The question is really this: Was there Zen or dhyana in China before Bodhidharma came to China? To answer this question with a “yes” means, or should mean, that Zen or dhyana was not a school or tradition (tsung) as we know Zen today. Rather Zen was Buddhist meditation that made possible gnosis or jñâna in which the adept awakened to their true nature or the same, awakened to the luminous nature of Mind.
In the Biographies of eminent Buddhist Teachers (Nanjio, No. 1490; Taishô, No. 2059) completed in 519 A.D. there were listed 21 Zen or dhyana masters “in which the name of Bodhidharma is not included” (Encyclopaedia of Buddhism Volume III, p. 201). In a later biography compiled in 645 A.D., “the name of 135 dhyana experts are found including a few of the immediate disciples of Bodhiharma” (ibid). During this period of time there were Zen masters but no school or tradition in the way we think of Zen today. More importantly, if Bodhidharma came to Southern China around 475 as the founder of Zen or dhyana why isn’t he mentioned in these two biographies? This is an astonishing omission.
From this we can tentatively conclude that the early phase of Zen was pure Zen: it was Zen that hadn’t been institutionalized; turned into to 'funeral Zen" which is what it is in Japan. Also it was Zen without a lineage (tsung). It was taught by Zen masters like Buddhabhadra (398–421) and others. It is only much later that Zen became a school/lineage—the Zen that we recognize today which is arguably a different Zen than early Zen.
I enjoyed this post which certainly helped my limited understanding of Zen. Could I ask how Zen relates to Daoism? Thanks.
Posted by: Daphne Ashling Purpus | November 28, 2010 at 01:06 PM