#ZEN MEANING CHINESE HOW TO#

This is the effect of worrying self-concern. Often we experience a sort of fog of muddled, anxious thinking that smudges over a purer consciousness. Only perceive that all realms of experience If you want to meet the Buddhas of past present and future The way we think determines the quality of our personal world. By solidifying into an apparent entity, the thought that creates the self becomes the pivot around which all other thinking revolves. It is a reference point within the processes of our thought. It does not have an objective existence as external things appear to do. The self is therefore an idea built up by the mind. Where is it? What is it? Who am I? What is a person? We begin in infancy with bare experience, only gradually do we infer that there is a person who is the subject and creator of this experience. Enquiring into the self encounters problems. In meditation we are examining the basis of this 'self'. Through meditation we discover for ourselves that suffering is indeed due to self-concern and that wanting originates from the desires of the self. We discover the way through meditation which in Zen is called Zazen. The key question is what is the way? The way cannot be told it has to be experienced.

Suffering diminishes when this wanting is abandoned.

Suffering is due to wanting, and especially wanting connected with the self.

This suffering arises primarily because we crave permanence, ego-enhancing credentials and safety: to go beyond suffering necessitates going beyond this craving, an endeavour that demands an examination of the self. He ruthlessly exposed the nature of life realising that, due to impermanence and death, life can never be apart from suffering. The Buddha's quest was to find a way beyond personal suffering, not through reliance on dogmas, creeds or philosophies but in actual experience based in insight. The essence of the Buddha's teachings is summed up in the Four Noble Truths of his first sermon. The Western Chan Fellowship studies and practices the Chinese Zen from which the Japanese teachings have been derived. In recent years, Buddhism has spread to Europe and the USA in all three major forms, the Theravada of Burma and Sri Lanka, Tibetan Buddhism and the Chan-Zen of China and Japan.

Reaching Japan, Chinese practices developed further into Zen. The teachings spread widely in Asia, to Tibet over the Himalayas, to SE Asia and Indonesia by the sea-lanes and to China by both the overland silk routes and by sea.

#ZEN MEANING CHINESE HOW TO#

He experienced a deep insight into the nature of mind and life and taught others how to realise their own understanding. Buddhismīuddhism originated in India some 2500 years ago as a result of a personal search for meaning by Shakyamuni Buddha who was born as a prince of the Shakya people of the Nepalese borderland. This short introduction welcomes those seeking to develop fresh approaches to personal experience and suggests a way of practice.

Chinese Zen, or Chan as it is called in China, is a way of life that encourages clarity of mind, compassion to all sentient beings and a wisdom that comes from going beyond the concerns of self.

Zen meaning chinese