Studying it, one discovers the key to all forms of Buddhism; practicing it, one's life is brought to fulfillment in the attainment of enlightenment.  Outwardly it favors discipline over doctrine; inwardly, it brings the Highest Inner Wisdom.  This is what the Zen school stands for.

                                                                                                                                                                       - Myoan Eisai Zenji (1141-1215)

“Zen” comes from the Chinese word ch’an, which is from the Sanskrit word dhyana:  meditation.  The Zen lineage of practice arose within Buddhism and was transmitted from India to China in the 5th century.  From there it has spread throughout Asia, and now to the West. 

What am I?  What is this life for?  Why is there suffering?  These are universal human questions.  A person comes to Zen when such questions can no longer be ignored.  Zen, however, is not fixated on dogma:  it is a practice of body and mind.  Through practice, questions are resolved within the insight arising from our own being.

The purpose of Zen is thus not to give you something new, or to help you do something new.  It is to know the true nature of your existence, and to manifest the boundless freedom that comes from that wisdom.  To practice Zen is to discover what a human being truly is.

About Zen Practice

The essential point of Zen is to be awakened through a direct seeing of one's true nature:  the "Buddha nature", or "true"  self".  Open and free of fabrication, grasping or fear, beyond effort and dualistic concept - this is the recognition of your own "original face".

Because Zen takes this seeing as its gate it is also called the "Buddha-Mind School" and the Ekayana ("One Vehicle"):  a separate transmission, encompassing the essence of all the paths of exoteric and esoteric traditions relying on sutra and tantra, and leading to rapid attainment of the highest goal by "directly pointing at the human mind":

The One Buddha Vehicle is called the True Great Vehicle, the Original Vehicle, the Supreme Vehicle, the Vehicle of Complete Wisdom. Having given rise in the heart to great and intrepid determination, it means to come to see clearly into the Buddha-Nature, to study fully the nature of all the Dharma Gates of differentiation, and to learn to see them as clearly as the palm of one’s hand. Then the important matter of Advanced Practice is to be undertaken; this is called seizing the claws and fangs of the Dharma cave. [It means] to assist all sentient beings with free unimpeded action, and with unflagging heart to continue to carry on the Bodhisattva practice life after life, world after world, until the last sentient being has been helped to deliverance.

          - Torei Enji Zenji (1721-1792)

The fundamental task of the Zen teacher is thus to lead the student to recognize the true nature, and to guide him or her along the path of clarifying and integrating that recognition.  Practice methods characteristic of the Rinzai tradition include zazen (seated meditation), a highly developed use of koan meditation and practices training the breathing and subtle energetic systems.  Rinzai Zen is also well known for adapting a range of complementary disciplines to refine the human being and manifest wisdom in activity:  fine arts such as calligraphy and flower arrangement and physical culture like martial arts are traditional examples which facilitate Zen insight through the body.

Through devoted practice of this kind one swiftly gains unshakeable confidence one's own natural mind as both path and fruit of the Way.  Training ceaselessly, revealing this wisdom in the play of daily activities, freedom and liberation naturally unfold.  Zen is extremely direct, and its methods can seem severe.  But those who undertake its practice may attain deep realization within this very life.  The authentic expression of such realization is compassion.

Through Zen, one's entire life becomes the dojo:  a place of enlightenment.  Zen shows us that the path of wisdom and compassion, our true path, has always been right here at our own feet:

At this moment, what is there you lack?

Nirvana presents itself before you!

This very place is the Pure Land,

  This very body, the Buddha.

- Hakuin Ekaku Zenji (1685-1768)

Zen

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