..续本文上一页ed to California in search of Zen and an entirely new life. I learned how to meditate. I practiced alone in cabins in the redwood forest in Northern California for some years, until I saw that I needed to practice with others. I began my formal Zen training at the Berkeley Zen Center, and, after five years there, enrolled in Tassajara, the first Zen monastery in the Western world. I have been practicing Zen full-time ever since.
2. Zen Roots
What is Zen, and how does it differ from other schools of Buddhism
Unlike Christianity, in which early wild schisms led eventually to centralized control, Buddhism has always been open-ended and various. While a few key concepts (like the four noble truths, with their simultaneously gloomy and hopeful view of human nature) have always held firm, methods, philosophies and interpretations have differed widely. India was the first Buddhist country. Through the centuries, it gradually spawned hundreds of sects and sub-sects, and thousands of scriptures, and tens of thousands of commentaries on those scriptures. When Buddhism spread over Central Asian trade routes to China, all this material came at once. The Chinese were blasted with a cacophony of religious insight that was exotic, extravagant and, most importantly, foreign. The Chinese had long cherished their own twin traditions of Confucianism and Taoism and were resistant to ideologies introduced by barbarians from beyond the borders of the "Middle Kingdom." There was also a severe linguistic challenge for the Chinese in digesting the Buddhist message from abroad. The Sanskrit language was so different from Chinese in sensibility and syntax that translation was almost impossible.
Gradually, Indian and Central Asian Buddhism began to be reshaped by its encounter with Chinese culture. This reshaping eventually led to the creation of Zen, an entirely new school of Buddhism. (The word "Zen" is the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese "Ch”an," which means “meditation.” Here we use "Zen" because it is the word generally used in the West. Ch”an, though, did not come to Japan and become “Zen” until around the eighth century.)
Bodhidharma is the legendary founder of Zen in China. He is said to have arrived in China about 520. (Buddhism had by then been known in China for about 400 years.) He was soon summoned to the emperor, who had questions for him. "According to the teachings, how do I understand the merit I have accrued in building temples and making donations to monks
" the emperor asked. Bodhidharma, usually depicted as a scowling, hooded, bearded figure, shot back, "There is no merit." "What then is the meaning of the Buddha”s Holy Truths
" the emperor asked. "Empty, nothing holy," Bodhidharma replied. Shocked, the emperor imperiously asked, "Who addresses me thus
" "I don”t know," Bodhidharma replied, turned on his heel and left the court, to which he never returned.
He repaired to a distant monastery, where, it is said, he sat facing a wall for nine years, in constant meditation. A single disciple sought him out, and to test the disciple”s sincerity, Bodhidharma refused to see him. The disciple stood outside in the snow all night long. In the morning he presented Bodhidharma with his severed arm as a token of his seriousness. The monk become Bodhidharma”s heir, and thus began the Zen transmission in China. So, at least, the story goes.
This legend illustrates Zen”s style and values. Zen is a pithy, stripped-down, determined, uncompromising, cut-to-the-chase, meditation-based Buddhism that takes no interest in doctrinal refinements. Not relying on scripture, doctrine or ritual, Zen is verified by personal experience and is passed on from master to disciple, hand to hand, ineffably, through hard, intimate training.
Though Zen recogni…
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