Orchids and Rocks, Muromachi period (13921573) Gyokuen Bompo (Japanese, 1348after 1420) Japan Hanging scroll; ink on paper; 39 1/2 x 13 1/8 in. (100.3 x 33.3 cm) The Harry G.C. Packard Collection of Asian Art, Gift of Harry G.C. Packard, and Purchase, Fletcher, Rogers, Harris Brisbane Dick and Louis V. Bell Funds, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, and The Annenberg Fund Inc. Gift, 1975 (1975.268.38) Su Dongpo in Straw Hat and Wooden Shoes, Muromachi period (13921573), second half of 15th century Artist Unknown Japan Hanging scroll; ink on paper; 42 3/4 x 13 1/8 in. (108.6 x 33.3 cm) The Harry G.C. Packard Collection of Asian Art, Gift of Harry G.C. Packard, and Purchase, Fletcher, Rogers, Harris Brisbane Dick and Louis V. Bell Funds, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, and The Annenberg Fund Inc. Gift, 1975 (1975.268.39)

Gibbons, Muromachi period (13921573) Sesson Shukei (Japanese, 15041589?) Japan Pair of six-panel screens; ink on paper; Each screen 62 x 137 in. (157.5 x 358.9 cm) Purchase, Rogers Fund, and The Vincent Astor Foundation, Mary Livingston Griggs Burke Foundation and Florence and Herbert Irving Gifts, 1992 (1992.8.1,2)

Portrait of Shun'oku Myha, Nanbokuch period (133692), ca. 1383 Japan Hanging scroll: ink, color, and gold on silk; 45 x 20 1/2 in. (114.3 x 52.1 cm ) Inscribed at top by Shun'oku Myha Gift of Sylvan Barnet and William Burto, 2007 (2007.329)

The essential element of Zen Buddhism is found in its name, for Zen means "meditation." Zen teaches that enlightenment is achieved through the profound realization that one is already an enlightened being. This awakening can happen gradually or in a flash of insight (as emphasized by the Soto and Rinzai schools, respectively). But in either case, it is the result of one's own efforts. Deities and scriptures can offer only limited assistance.

Zen traces its origins to India, but it was formalized in China. Chan, as it is known in China, was transmitted to Japan and took root there in the thirteenth century. Chan was enthusiastically received in Japan, especially by the samurai class that wielded political power at this time, and it became the most prominent form of Buddhism between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. The immigrant Chinese prelates were educated men, who introduced not only religious practices but also Chinese literature, calligraphy, philosophy, and ink painting to their Japanese disciples, who often in turn traveled to China for further study.

Today, ink monochrome painting is the art form most closely associated with Zen Buddhism. In general, the first Japanese artists to work in this medium were Zen monks who painted in a quick and evocative manner to express their religious views and personal convictions. Their preferred subjects were Zen patriarchs, teachers, and enlightened individuals. In time, however, artists moved on to secular themes such as bamboo, flowering plums, orchids, and birds, which in China were endowed with scholarly symbolism. The range of subject matter eventually broadened to include literary figures and landscapes, and the painting styles often became more important than personal expression.

Zen Buddhism's emphasis on simplicity and the importance of the natural world generated a distinctive aesthetic, which is expressed by the terms wabi and sabi. These two amorphous concepts are used to express a sense of rusticity, melancholy, loneliness, naturalness, and age, so that a misshapen, worn peasant's jar is considered more beautiful than a pristine, carefully crafted dish. While the latter pleases the senses, the former stimulates the mind and emotions to contemplate the essence of reality. This artistic sensibility has had an enormous impact on Japanese culture up to modern times.

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Zen Buddhism | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art ...

The designation of this school of the Buddha-Way as Zen, which means sitting meditation, is derived from a transliteration of the Chinese word Chn. Because the Chinese term is in turn a transliteration of the Sanskrit term dhyna, however, Zen owes its historical origin to early Indian Buddhism, where a deepened state of meditation, called samdhi, was singled out as one of the three components of study a Buddhist was required to master, the other two being an observation of ethical precepts (sla) and an embodiment of nondiscriminatory wisdom (praj). The reason that meditation was singled out for the designation of this school is based on the fact that the historical Buddha achieved enlightenment (nirvna) through the practice of meditation. In the context of Zen Buddhism, perfection of nondiscriminatory wisdom (Jpn., hannya haramitsu; Skrt., prajpramit) designates practical, experiential knowledge, and secondarily and only derivatively theoretical, intellectual knowledge. This is, Zen explains, because theoretical knowledge is a form of language game (Jpn.; keron; Skrt., prapaca), i.e., discrimination through the use of language, as it is built in part on distinction-making. Zen believes that it ultimately carries no existential meaning for emancipating a human being from his or her predicaments, for it maintains that discriminatory knowledge of any kind is delusory/illusory in nature. To this effect it holds that it is through a practical transformation of the psychophysiological constitution of one's being that one prepares for embodying nondiscriminatory wisdom. This preparation involves the training of the whole person and is called self-cultivation (shugy) in Japanese. It is a practical method of correcting the modality of one's mind by correcting the modality of one's body, in which practice (prxis) is given precedence over theory (theria). (Yuasa, 1987.)

There are basically two methods utilized in meditation practice in Zen Buddhism to assist the practitioner to reach the above-mentioned goals, together with a simple breathing exercise known as observation of breath count (Jpn., ssokukan); one is the kan method and the other is called just sitting (Jpn., shikan taza), a form of single act samdhi. For example, the former is employed mainly by the Rinzai school of Zen Buddhism, while the latter by the St school; they are the two main schools of this form of the Buddha-Way still flourishing today in Japan. In the Rinzai school, the kan method is devised to assist the practitioner to become a Zen person (Kasulis, 1981) who fully embodies both wisdom and compassion. A kan is formulated like a riddle or puzzle and is designed in such a way that intellectual reasoning alone cannot solve it without breaking through ego-consciousness by driving it to its limit. This is, Zen believes, because it is fortified by the shield of a dualistic conceptual paradigm with all its attendant presuppositions and conditions which the ego-consciousness in a given cultural and historical milieu accepts to be true in order to live a life anchored in the everyday standpoint.

According to Hakuin (16851768), who systematized kans, there are formally seventeen hundred cases of kans, and if sub-questions are added to them, a total number of cases comprising the system would roughly be three thousand. The Zen practitioner of the Rinzai school is required to pass them all in a private consultation with a Zen master who checks the practitioner's state of mind before he or she is granted a seal of transmission. This transmission is said to occur only from a Buddha to a[nother] Buddha (yuibutsu yobutsu). Kans are accordingly grouped into five categories in a most fully developed system: the first group is designed for 1) reaching li (suchness) (richi) or the body of truth (hosshin), 2) the second group for a linguistic articulation (gensen) of meditational experiences, 3) the third group for those kans truly difficult to pass (nant), 4) the fourth group for the practitioner to make an insight of kan experiences pertinent in daily life (kikan), and 5) the fifth group for going beyond the state of buddhahood by erasing traces of enlightenment (kj). The Rinzai school summarizes this process of self-cultivation in four mottoes: a special transmission outside of the scriptures, no dependence on words and letters, point directly into [one's] human mind, and see into [one's] nature to become a buddha. (See, for examples, The Gateless Gate and The Blue Cliff Record.) While the first two phrases point to the fact of discovering an extra-linguistic reality that naturally opens up in meditational experience and of articulating it linguistically in the best way according to the capacity of an individual practitioner, the last two phrases indicate a concretization of the original enlightenment (hongaku) in the Zen practitioner, where the original enlightenment means that the human being is innately endowed with a possibility of becoming a Buddha.

On the other hand, the St school, of which Dgen (120054) is the founder, does not rely on an elaborate kan system to learn to become a Zen person, but instead follows a method called just sitting (shikan taza). It refers to a single-minded, diligent practice where the qualifying term just means the practice of meditation without any intervention of ego-logical interest, concern, or desire, so that the practice remains undefiled. This is a method of meditation predicated on the belief that the Zen practitioner engages in the practice in the midst of the original enlightenment. Or to characterize it by using Dgen's phrase, it is a method of practice-realization. By hyphenating practice and realization, the following implications are suggested: meditation is not a means to an end, i.e., a means to realization, and thereby Dgen closes a dualistic gap, for example, between potentiality and actuality, between before and after. Accordingly, he collapses the distinction between acquired enlightenment (shikaku) and original enlightenment, where the acquired enlightenment means an enlightenment that is realized through the practice of meditation as a means. With this collapsing, the St School holds that practice and realization are non-dual to each other, i.e., not two.

According to the St school, the meditational practice, when it is seen as a process of discovery, is a deepening process of becoming aware of the original enlightenment with an expansion of its corresponding experiential correlates and horizons, and it is for this reason called the school of gradual enlightenment or silent illumination. On the other hand, the Rinzai school is called the school of sudden enlightenment, because it does not recognize a process leading to enlightenment (satori) as something worthy of a special attention; what counts is an experience of satori only. Even though there is the above difference in approach between Rinzai and St schools, the outcome is the same for both insofar as the embodiment of wisdom and compassion is concerned. This is because they both follow the same practice of sitting meditation. Whatever differences there are between the practitioners of the two schools in regard to the linguistic articulation of their meditational experience, they arise from an individual practitioner's personality, disposition, intellectual capacity, and/or linguistic ability.

When one engages in Zen meditation, Zen recommends that its practitioner follow a three-step procedure: adjusting body, breathing and mind. The practitioner follows these adjustments in the order mentioned when he or she begins, and when concluding a sitting session, the procedure is reversed so that he or she can return to an everyday standpoint. I will now briefly explain these three steps in the order mentioned.

Generally speaking, the adjustment of the body means to prepare oneself (ones mind-body) in such a way that one can achieve an optimal state of being free. To do so, the practitioner needs to have a proper diet, engage in appropriate physical exercise, and avoid forming habits contrary to nurturing a healthy mind-body condition. Specifically, however, when Zen mentions the adjustment of the body, it has in mind seated meditation postures. There are two postures which Zen recognizes: the lotus-posture and the half-lotus posture. A long Zen tradition takes them to be effective for stilling the mind and dissolving various psychological complexes and psychosomatic disorders. However, if a lay practitioner cannot at first assume these postures, they can be substituted initially by sitting on a chair with the spine straight, as it can bring about a similar effect. The adjustment of the body is necessary for the practitioner in order to experience the practical benefits of doing meditation.

The benefits of Zen meditation are closely tied to the practice of breathing. Generally speaking, Zen doesnt recommend any complicated, strenuous breathing exercises as in yoga. Zens breathing exercise is called observation of breath count (ssokukan). In this exercise, the practitioner counts an in-coming breath and an out-going breath. Before counting the breath, the practitioner breathes in through the nostrils and breathes out through the mouth a couple of times. Then one starts counting breaths, but this time breathing in through the nostrils and breathing out through the nostrils. The breath count is performed while performing an abdominal breathing: one brings in air all the way down to the lower abdomen, and breathes out from there. This exercise has the effect of infusing ones mind-body with fresh life-energy and expelling a negative toxic energy out of the practitioners system. For this reason, it must be done in a place where there is ample ventilation. A key to performing breathing exercises successfully is just to observe the in-coming and out-going breath.

Though these are simple instructions, they difficult to execute because the neophyte tends to become distracted. Present concerns, worries, fears, and past memory often surface. Zen calls them wandering thoughts, which refers to any mental object that prevents the practitioner from concentration. If one wants to make progress in meditation, this is one of the first things that the practitioner must learn to overcome.

We now turn to the psycho-physiological meaning of the breathing exercise. Ordinarily, we breathe sixteen to seventeen times per minute, which we do unconsciously or involuntarily. This is because under ordinary circumstances, breathing is controlled by the autonomic nervous system. Neurophysiologically, the center where breathing is controlled is found in the hypothalamus, in the mid-brain. The autonomic nervous system is so-called because it functions independently of our will. Zen breathing is a shift from unconscious, involuntary breathing to conscious, voluntary breathing. This means that Zen meditation is a way of regulating the unconscious-autonomic order of our being. Breath count trains the unconscious mind and the involuntary activity of the nerves that control the function of the various visceral organs. Here we find a reason why Zen recommends abdominal breathing. In the upper part of the abdominal cavity, parasympathetic nerves are bundled up, and the abdominal breathing exercise stimulates this bundle. As it does so, parasympathetic nerves function to still the mind.

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Japanese Zen Buddhist Philosophy (Stanford Encyclopedia of ...

What's in this FAQ? Zen is short for Zen Buddhism. It is sometimes called a religion and sometimes called a philosophy. Choose whichever term you prefer; it simply doesn't matter.

Historically, Zen Buddhism originates in the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama. Around 500 B.C. he was a prince in what is now India. At the age of 29, deeply troubled by the suffering he saw around him, he renounced his privileged life to seek understanding. After 6 years of struggling as an ascetic he finally achieved Enlightenment at age 35. After this he was known as the Buddha (meaning roughly "one who is awake"). In a nutshell, he realized that everything is subject to change and that suffering and discontentment are the result of attachment to circumstances and things which, by their nature, are impermanent. By ridding oneself of these attachments, including attachment to the false notion of self or "I", one can be free of suffering.

The teachings of the Buddha have, to this day, been passed down from teacher to student. Around 475 A.D. one of these teachers, Bodhidharma, traveled from India to China and introduced the teachings of the Buddha there. In China Buddhism mingled with Taoism. The result of this mingling was the Ch'an School of Buddhism. Around 1200 A.D. Ch'an Buddhism spread from China to Japan where it is called (at least in translation) Zen Buddhism.

Shashu is performed by placing the thumbtip of the left hand as close to the left palm as comfortable and making a fist around it. Place the fist in the center of the chest and cover it with the right hand. Keep the elbows away from the body with the forearms parallel to the floor.

Isshu is the same as shashu but with the left fist turned thumb side toward the chest. Left fist and thumb are parallel to the floor and not vertical as in shashu.

Hokkaijoin (Cosmic Mudra) is performed in the following manner. Place your right hand palm upward in your lap against the lower abdomen. Place the left hand palm upward on top of the right. The second joints of the middle fingers should be touching, and your fingers parallel. Raise the thumbs up opposite the fingers and touch the thumb tips lightly together; forming an oval between the thumbs and fingers. The thumb tips should join at the approximate level of the navel. In some Tibetan teaching lines the right hand is placed on top of the left.

Place a thick mat (zaniku or zabuton) in front of the wall and place a small round cushion (zafu) on it. Sit on it facing the wall. There are several positions for the legs. If not too cold sit with bare feet. Leave your wristwatch off.

The cross legged positions provide greatest stability. To sit in full lotus, place the right foot on the left thigh and then the left foot on the right thigh. To sit in half lotus place your left foot on your right thigh. Try to cross the legs firmly so that a stable tripod of support is provided by the knees and the base of the spine. The order of the crossing of the legs may be reversed. It is also possible to simply sit on the floor with one foreleg in front of the other or kneeling using a bench or a cushion. To sit in a chair, place the feet flat on the floor and use a cushion to elevate the seat so that the upper thighs fall away from the body and follow the rest of the applicable instructions.

Rest the knees firmly on the zaniku, straighten the lower back, push the buttocks outward and the hips forward, and straighten your spine. Pull in your chin and extend the neck as though to support the ceiling. The ears and shoulders should be in the same plane with the nose directly above the navel. Straighten the back and relax shoulders, back, and abdomen without changing posture.

Keep the mouth closed placing the tongue with the tip just behind the front teeth and the rest of the tongue as close to the roof of the mouth as comfortable. Keep the eyes at least slightly open cast downward at a 45 degree angle without focusing on anything. If closed you may slip into drowsiness or daydreaming.

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Frequently Asked Questions from alt.zen - ibiblio - The ...

PRINCIPLES PRINCIPLES OF ZEN AND BUDDHISM After the Buddha passed away not too long, about a couple of centuries - I can not tell the number of years exactly - his teachings were interpreted in many different ways which depended on each individual understanding of his disciples. Then it formed in two greatest systems: Theravada or it's often called Hinayana: the Small Vehicle, i.e. the small car only can carries one person to nirvana, it's ideal person is an Arahat (a perfect saint) and Mahayana or the Great Vehicle i.e., the big car that can carries many people at the same time to enlightenment, the ideal person is a Bodhisattva, a person who is on the way to the Supreme Enlightenment of the Buddha. Then about the first century of A. D., Nagarjuna, one of the greatest Buddhist masters of all times, his position is just after the Buddha himself, founded the Madhyamika (Middle Path) School with his Doctrine of Sunyata (Emptiness) and almost the aftermath Buddhist shools' teachings based on his Doctrine, including Zen school. And after him about 200 years, another of the greatest schools was founded by Maitreya then established by Ansanga and Vasubandhu: Vijnanavada (Mind-only) School. These two greatest Indian Buddhist schools have been remained and developed in many other countries such as China, Tibet, Japan, Korea, Vietnam... and now everywhere in the world, along with them is the Theravada system.

So far, there are at least ten great sects in Mahayana Buddhism such as Pureland school with its main practice is praying the name of the Amida (i.e. Infinite Light or Infinite Longevity) Buddha who lives in the Western Paradise. Another school is San-lun (Three Treatises) school, or the Madhyamika school in China, Japan , Korea, and Tibet. This school actually no longer exists in China... but still exists in the Tibetan Buddhists and now is spreading strongly in the West, especially in America through many Tibetan Buddhist masters. (The present Dalai Lama actually does not belong to this school, he belong to the Yogachara school, Gelupa in Tibetan. The third one is Tien-ts'ai (Tendai, in Japanese) school which was founded by Chi-i, one of the greatest Chinese Buddhist masters, its doctrine was based on the Lotus-sutra and its main is samatha and samadhi, one of the Buddhist meditation methods. The fourth one is Ch'an in Chinese (or Zen in Japanese) school. Its founder was Bohdidharma, an Indian Buddhist master, came to China about the latter half of the fifth century and the first half of the sixth century. The main message which Bodhidharma sent to us runs like this:

To help people who like to do kensho (see into one's own nature), Zen masters have designed many different methods. The four main ones of them are: counting your breaths out and in, following your breaths with your mind's eye, shikantaza (or just sitting in your whole awareness), and koans. Actually, the practice of this school based on the Way of the Buddha: dhyana (or meditation) which the Buddha did at least for six years until he became the Enlightened One. Its teachings are based on the teachings of the Buddha in the Mahaprajnaparamita-sutra which the doctrine of emptiness of Nagarjuna based on and the teachings of the Buddha in the Lankavatara-sutra which the doctrine of Consciousness-only of Vasubandhu based on. And sometimes the teachings of the Buddha in the Avatamsaka-sutra can be seen in Zen, too. Therefore, it can be said that the teaching system of Zen Buddhism is an integrity of the whole Mahayana Buddhism. When the Yogachara school, the precedent of the Vijnanavada school, at first, was brought by Padmasambhava into Tibet, it adopted some features of the native cult had been there: the Bon of the Tibetan people and the mysticism was one of its characteristics. In Tibetan Buddhism, there is a school called Dozgchen has some characteristics which are somewhat similar to Zen.

However, despite how different those schools seem to be, they all have the same ultimate goal: to help anyone who likes to learn and practice what the Buddha taught: to become enlightened, liberate oneself from his suffering caused by his greed, anger, and ignorance and then if he likes, he can help others do the same thing.

What I have just said above are some simple words on some main ideas and I won't go into the other sects of Buddhism because I think it is enough for this time. If you want to go further into them, you might need to read some books on them such as "The Essentials of Buddhist Philosophy" by Junriro Takakusu.

There are a couple of things here I like to make it clear: There are many and many different methods of meditation which are used in the different Buddhist schools, for example, the methods are used in the Tibetan Buddhist schools can be called "the methods of visualization", this means when a practitioner does one of these he needs something to rely on, usually an image. In Zen Buddhism, the methods are different. This means they do not need any image to rely on, especially in shikantaza. When someone, a Westerner in particular, who reads the teachings of the Buddha, for the first round, on the Four Noble Truth, usually sees that Buddhism shows us everything in this world is full of suffering, temporary, unreliable, deceitful ... oh! too passive and pessimistic... Yes, he is correct but this is just one step or the First Truth of the Four Noble Truth. If he stops right here, he already miss the three more steps that he needs to go and see the whole thing.

Furthermore, all the teachings of the Buddha and Zen masters are for practicing and not only reading. If you like experience something for yourself you might want to practice one of them. Yes, the Buddha-Dharma which Thich Nhat Hanh and his followers are now practicing , I think, it is closer to the teachings of Indian Buddhism than Chinese Buddhism. He goes back to the original teachings of the Buddha, for example, he emphasizes the practice on breathing, on awareness to whatever we do in our everyday life. Another feature in Thich Nhat Hanh's Buddhism is his trend to get closer to Christianity. This is shown in some of his books.

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Principles of Zen and Buddhism - ZENGUIDE.COM

BERLIN A 34-year-old Japanese Buddhist monk and actor who is living in Berlin is trying to teach his students there how to apply Zen wisdom to modern life.

Seigaku, who was born Seitaro Higuchi in Yonago, Tottori Prefecture, in January 1981, became an actor when he was a student at Tokyos Keio University. It was there that he encountered Zen Buddhism, which he studied as part of his actor training.

I recognized that acting and Buddhism are the same in the sense that each requires the practitioners to know themselves, he said.

He spent three years undergoing relentless training at Eiheiji, the head temple of Soto Zen Buddhism, in Fukui Prefecture.

Life at the temple was the absolute opposite of ordinary daily life, but he did not consider it painful.

Seigaku said he listened to the voices of my body during Zen meditation, ate simple meals and cleaned floors until they were spotless.

As we dont know what will happen tomorrow, we should do what we can do today, he said, recalling his conclusion that Zen Buddhism can be practiced anywhere, even in big cities.

In October 2011, Seigaku moved to Berlin with his wife on a scholarship from a temple in Yokohama. They now have two children.

As the scholarship lasted for only a year, Seigaku said he and his wife, who now have two children, were barely surviving.

But he has no worries about life as the participants in his Zen meditation sessions donate from time to time, and he also receives bread and vegetables when he goes out to seek alms.

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