Trying to discover what Zen is really about it is important to bear in mind that Zen is not the school of doing zazen or of solving koans. These are later forms of Zen which bear very little, in any, resemblance to original Zen which revolved pretty much around the Lankavatara Sutra.
Zen or dhyana was not even an established school when we read the old Chinese biographies about “dhyana masters.” This happens much later. Nor was there a so-called Zen lineage going back to the Buddha (nor was there ever one in India). The Zen lineage is a fabrication; rather a marketing ploy to win official recognition and support. Popping the Zen lineage bubble, once and for all, according to the Avatamsaka Sutra, great disciples like Mahakasyapa “were not capable of perpetuating the lineage of Buddhas” (Cleary, Flower Ornament Scripture, p. 1146). By the way, this is a dirty little secret modern Zen doesn’t want you to know about.
We can’t help but draw the conclusion that Zen’s present methodology, with which most of us are familiar, is inadequate for the actualization of our Buddha-nature. Awakening to this nature has nothing whatsoever to do with a sitting posture. It begins with the intellect and ends in direct acquaintance with the very substance (tathata) of phenomena, including even our temporal thoughts.
While the evidence is clear that modern Zen has an altogether inadequate means for discovering our true nature, unfortunately, the evidence has not stopped the drive to turn such Zen into a modern religious institution replete with authorized priests who believe they are Buddhas along with their flock who also believe they are Buddhas! This is especially true of Soto Zen which, incidentally, in Japan is regarded as a ‘priest factory’.
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