What is Zen? PDF Print Email
What is Zen? A philosophy, a religion or a lifestyle?

It is called dhyana in Sanskrit, ch’an in Chinese and zen in Japanese, meaning thought, reflection, meditation. Reviewing linguistic, historical and cultural records, we come to the conclusion that Zen is meant to be neither a religion nor a philosophy. Rather, it provides a methodology for our conscience and our mind, which may be adopted by all beings irrespective of time or place.

Zen is a simple path, both straightforward and tangible, that takes us back to reality, to the "here and now." Following the path of Zen, anyone may overcome the attachments and prejudices behind which reality lies hidden. We may thus rise to a life of freedom, which consists of instant after instant, so as to capture absolute truth, and live thereafter freely and creatively.

Zen doesn't claim to describe what absolute truth is. It is only through direct experience that we may come into contact with It. All attempts at explanation remain relative. In various parts of the world, Sufi, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu and aboriginal mystics have given up the security of theories and mindsets to experience absolute truth. This truth is One, and Zen's path dwells on this Absolute, not on a fixed, man-made religious system.

In fact, Zen returns to the teaching of the free man Buddha Shakyamuni:

... One day,
a vast crowd gathered
to listen to the teachings
of Shakyamuni, the Buddha.
The Buddha did not utter a single word;
he simply held a flower in his hand.
Only his disciple Kashyapa understood
the essence of this gesture.
For the first time, a lesson
was passed on without words,
from master to master,
from mind to mind,
i Shin den Shin.

A thousand years later, a Hindu monk
arrived in China after a long journey.
He was called Bodhidharma.
He was the twentieth heir
of an uninterrupted line
of masters directly descended
from the Buddha,
and he brought with him the essence of that lesson.
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