masters were coming to America to settle.
The first Zen centers in America were bursting with students willing to make serious commitments right away. It was an exciting and confusing time, perhaps unprecedented in the history of world religions. In the West, however, most Zen practitioners are not monastics. Unlike Zen laypeople in Asia, whose main practice is often to support the monastic establishment, Western Zen lay practitioners wish to practice it, regardless of what their life circumstances may be.
All of them do some form of monastic-style training within the context of their lay lives: they sit meditation regularly, either at home or at a local temple, attend retreats and live their daily lives with full attention or at least coming as close to this as they possibly can.
They take lay or priest vows, and even sometimes enter monastic training at one or more Zen centers for periods of time. While there is a great deal of variety among the many American Zen centers, in general their programs are open to the public, encouraging all who want to practice Zen at whatever level they wish to practice, but emphasizing committed, ongoing practice — gradually entered into — as the main road.
For someone who is interested in taking up Zen practice in America, the approach is not difficult: surf the web or the phone book, find the location and schedule of the Zen establishment nearest to you, show up, and keep showing up as long as it suits you.
Eventually you will learn the formalities of the local Zen meditation hall most groups offer special instruction for beginners , and if you feel comfortable you will continue to attend meditation when you can.
Eventually you will sign up for dokusan private, intense, formal interview with a teacher. Sesshin is a life-transforming experience, no matter what happens. From there, if you continue, you will deepen your friendships with other practitioners. These relationships will seem to you, oddly, both closer and more distant than other relationships in your life. Closer because the feeling of doing Zen practice together bonds you deeply, and more distant because you may not exchange personal histories, opinions and gossip as you might do with other friends.
As time goes on you will establish a relationship with one or more of the local Zen teachers, and you will find these relationships increasingly warm and important in your life, so much so that perhaps some day you will want to take vows as a lay Zen practitioner, joining the lineage family. If you go on practicing, as the years go by you may attend monastic training periods at one of the larger centers. If your life permits, you might want to stay at this center for a while — perhaps for many years, or for the rest of your life, eventually taking on the teachers and lineage there as your primary lineage.
Or you may come back home and continue your ongoing practice, going back to the larger training center from time to time for more monastic experiences. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
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