The Nature of Zen 

We’ve related briefly elsewhere on this site about the starting point of Zen Buddhism but it’s time to check it out in more detail.

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