“One cannot become a practitioner of Zen just by imitating the way of eating, sitting, or dressing of Chinese or Japanese practitioners. Zen is life, Zen does not imitate. If Zen is to fully take root in the West, it must acquire a Western form, different from Oriental Zen.”
Quote by Thich Nhat Hanh
“Starting in the sixth century in China, Zen was formed by way of a creative synthesis of Buddhist teachings and practices imported from India with the Chinese traditions of Confucianism and especially Daoism. Centuries later, starting in the twelfth century, Zen was brought to Japan, where for eight centuries it has developed in conjunction with Japanese culture and Shintō sensibilities. Over the course of the last century, Zen has been imported to the United States and other Western countries, initially from Japan and later also from Korea, China, and Vietnam.”
Source: Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism
“The teachings of Zen have been deployed in opposition to both religious fundamentalism and anti religious secularism. They have also been used to critique consumerism, technological destruction of and alienation from nature, and other perceived ills of the dominant and domineering worldviews and lifestyles of the modern West. All of this is now part of the ongoing development of Zen as a living and increasingly cross-cultural tradition.”
Source: Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism
“To properly set out on the path to Zen, we must empty our cups—in other words, we need to open our minds.”
Source: Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism
“Even if Zen is not currently undergoing the same kind of core doctrinal crisis as Christianity is for some, we should pay attention to suspicious critiques as well as to sympathetic interpretations of the Zen tradition.”
Source: Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism
“The injunction to know oneself can be found in many traditions, including the Western philosophical tradition that goes back to Socrates. According to Zen, however, to truly discover what the self is, we need a more direct path than mere intellectual reasoning.”
Source: Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism
“Looking back, I had many preconceptions and even misconceptions about Zen—dreams of mystical experiences on mountaintops and such. At least in part, I was motivated by a youthful desire to escape the seemingly boring familiarity of my native culture and to seek adventure in an exotic land. In effect, I was fleeing rather than finding myself, insofar as I was yearning for the exciting and extraordinary rather than awakening to the here and now of what in Zen is called "the ordinary mind" or "the everyday even mind”
Source: Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism
“Zen is not, in the end, a Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, or Indian path. It is a path for all human beings who are sincerely interested in coming to know themselves.”
Source: Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism
“Contrary to some popular opinions and partial teachings, Zen is not, in the end, opposed to rational thought. But it does teach that we need to dig down beneath discursive reasoning by means of meditation, reconnecting intellectual knowledge to a deeper, more holistic wisdom.”
Source: Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism
“All sutras claim to be the teachings of the Buddha, yet they were all were written down much later. Even the earliest sutras, the ones that make up the Pali Canon of the Theravada Buddhist tradition, which has thrived in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, were first written down four centuries after the Buddha died. The sutras that form the scriptural basis of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition, which has thrived in Central and East Asia, were composed starting in the first century bce, many being translated from Sanskrit into Chinese by the end of the second century of the Common Era. When these scriptures were brought from India to China, the different schools of Chinese Buddhism distinguished themselves from one another by claiming that one sutra or another is the pinnacle of the Buddha's teaching.
The Zen school, however, is different. While Zen Buddhists do study and chant many sutras and other texts, the Zen school is unique in that it does not claim to be based on any written teachings at all; rather, it is based on the Buddha's actual experience of enlightenment. This experience of enlightenment is aid to be attainable by all human beings, insofar as the Buddha-nature or Buddha-mind is universal. In other words, all human beings have the same underlying nature and mind as the Buddha. Yet this Buddha-nature or Buddha-mind must be realized, awakened to, and actualized, and the best method for doing so is the one that the Buddha himself used: meditation.”
Source: Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism
“The Japanese word zen in fact means "meditation" or "state of meditative concentration." In Chinese, zen is pronounced chan. Chan is short for channa, which is how the CHinese pronounced dhyana, the Sanskrit word used in India for practices or rarified states of meditative concentration.”
Source: Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism