Without resorting to a detailed Chinese history lesson, the fortunes of Zen (Chan) grew and receded over the next fifteen hundred years.  During the Tang dynasty (618 – 907), rural schools grew in stature as those in city areas declined somewhat.  These rural schools became the Five Houses that most Zen derivations throughout the world trace their lineage to.  This period is regarded as the golden age of Chan and a famous saying from that period runs as follows:

Look at the territory of the house of Tang -

The whole of it is the realm of the Chán school

The fifty years of disorder between the fall of the Tang dynasty and start of the Song dynasty (960 – 1297) ultimately led to Chan becoming the central tenet of Chinese Buddhism.  The bureaucratic centralised nature of the Song meant temples were drawn into the government structure.

Zen master Hsu Yun

The Ming Dynasty (1368 – 1644) brought Chan somewhat closer to the Pure Land Buddhism which traditionally dominated Buddhism (and still does today) and this preceded the Qing dynasty (1644 – 1912) under which Chan saw a gradual decline in influence and popularity.  However it underwent something of a revival in the early 20th century after the intervention of Hsu Yun, an almost legendary Zen master who constantly traveled around much of Asia, teaching and earning as he went.  Yun was also a devotee of Pure Land Buddhism and lived to the ripe old age of 119.

Many of today’s Zen Buddhist masters trace their interest and influence back to Hsu Yen and many of Asia’s and in fact the world’s Buddhist teachings are based on those of this Zen wanderer.

Bodhidharma

Practitioners of Zen Buddhism may find this guide a little simplistic but it’s really an attempt to provide an easy to read outline of where it all started and how it emerged from the shadow of Mahayana Buddhism.  There are far more in-depth websites available for those who already possess some knowledge on the subject.

We’ve mentioned Bodhidharma in previous articles and this monk appears to have been the developer of what we now regard as Zen Buddhism.  He lived sometime in the 5th or 6th centuries and he finished his journey in China.  His travel began in either South India (where he was said to have been the son of a king) or Persia.  He would have taken what was a well worn road between either Persia or India to China – the network of well established trading routes known as the Silk Road.

The first mentions of Bodhidharma from his contemporaries come in 547 and The Record of the Buddhist Monasteries of Luoyang. Luoyang is in central China and Bodhidharma is said to have been struck by the golden domes of the Yongning temple in Luoyang.  Bodhidharma seems to have come to China to teach Mahayana Buddhism, to travel around the country to preach to others.  While here, he began to develop Chán, what would later become known as Zen.  The word Chán is actually derived from the Sanskrit word dhyana,  which means ‘meditation’ or ‘meditative state’.

Bodhidharma is also reliably credited with the writing of The Treatise of  the Two Entrances and Four Practices, a text which specifies the guiding principles of Zen.  The two entrances refer to:

• The entrance of principle
• The entrance of practice