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The Way is perfect like great space,
Without lack, without excess. |
Stop activity and return to stillness,
and that stillness will be even more active.
Faith in Mind
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 C h ' a n Chan is a school of Chinese Mahayana Buddhism that became known in the West under its Japanese name, Zen. The term Chan is a Chinese translation of Sanskrit word dhyana, meaning meditation or meditative absorption. The school was given that name because it emphasizes the cultivation of mind. Whereas the term Chan is used as the name of a school, it also designates the purpose of its practices, and is often used in the sense of the enlightenment itself, the ultimate truth or true nature. Accordingly, Chan Buddhism or Zen Buddhism is not regarded only as a school of meditation, but also as a school that embodies and transmits the living wisdom attained by the Buddha, the Awakened One, while sitting in meditation beneath the Bodhi tree. The emergence of Chan in China is attributed to a Buddhist monk Bodhidharma. He is said to have brought Chan teachings from India somewhere around 520 C.E. Very little is known about the development of Chan in India, accounts that exist are largely legendary. Among the best known is the legend on the transmission of teaching to Mahakashyapa, one of the foremost disciples of the Buddha. The story says that the Buddha, while preaching a sermon to a great assembly of disciples, held out a flower. Only Mahakashyapa understood the gesture and smiled. The Buddha said, "The Treasure of the Eye of the True Teaching, the Wondrous Mind of Nirvana… This now I transmit to Mahakashyapa". This transmission made Mahakashyapa the first Chan patriarch in India. The unbroken lineage of other Indian patriarchs stretches from Mahakashyapa to Bodhidharma, who is considered to be the 28th patriarch in the Indian and the first patriarch in the Chinese tradition of Chan. Bodhidharma's teaching had been transmitted in China from teacher to disciple through five generations before the time of the renowned Sixth Patriarch, Hui-neng (638-713), whose numerous disciples founded various branches that evolved into five Chan schools. Today the only two schools of Chan that have had direct transmission of teaching are the Caodong (Jap. Soto) and Linji (Jap. Rinzai). Chinese Chan employs a series of meditation methods and these two schools are especially known by the methods that they developed and cultivated. The Caodong school uses the method of mo-chao or silent illumination, while the Linji school uses kungan or huato.
The four key concepts of Chan, which summarize the Chan approach are: 1. A special transmission outside the scriptures.The first principle refers to the transmission of the awakening experience, which is fundamental to the entire Chan tradition. Chan, in its meaning of original truth, true or Buddha-nature, is beyond words, language, ideas and concepts. This is indicated by the first two key concepts - special transmission outside the scriptures and no reliance on words or letters. In Chan tradition the experience of true nature is often compared to the Moon, while words, language, ideas, and concepts that describe it are compared to a finger pointing at the Moon. Words and concepts can never express nor describe that experience, because it is something that anyone can and must experience for himself/herself. This principle cautions that the pointing finger should not be mistaken for the Moon, knowledge not mistaken for wisdom, the mere description of the nature of reality not mistaken for the nature of reality itself. However, it would be wrong to conclude from the first two principles that Chan rejects the customary ways of transmission and continuation of the Buddhist tradition through monastic vows, precepts, and studies of scriptures. That these are needed is beyond doubt, but Chan warns that they must not be followed for their own sake because then the spirit of the teaching is lost. The other two principles tell us that our mind is originally Buddha-mind and that the Buddha should not be sought anywhere else but in our own mind. Calming and observing the mind through the process of meditation and all its stages - from distracted and concentrated to unified mind - ultimately leads to insight into its true nature. The specific approach to practice is outlined in the four principles, but informal methods of teaching and sustained efforts to attain enlightenment in this life are also the features that distinguished the teaching of Bodhidharma from the Buddhism that had already been institutionalized in China at the time. The revival of teaching and the personal examples of great Chan masters gave a strong impetus to both Chinese and East Asian Buddhism in general. Since the eighth century, the teaching of Chan has spread throughout China and further on to Vietnam, Korea, Japan and finally West.
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But what teaching did Bodhidharma bring to China? He taught that everything arises from mind, that the nature of mind is Buddha-nature, which is inherent to all sentient beings. The basic means to see this true nature is to observe the mind. On the one hand, this is Buddhism deeply rooted in Mahayana teaching, particularly in the teaching on Buddha-nature, while, on the other hand, this is the return to the very core of teaching, to the experience of awakening and direct methods to attain it through the practice of meditation.