Did you know the name "Zen" originates in "Dhyana", the Indian word for meditation?

I bet you didn't, if you get all your "Zen" information here at r/Zen!

So I decided to verify the authenticity of what some people aggressively promote here as "Zen". My first verification attempt didn't go so well for these folks. I went to Wikipedia, and BAM, first line:

Zen (Chinese: 禪; pinyin: Chán) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty as Chan Buddhism.

Wait, Zen is a school of Buddhism? But r/Zen told me it is definitely not, that Zen's lineage originates in Bodhidharma, who didn't recognized any Buddhas or teachers before him.

But wait, there's more:

The term Zen is derived from the Japanese pronunciation of the Middle Chinese word 禪 (Chan) which traces its roots to the Indian practice of Dhyana ("meditation"). Zen emphasizes rigorous self-control, meditation-practice, insight into Buddha-nature, and the personal expression of this insight in daily life, especially for the benefit of others.

Meditation? Every time I visit r/Zen there's a bunch of upvoted threads about how Zen is totally against meditation. Now it seems the very name "Zen" derives from "meditation"?!

The kooks never seem to mention any of these other core tenets of Zen - when was the last thread about "rigorous self-control" for instance, or any self-control? I swear I saw more posts about animated cat GIFs.

Looks like Wikipedia doesn't really agree this dominant view in r/Zen, but maybe, like the kooks claim, it's the Not Zen conspiracy. So I went straight to the source that these kooks lean on, their supposed spiritual ancestor, the origin of their lineage: Bodhidharma.

I picked up the most authoritative book I could find, and lo and behold, it agrees precisely with Wikipedia, and contradicts the r/Zen kooks on every point:

1. Zen is a school of Buddhism.
2. It accepts the Dharma of the Buddha, and promotes a version of the Eightfold Path.
3. It is heavily focused on meditation practice.

So I posted this thread - a set of verbatim quotes from Bodhidharma's Breakthrough Sermon, copied straight from the book with no changes. Predictably, I still get attacked as a "troll" by the kooks, apparently for extensively quoting the origin of their lineage.

You have to wonder, at this point - when will the kooks acknowledge that their own personal version of "Zen" contradicts everything outside r/Zen, and won't lead anyone to enlightenment, no matter how many echo-chamber posts s/he writes and upvotes?

I mean, that's the key problem here: new users coming to r/Zen to learn about Zen, and getting hit in the face by this "Zen" that has nothing to do with enlightenment, viciously promoted by people who in all appearances are the opposite of enlightened: aggressive, vicious, defensive, insecure, greedy, obsessive, entirely lacking in compassion or caring, egotistical, and egocentric.

Kooks, who are you benefiting, exactly? It is as if your thinly-veiled goal is to confine all wandering seekers within the prison of your unenlightened minds.

Clearly, at any rate, you have no right to claim these views represent Zen or Bodhidharma. Your own supposed sources contradict you.

Submitted August 22, 2017 at 12:11AM by SilaSamadhi http://ift.tt/2uZTIJ1