Zen Concepts

Short Answer,

Zen as used by Analysts and Coders has no magic other than this:

'The Honest Application of Intelligence'

Zen is when the programmer's thoughts transcend the problem and become the solution. Wiki appears to be based on the common principle of least effort. By allowing numerous beings to communicate and share it embodies Zen.

Zen refer to the status of awareness from percipience. Jason p. Yu (letstalkcv@hotmail.com)

For Corporate Readers: You cannot facilitate Zen. Corporations, by their creation of an imaginary entity to take advantage of the living, are so out of touch with the Universe that they could be labeled !Zen. These thought monsters are devoid of morals or ethics - seeking nothing, taking everything.

Zen is very abused - Zen Masters do not complain.

It is typically western to assume you can learn Zen by reading a book. Go sit in a corner and ponder your own personal honesty. Improve your honesty. That is Zen.

It is very Western to assume that there are right ways and wrong ways to learn Zen and then to post those assumptions in a Wiki with no sense of irony

Zen is not irony, zen is not the sense of zen.

-- R.B.Young

There are many different forms of Zen.

Zen is a way of life. A way of being.

It is not, however, a set belief system and is without moral or ethical guidelines.

Some other Zen concepts:

Life is suffering (dukkha)
Suffering is caused by selfish (rendered egoistic sometimes) craving
There is a way out of suffering
That way is the Eightfold path

Zen (Japanese transliteration of Chinese Ch'an, transliteration of of Sanskrit dhyana, meaning meditation) focuses particularly on the following (non)concepts

The self (sometimes called the ego) is delusion
Buddha-nature pervades the whole universe
This "small" self can be transcended through practice
practice centers on zazen, sitting meditation
Through practice we realize our own Buddha-nature
Practicing Buddha-nature means fulfilling the Four Great Vows:

: The many beings are numberless, I vow to save them
: Greed, hatred and ignorance rise endlessly, I vow to abandon them.
: Dharma gates are countless, I vow to wake to them
: Buddha's way is unsurpassed, I vow to embody it fully

(translation used in Diamond Sangha affiliates).

OK, here's the obligatory book list.

Aitken, Robert. Taking the Path of Zen, North Point Press, New York, 1982. ISBN 0865470804
Beck, Charlotte Joko, Everyday Zen: Love & Work, Harper, San Francisco, 1989. ISBN 0060607343
Scott, David and Doubleday, Tony, The Elements of Zen, Element Books Limited, Shaftesbury, Dorset, 1992. ISBN 1862040427
Taisen Deshimaru-Roshi: The Zen Way to the Martial Arts ISBN 0140193448 ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.38 x 8.28 x 5.10
Blackstone, Judith, Zen for Beginners, Writers & Readers, 1986. ISBN 0863161162
Reps, Paul, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones
Watts, Alan, The Way of Zen, ISBN 0375705104 . Any of his books are good, and ALL of his audio recordings are phenominal.

And one particularly for us programmers:

Kaye, Les, Zen at Work: A Zen Teacher's 30-Year Journey in Corporate America, Crown Trade Paperbacks, New York, 1996. ISBN 0517886200

A good source of Zen knowlage and teachings is any one of the books of Bhagwhan Shree Rajneesh, post-humously known as Osho.

BTW, for 'a special transmission outside the scriptures', there sure are a lot of books about Zen.

Very true! But most Zen books realize this. One book draws the analogy of signs pointing to the moon; once you find the moon, the signs are irrelevant. For a Zen parable that specifically addresses this, see http://www.thesegoto11.com/zen/index.php?story=67. -- WilliamPietri

There are several differences between various "Zen" groups. StevenNewton's description above is accurate for some groups which follow a strong Buddhist tradition. Other groups have less emphasis on Buddhist teachings, and a few respected teachers could be considered non-Buddhists. The common core of the Zen traditions is ZaZen (the sitting meditation). Beyond that, there are two major traditions of Zen teaching: the Rinzai and Soto schools.

There's somewhat of a can of worms here, but at the risk of muddying the waters to clarify them, Zen is a branch of Buddhism. Without Buddhism, you may have something very fine, or you may not, but you don't have Zen, any more than you can have a protestant outside of Christianity. -- StevenNewton

The Rinzai school has most of the fun quotes and stories. Rinzai stories often emphasize satori (similar to an "aha!" moment of direct realization). Several of the teachings feature koans (bizarre riddles) or strange events which are fascinating to read about. However, most of the practice is ZaZen, and often the teachers will say nothing more exciting than "more ZaZen". Most Western references to "Zen" refer to this school.

The Soto school could be considered the "just sitting" tradition. There is less emphasis on koans, and more on simply practicing ZaZen. In some ways the Soto school is closer to the ("philosophical") Taoist tradition. [I have not studied in this tradition, so my understanding may be wrong.] "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind" ISBN 0834800799 is a popular book by an acknowledged Soto master.

[The prior author] is correct. The tradition I've practiced in, the Diamond Sangha, is an outgrowth of the Sanbo Kyodan, which is a melding of Soto and Renzai schools. Because the Soto school doesn't study koans (generally), and Westerners are fixated on koans, the Rinzai tradition is better known. Also, outside of koans, the stories associated with Lin-Chi, Zhao-Zhu and their cohorts tend to have a dramatic 'sound bite' quality appealing to those whose attention spans have been shaped by US popular culture.

--StevenNewton

The stuff at the top is kinda more TaoConcept? than zen whatever.. zen's a memetic virus anyway, disassembling the ability to regret, but there's something to viscerally knowing there's no going back (der of course there's no nothing blah blah blah), no cure, and the teeming masses of others infected taunting, the treatment is more, more, more, more... the madness of the visionary charting their path to salvation is beautiful and harrowing to witness, and then come those moments the universe distills to a singular point on the end of your nose. love is all there is, so play, enjoy your patterns, embrace each other's -- health, happiness, and long life. rinzai kicks soto ass btw, kwan um is pretty cool too, not sure how i feel about the celibate monk thing, but they're not too sissy to lay on some pragmatic declarations. but anyway, if all is void, where can the dust alight? god is love, love is free, free thyself. -- TiggerTenango

Thanks for sharing that.

Does any of this have anything to do with WikiZen?

Anyone have sources on pre-Buddhist zen? My understanding, which may be wrong, is that zen developed before Buddhism, but was pretty much co-opted by Buddhism. Most every book I see is related to zen Buddhism and not its more ancient form. Please enlighten. --Anonymous

When should it ever have developed? *Tweakin' your nose*

You're probably thinking of Taoism, like the TaoTeChing, which is generally acknowledged to have influenced Zen Buddhism.

Perhaps. So you are saying there was no zen before Buddhism?

Does a Buddha have the dog-nature?

(does windows 98 have the lambda nature?) - KirkBailey

Or perhaps more helpfully, Bodhidharma (founder of Zen) was born 700 years or so after Gotama Siddhartha (founder of Buddhism).

There was a powerful tradition of meditation in India at the time of the Buddha, and probably long before. Perhaps that is the connection. My understanding of Zen is that it is Buddhism; just with emphasis on the meditation part. I don't see Buddhism as a religion, by the way. It is a philosophy. Although one can find a lot of mystical stuff in some of the followers, it does not depend on a god like being at all. The Buddha was crystal clear about not being a god, and refused to discuss the matter of the existence of a god....Larry Leach

Religions don't need gods. That's a Judean assumption.

No, they don't, but the assumption isn't Judean. After all, there are major branches of Buddhism that ignore what Buddha said and do treat him as a god.

I also recommend Zen without Zen Masters Camden Banares. Many Zen stories and riddles.

I hope that my rendering of the following Zen story does not damage its beauty:

: Early one very cold winter morning, a monk arose, and being very cold, went to build a fire. Alas, all the firewood was gone. So he took one of the two life-sized wooden Buddhas in the temple and chopped it up, and made a fire and soon was made warm.
: In a little while, the master came into the temple and saw what had happened. Need I say he was upset? On and on he went about what the monk had done, for quite some time, as the fire gradually died. Finally, the monk interrupted him, saying, "Before you punish me, may I please examine the ashes for the crystals?" (For it was then believed that the holier the person cremated, the more crystals were formed in the funeral pyre.)
: "What?" bellowed the enraged master. "Fool monk! That's only a wooden statue, not a holy man."
: "Well then," replied the monk, "may I have the other statue? It is very cold this morning." Hearing this, the master was enlightened.

--KirkBailey

Nice.

While sitting in zazen, the enlightened master gazed eyeless into the boundless deep, and thereupon He drew into his breath the codes to build the PerfectSystem. Awestruck, He became a man, so that his vision could be realized -- a process spanning at least three centuries and a lifetime of pain. The result is called the "GlassBeadGame", but follow the OneTruePath. --MysteryAuthor

See Also: possibly UnconsciousCompetence, GettingIt

CategoryEasternThought