Zen Media has helped us to translate a complex value prop into simple, accessible terms that resonate with our B2B targets and build the trust that is the backbone of our business model. They've positioned us as recognized thought leaders in our field. Zen was transmitted to Vietnam very early, possibly as early as the seventh century. A series of teachers brought Zen to Korea during the Golden Age. Eihei Dogen (1200–1253) was not the first Zen teacher in Japan, but he was the first to establish a lineage that lives to this day. The West took an interest in Zen after World War II, and now.

• Historical development

Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.

Zen, Chinese Chan, Korean Sŏn, also spelled Seon, Vietnamese Thien, important school of East Asian Buddhism that constitutes the mainstream monastic form of Mahayana Buddhism in China, Korea, and Vietnam and accounts for approximately 20 percent of the Buddhist temples in Japan. The word derives from the Sanskritdhyana, meaning “meditation.” Central to Zen teaching is the belief that awakening can be achieved by anyone but requires instruction in the proper forms of spiritual cultivation by a master. In modern times, Zen has been identified especially with the secular arts of medieval Japan (such as the tea ceremony, ink painting, and gardening) and with any spontaneous expression of artistic or spiritual vitality regardless of context. In popular usage, the modern non-Buddhist connotations of the word Zen have become so prominent that in many cases the term is used as a label for phenomena that lack any relationship to Zen or are even antithetical to its teachings and practices.

Origins and nature

Compiled by the Chinese Buddhist monk Daoyun in 1004, Records of the Transmission of the Lamp (Chingde chongdeng lu) offers an authoritative introduction to the origins and nature of Zen Buddhism. The work describes the Zen school as consisting of the authentic Buddhism practiced by monks and nuns who belong to a large religious family with five main branches, each branch of which demonstrates its legitimacy by performing Confucian-style ancestor rites for its spiritual ancestors or patriarchs. The genealogical tree of this spiritual lineage begins with the seven buddhas, consisting of six mythological Buddhas of previous eons as well as Siddhartha Gautama, or Shakyamuni, the historical Buddha of the current age. The spiritual awakening and wisdom realized by these buddhas then was transmitted from master to disciple across 28 generations of semi-historical or mythological Buddhist teachers in India, concluding with Bodhidharma, the monk who supposedly introduced true Buddhism to China in the 5th century. This true Buddhism held that its practitioners could achieve a sudden awakening to spiritual truth, which they could not accomplish by a mere reading of Buddhist scriptures. As Bodhidharma asserted in a verse attributed to him,

A special transmission outside the scriptures, not relying on words or letters; pointing directly to the human mind, seeing true nature is becoming a Buddha.

From the time of Bodhidharma to the present, each generation of the Zen lineage claimed to have attained the same spiritual awakening as its predecessors, thereby preserving the Buddha’s “lamp of wisdom.” This genealogical ethos confers religious authority on present-day Zen teachers as the legitimate heirs and living representatives of all previous Buddhas and patriarchs. It also provides the context of belief for various Zen rituals, such as funeral services performed by Zen priests and ancestral memorial rites for the families of laypeople who patronize the temples.

The Zen ethos that people in each new generation can and must attain spiritual awakening does not imply any rejection of the usual forms of Buddhist spiritual cultivation, such as the study of scriptures, the performance of good deeds, and the practice of rites and ceremonies, image worship, and ritualized forms of meditation. Zen teachers typically assert rather that all of these practices must be performed correctly as authentic expressions of awakening, as exemplified by previous generations of Zen teachers. For this reason, the Records of the Transmission of the Lamp attributes the development of the standard format and liturgy of the Chinese Buddhist monastic institution to early Zen patriarchs, even though there is no historical evidence to support this claim. Beginning at the time of the Song dynasty (960–1279), Chinese monks composed strict regulations to govern behaviour at all publicly recognized Buddhist monasteries. Known as “rules of purity” (Chinese: qinggui; Japanese: shingi), these rules were frequently seen as unique expressions of Chinese Zen. In fact, however, the monks largely codified traditional Buddhist priestly norms of behaviour, and, at least in China, the rules were applied to residents of all authorized monasteries, whether affiliated with the Zen school or not.

Zen monks and nuns typically study Buddhist scriptures, Chinese classics, poetics, and Zen literature. Special emphasis traditionally has been placed on the study of “public cases” (Chinese: gongan; Japanese: kōan), or accounts of episodes in which Zen patriarchs reportedly attained awakening or expressed their awakening in novel and iconoclastic ways, using enigmatic language or gestures. Included in the Records of the Transmission of the Lamp and in other hagiographic compendia, the public cases are likened to legal precedents that are designed to guide the followers of Zen.

Historical development

China

Although Zen Buddhism in China is traditionally dated to the 5th century, it actually first came to prominence in the early 8th century, when Wuhou (625–705), who seized power from the ruling Tangdynasty (618–907) to become empress of the short-lived Zhou dynasty (690–705), patronized Zen teachers as her court priests. After Empress Wuhou died and the Tang dynasty was restored to power, rival sects of Zen appeared whose members claimed to be more legitimate and more orthodox than the Zen teachers who had been associated with the discredited empress. These sectarian rivalries continued until the Song dynasty, when a more inclusive form of Zen became associated with almost all of the official state-sponsored Buddhist monasteries. As the official form of Chinese Buddhism, the Song dynasty version of Zen subsequently spread to Korea, Japan, and Vietnam.

During the reign of the Song, Zen mythology, Zen literature, and Zen forms of Buddhist spiritual cultivation underwent important growth. Since that time, Zen teachings have skillfully combined the seemingly opposing elements of mythology and history, iconoclasm and pious worship, freedom and strict monastic discipline, and sudden awakening (Sanskrit: bodhi; Chinese: wu; Japanese: satori) and long master-disciple apprenticeships.

During the Song dynasty the study of public cases became very sophisticated, as Zen monks arranged them into various categories, wrote verse commentaries on them, and advocated new techniques for meditating on their key words. Commentaries such as The Blue Cliff Record (c. 1125; Chinese: Biyan lu; Japanese Heikigan roku) and The Gateless Barrier (1229; Chinese: Wumen guan; Japanese: Mumon kan) remain basic textbooks for Zen students to the present day. The public-case literature validates the sense of liberation and freedom felt by those experiencing spiritual awakening while, at the same time, placing the expression of those impulses under the supervision of well-disciplined senior monks. For this reason, Zen texts frequently assert that genuine awakening cannot be acquired through individual study alone but must be realized through the guidance of an authentic Zen teacher.

Japan

During Japan’s medieval period (roughly the 12th through 15th centuries), Zen monks played a major role in introducing the arts and literature of Song-dynasty China to Japanese leaders. The Five Mountain (Japanese: Gozan) Zen temples, which were sponsored by the Japanese imperial family and military rulers, housed many monks who had visited China and had mastered the latest trends of Chinese learning. Monks from these temples were selected to lead trade missions to China, to administer governmental estates, and to teach neo-Confucianism, a form of Confucianism developed under the Song dynasty that combined cultivation of the self with concerns for social ethics and metaphysics. In this way, wealthy Zen monasteries, especially those located in the Japanese capital city of Kyōto, became centres for the importation and dissemination of Chinese techniques of printing, painting, calligraphy, poetics, ceramics, and garden design—the so-called Zen arts, or (in China) Song-dynasty arts.

Apart from the elite Five Mountain institutions, Japanese Zen monks and nuns founded many monasteries and temples in the rural countryside. Unlike their urban counterparts, monks and nuns in rural Zen monasteries devoted more energy to religious matters than to Chinese arts and learning. Their daily lives focused on worship ceremonies, ritual periods of “sitting Zen” (Japanese: zazen) meditation, the study of public cases, and the performance of religious services for lower-status merchants, warriors, and peasants. Rural Zen monks helped to popularize many Buddhist rituals now common in Japan, such as prayer rites for worldly benefits, conferment of precept lineages on lay people, funerals, ancestral memorials, and exorcisms. After the political upheavals of the 15th and 16th centuries, when much of the city of Kyōto was destroyed in a widespread civil war, monks from rural Zen lineages came to dominate all Zen institutions in Japan, including the urban ones that formerly enjoyed Five Mountain status.

After the Tokugawa rulers of the Edo period (1603–1867) restored peace, Zen monasteries and all other religious institutions in Japan cooperated in the government’s efforts to regulate society. In this new political environment, Zen monks and other religious leaders taught a form of conventional morality (Japanese: tsūzoku dōtoku) that owed more to Confucian than to Buddhist traditions; indeed, Buddhist teachings were used to justify the strict social hierarchy enforced by the government. Many Confucian teachers in turn adapted Zen Buddhist meditation techniques to “quiet sitting” (Japanese: seiza), a Confucian contemplative practice. As a result of these developments, the social and religious distinctions between Zen practice and Confucianism became blurred.

When the Ming dynasty (1368–1661) in China began to collapse, many Chinese Zen monks sought refuge in Japan. Their arrival caused Japanese Zen monks to question whether their Japanese teachers or the new Chinese arrivals had more faithfully maintained the traditions of the ancient buddhas and patriarchs. The resultant search for authentic Zen roots prompted the development of sectarianism, not just between Japanese and Chinese Zen leaders but also within the existing Japanese Zen community. Eventually sectarian rivalry led to the emergence of three separate Japanese Zen lineages: Ōbaku (Chinese: Huanbo), Rinzai (Chinese: Linji), and Sōtō (Chinese: Caodong). Ignoring their similarities, each lineage exaggerated its distinctive features. Thus, both Rinzai and Sōtō emphasized their adherence to certain Song-dynasty practices, in contrast to the Ōbaku monasteries, which favoured Ming traditions, especially in such areas as ritual language, musical instruments, clothing, and temple architecture. People affiliated with Sōtō, by far the largest of the Japanese Zen lineages, stressed the accomplishments of their patriarch Dōgen (1200–53), whose chief work, Shōbōgenzō (1231–53; “Treasury of the True Dharma Eye”), is widely regarded as one of the great classics of Japanese Buddhism.

A zen-like day is intentional, full of tranquility, and joyful.

When you’re feeling harried and overwhelmed because you have a million things to do, and it seems like there just aren’t enough hours in the day to get it all done, it’s likely that you’ll conclude that the solution is to go faster. In addition, you’ll probably start looking for strategies and hacks you can apply that will allow you to get more done.

However, the solution to overwhelm is just the opposite: you should go slower and do less. In other words, what you need to do is look for ways to make your day more zen.

Zen is a form of Buddhism, and its essence is experiencing life directly. In the West, Zen is often synonymous with simplicity, mindfulness, and calm. I think these are things we can could all use more of, don’t you? If so, below you’ll find 10 ways to make your day more zen.

Take a deep breath and read on.

1. Prepare the Night Before.

You should prepare for your zen-like day the night before. Although sometimes it’s difficult to identify what is zen, it’s easy to notice what is not zen. Here are some things that are definitely not zen:

• Waking up late and then rushing to get ready so you can run out the door (holding a bagel and coffee in one hand, and a crumpled jacket and your briefcase in the other).
• A schedule that is filled to the brim with tasks and commitments.
• A disorganized and cluttered desk.

If you get things ready the night before, you can do the following:

• Get up early enough to get ready for your zen day in a calm and leisurely way.
• Go through the items on your schedule and make sure that you’re not crowding your day (there’s more on this below).
• Take some time to declutter and organize your desk, so that it’s clean and tidy when you sit down to work the next day.

In addition, before going to sleep, set the intent that the next day will be peaceful and calm. You can make your day more zen by setting things up the night before.

2. Don’t Crowd Your Day.

As I stated in the previous point, a crowded day is not zen. In order to make your day zen, take out your schedule for the day, grab a pen, and do the following:

• Identify the most important thing that needs to get done that day.
• Decide what other two or three important items you’ll work on once you’re done with the most important one.
• Set aside some time in the afternoon to get smaller stuff done.
• Cancel any meetings, appointments and commitments that are nonessential.
• Delegate all tasks that someone else should be doing.

After doing this you’ll find that you have more time to do the things that are really important to you, including spending more time with those you love. In addition, you’ll have time to do things for yourself such as exercising and finding time each day to spend in quiet contemplation.

Keep sight of the most important things each day. Make your day more zen by getting the important things done, and discarding the rest.

3. Practice Zazen.

Zazen is the form of meditation practice at the heart of Zen. I’ve already written previously about the many benefits of meditation, as well as how to do it. Now, there’s an additional reason to meditate: to add zen to your life.

In their book, Instructions to the Cook: A Zen Master’s Lessons in Living a Life That Matters, the authors—Bernie Glassman and Rick Fields—write the following:

“When talking about zazen, I like to use the metaphor of the moon on the lake. Our thoughts and emotions are like the ripples and waves that disturb the reflective surface of the lake, so that we can’t see the moon. Of course, the moon is always there, even if we can’t see it, and it’s also important to see the ripples. But we also need to see the moon clearly to know it’s there. So, in meditation, when we let the ripples of our thoughts and the waves of our emotions settle, it’s as if we have cleared the lake so that the moon can appear.”

Starting your day with even a few minutes of meditation will go a long way toward making your day run more smoothly.

4. Slow Down Your Mind.

Eknath Easwaran was one of the 20th century’s great spiritual teachers. His translations of the Indian spiritual classics–The Bhagavad Gita, The Upanishads, and The Dhammapada— are the best-selling editions in the United States.

In his book, Take Your Time: Finding Balance in a Hurried World, Easwaran uses the analogy of driving a car to explain what happens when your mind speeds up. He explains that when you’re driving and you’re going too fast, you can’t control the car.

In the same way, when your mind is racing you can’t pay proper attention to what is going on around you, heed warning signs, and make the right judgment calls. Easwaran adds that there is nothing more disobedient than an untrained mind, and there is nothing more obedient than a trained mind.

We can train our minds to slow down by doing all of the following:

• Listening to our thoughts.
• Slowing down our pace of life.
• Doing one thing at a time.
• Adopting reflective practices such as yoga, tai chi, and qigong.

As Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh once put it: “Smile, breathe, and go slowly.” Make your day more zen by stepping on the brakes instead of the accelerator.

5. Master the Art of Concentration.

Easwaran–who was mentioned in the point above–advises that we give our attention to one thing at a time. He indicates that complete concentration is genius. Again, Easwaran uses the analogy of a car.

Imagine that you get into your car and you start driving north toward your house. Then, all of a sudden, you do the following:

• You turn left and start heading toward the supermarket.
• Then, you make another sudden turn and start heading toward your sister’s house.
• Mid-way to your sister’s house, you remember that you need to pick up the dry cleaning. You take a sharp right and start driving toward the dry cleaners.
• Then . . . you get the picture.

When it comes to our attention, we often behave as if we were driving the car above. Take control of the car–that is, of your mind–by mastering the art of concentration. You do this by doing one thing at a time and by becoming more mindful. There’s more on mindfulness below.

6. Practice Mindfulness

One of the main principles of Zen is mindfulness. Look at the following quote from the book Zen Keys: A Guide to Zen Practice by Thich Nhat Hanh:

“I remember a short conversation between the Buddha and a philosopher of his time.

‘I have heard that Buddhism is a doctrine of enlightenment. What is your method? What do you practice every day?’

‘We walk, we eat, we wash ourselves, we sit down.’

‘What is so special about that? Everyone walks, eats, washes, sits down. . .’

‘Sir, when we walk, we are aware that we are walking; when we eat, we are aware that we are eating. . . When others walk, eat, wash, or sit down, they are generally not aware of what they are doing.’

In Buddhism, mindfulness is the key. Mindfulness is the energy that sheds light on all things and all activities, producing the power of concentration, bringing forth deep insight and awakening. Mindfulness is at the base of all Buddhist practice.”

Make your day more zen by being mindful. You can get started with these mindfulness exercises.

7. Transmit Serenity to Others.

Social contagion refers to the propensity for behaviors exhibited by one person to be copied by others who are in the vicinity of the original actor. If a person walks into a room full of people and starts acting in a way that shows that they’re angry and stressed, it’s highly likely that others in the room will soon start exhibiting similar behavior.

But the opposite is also true. One person slowing down, showing goodwill, and demonstrating tranquility helps everyone around them to relax. On your zen-like day, choose to be the person who remains calm when everyone else is rushing about, and set an example for others to relax as well.

8. Repeat a Mantra.

It’s already been stated that, in order to make your day more zen, you need to slow down your mind. A great way to do this is by repeating a mantra.

Your mantra can be “Ram Nam”–Mahatma Ghandi’s mantra–, “Peace”, “All is well”, or anything else that works for you. When your mind begins to race off with thoughts of worry, frustration, fear, or anger, slow it down by repeating your mantra.

In addition, your mantra can be the activity you’re currently engaged in. So, if you’re walking, your mantra would be “walking, walking, walking. . .”; if you’re cleaning up around the house your mantra would be “cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. . .”; and so on.

9. Create Space Between.

When you’re planning out your schedule for the day, make your day more zen by leaving some space between tasks and appointments. Use those spaces to do things like the following:

• Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths.
• Smile and think of one thing you’re grateful for.
• Stretch.
• Walk around.
• Sit out in the sun for a little while.

Scatter spaces throughout your day and use those spaces to simply be.

Being Zen Meaning

10. Keep A Zen Attitude.

A zen attitude is knowing that there’s no need to rush. For this point we’re going to refer to Easwaran’s wisdom one last time.

Easwaran uses the example of Ghandi to make the point that it’s not necessary to lead a frantic life in order to accomplish great things. He points out that Ghandi accomplished more than most people in history, and yet he always looked relaxed.

Being Send

What could be more ambitious than filling your schedule with the things that are most important to you, spending more time with those you love, and living life at your own pace instead of trying to keep up with others?

Look at the following:

“A slower life . . . is more effective, more artistic, much richer than a life lived as a race against the clock. It gives you time to pause, to think, to reflect, to decide, to weigh pros and cons. It gives you time for relationships.” — Eknath Easwaran

10 Principles Of Zen

Throughout your day of zen, remember to keep a zen attitude.

Conclusion

Make your life more zen by prioritizing, concentrating, being more mindful, and following the other tips and strategies explained above. Live your best life by adding zen to your day.

Ezra Bayda Controversy

Related Posts: