--- In [email protected], "pipaclub_sanluis" <
[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Of cours, you are right about the korean monks. But what you say
> about zen, means that it began in China, right? Any how, Zen has taken
> their different ways acording to the country that adopted it, and that
> enriches it. Saludos.
> Guillermo.
Hi Guillermo,
I totally agree with you that the Dharma is like water and takes the shape of
the cultural container in which it is "poured". :-)
I also did mean to say that Zen began in China (although Zen tradition would
maintain that Mahakashyapa received a "special tradition outside of tradition"
from the Buddha Shakyamuni in India and that Bodhidharma, the revered
"transmitter" of Ch'an or Zen Buddhism to China was the 28th Zen patriarch in
an Indian lineage that stretches back to Mahakashyapa). What I meant to say
was that the establishment of the two schools of Japanese Zen by Eisai and
Dogen occured in the 12th century (over 500+ years after the alleged
beginnings of Ch'an in China).
In Japan there is this saying" The seed of Zen was planted in India, it
sprouted
in China and flowered in Japan." .... I personally would say that it first
flowered
in China... and then later in Japan and Korea. :-)
One quick final note: It is common to maintain that Zen represents the
confluence of two rivers: Indian meditational practices and Taoist philosophy.
While I certainly don't disagree with this, I think it is a broad paint brush
stoke
and perhaps a bit simplistic :-). For example, Ch'an or Zen certainly employs
Taoist terminology but by the time Hui-neng (638-713) and his successors
began laying down the "doctrinal" teachings of Ch'an, these "Taoist" terms
had been reconceptualized and reframed. "Wu" ("nothingness" or "emptiness"
as used in Ch'an writings is not identical to "Wu" in the "Tao Te Ching" - to
cite
one example. The early Ch'an writers were not the ones who laid this
groundwork. Chi-tsang (549-623) and his Sanlun school had already
reworked and reframed "Taoist" terms decades before Hui-neng. In addition,
many of the metaphors that are now associated with Zen - e.g., the "finger
pointing to the moon" - first appeared in the writings of Sanlun. I think it is
more "accurate" to say that Zen represents the confluence of two rivers: Indian
meditational practices and the reconceptualized Taoist terminology (now
clearly Mahayana Buddhist in orientation) of Chinese Sanlun Buddhism.
Gassho,
ryhorikawa
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