Biographies of the Masters of Zen Buddhism PDF Print Email
The roots of Zen are to be found in India, in Mahayana Buddhism and the sutras, and particularly in the content of the Heart Sutra (Prajnaparamita). But the first person to bring Zen Buddhism from India to China was Bodhidharma. This marked the beginning of a long journey that would bring Zen in to modern times, in the form we know today,.
In fact, Zen originated with the Buddhist Master Bodhidharma, a legendary wandering monk whose teachings of Buddhist practice were based on the study of the mind and on meditation, which should be interpreted as an awareness of the essence of Being. Bodhidharma's teachings were later named Ch'an School in China and Zen School in Japan.
The Chinese school was soon referred to as "the Buddhist School of Sudden Illumination" because it concentrated upon the experience of the state of illumination "here and now." Suffice it to say that this school opens up a path in which it becomes possible to live one's individual experience of illumination in the same way that Buddha Shakyamuni did in his own life.
We may state, therefore, that Zen was born from Buddha's direct experience. Zen is situated at the heart of the Buddha's teaching, that is, at the very core of his life.
First in China and afterwards in Korea, Vietnam and Japan, Zen shed all the speculative traits typical of early Hindu Buddhism to turn increasingly into a Direct Path to Illumination rooted in experience, beyond words or creed.


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