Zen Buddhism and Taoism

1.1 What does Zen focus on?

Zen is a school of Buddhism. It stresses meditation as the key to awakening. Awakening means seeing your own true nature.

The word comes from an old Indian word, dhyana, which means meditation. In China, dhyana became Chan. In Japan, Chan became Zen. All three words point to the same practice.

1.2 How is Zen different from other Buddhism?

Zen is one of the schools of Mahayana Buddhism. Mahayana means the Great Vehicle. Zen held that awakening is the most fundamental aspect of Buddhism.

It dropped many outer things. It did away with sacred scriptures, rituals and objects of worship. Zen teachers said the truth is passed on by awakening, not by words.

2.1 What is the lotus story?

A famous story says the Buddha once gave a silent sermon. He simply raised a lotus flower. Only Kasyapa understood. He smiled.

The story says this began the wordless teaching of Zen, from mind to mind. Kasyapa is called the first patriarch of Zen. A patriarch is a founding teacher in a line of teachers.

2.2 Who was Bodhidharma?

Bodhidharma was an Indian monk. He is the twenty-eighth patriarch in the line. He is said to have brought Chan to China in the sixth century.

One story tells of his meeting with Emperor Wu of Liang. The Emperor asked how much merit he would receive for building temples and copying scriptures. Bodhidharma replied, “none at all”.

Another story says he sat in meditation for nine years, facing the wall of a cave. He is also credited with the saying that one should point directly at the mind and know its true nature.

3.1 What was special about Chan?

Chan is Buddhism that took root in China itself. It grew from the sixth century. Later it spread to Japan as Zen, to Korea as Sôn and to Vietnam as Thiền.

3.2 Who was Huineng?

Huineng (638–713) is the sixth Chan patriarch. He proclaimed that those who passed on the true teaching made “without-thinking” the core doctrine.

Linji Yixuan (d. 866) was one of the most influential teachers in Chan history. He took these teachings to an iconoclastic extreme. He dismissed the great Buddhist scriptures as “hitching posts for donkeys”.

In time, Chan split into lines of teachers. They are called the five houses. They are Linji, Caodong, Fayan, Yunmen and Guiyang.

3.3 How did Zen settle in Japan?

Zen was firmly established in Japan in the twelfth century.

Two schools, Rinzai and Soto, are still living traditions in Japan today.

4.1 What does a koan do?

A koan is a short question or story used by a Zen teacher. In Chinese it is called a gong’an, which means “public case”. Koans are often puzzling or even paradoxical.

The famous example is “to hear the sound of one hand clapping”.

4.2 Why use puzzles?

Zen masters used koans to trigger a sudden awakening in the student. The aim is to shake the student out of the usual way of thinking.

The Chan record also holds many “encounter dialogues” between master and student. They show the teaching in action rather than explaining it.

5.1 What does his name mean?

Laozi usually means “Old Master”. It is a title of respect. Some scholars think Lao is a family name, so it would mean “Master Lao”.

Some modern scholars even call Laozi a legendary figure. We know him mostly through an account by the historian Sima Qian.

5.2 How did the Daodejing come to be?

In the story, Laozi was leaving China. At the border he met Yin Xi, the official in charge. Yin Xi asked him to put his teachings into writing.

The result was a book of some five thousand Chinese characters, divided into two parts. Then Laozi left, and no one knew where he went.

This book is the Daodejing. It is commonly translated as the “Classic of the Way and Virtue”.

6.1 What does Tao mean?

Tao (also written Dao) means the Way. Taoism sees the Tao as a cosmic force. It flows through all things and binds and releases them.

The Daodejing opens with a warning. The Tao that can be trodden is not the enduring and unchanging Tao.

6.2 What are ziran and wuwei?

The Daodejing says virtue shows itself especially through two ideas. The first is ziran, or “naturalness”.

The second is wuwei, or “nonaction”. Readers explain it in different ways.

Readers differ on these ideas. Some see a deeply spiritual book. Others stress its lessons for ethics and politics.

7.1 What does water teach?

The Daodejing praises water. It says the highest excellence is like water. Water benefits all things without striving. It stays in the low place that people dislike.

That is why water is close to the Tao.

7.2 What does a wise ruler do?

The text says the sage manages affairs without doing anything. He teaches without using speech. This is wuwei in daily life.

The same book also says a journey of a thousand li begins with a single step. The lesson is patience: big results grow from small, steady steps.

8.1 Who was Zhuangzi?

Zhuangzi means “Master Zhuang”. He lived in the late fourth century BC. He is the pivotal figure of classical philosophical Daoism.

He is best known for the story of Zhuangzi dreaming he was a butterfly. When he woke, he could not tell whether he was a man who had dreamed a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming a man.

8.2 What is yin-yang?

Yin and yang is a Chinese idea that all things exist as inseparable and opposite pairs. Examples are dark and light, or female and male. The idea dates from the third century BCE or even earlier.

The pairs attract and complement each other. In the familiar black and white circle, each side has at its core an element of the other.

8.3 How did Taoism grow into a state religion?

Taoism had great influence under the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE). Emperor Xuanzong, who reigned 712–756 CE, decreed it a state religion.

Later it lost favour as the Tang declined. It is still practised in China today.

9.1 How do they differ?

Both stress direct experience over long arguments.

• Zen: meditation, koans, Bodhidharma, Huineng; a Buddhist school.
• Taoism: the Tao, ziran, wuwei, Laozi and Zhuangzi; not a Buddhist school.
• Shared flavour: both prefer direct experience to long argument.