Why did Bodhidharma come from the West? And why did Zen go East after Mumon, Wansong and Dahui in China?

Why would zen go underground within a generation of Dahui writing the Blue Cliff, or Wansong the Book of Serenty, or Mumon the Gateless Gate, all this happening just a century and a half after Foyan?

This is not a serious or an academic answer, but these kinds of questions in zen are not going away regardless, so let's have some fun.

There was another perplexing question about China, the one about China inventing fireworks, but westerners taking that to the level of firearms, bombs, and dynamite. That question goes side by side with the question about Zheng He, on official missions, 1405-1433, to promote the glory of Ming dynasty China undertook voyages through the middle east to the east coast of Africa. When these missions abruptly ended further interest was cancelled and China turned inward.

Dahui had burned the printing blocks for the Blue Cliff Record once. It had been obvious to even the six Patriarchs, to the earliest zen masters like Fayan, before the Tang early zen period even ended, that there were more students interested in trying to make up a teaching than picking up from Bodhidharma. This became more intense several centuries later as Foyan so thoroughly observed and documented, and then more than a hundred years later, with Dahui, Mumon, and Wansong, the literati was so dominant that Dahui's own students were writing commentaries for Juefan Huihong.

I am not really trying to say that zen went east (to Japan or the US). Who would want to hang out with people who were writing commentaries for Juefan Huihong? A time out, and time underground can be the intelligent response. There is no rule that says that zen teachers are there to save the world from a headlong dive into other interests, or save China from a future that China was dragged into. Today is the 30th Anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. In the three decades since, China has seen the single most explosive expansion in human history. There are places in China today where people are again reading the Gateless Gate.

This r/zen subreddit is a great place to ask today why Bodhidharma came from the west. The place where Bodhidharma came from certainly did not carry forward anything resembling what Bodhidharma talked about. I say let's enjoy this while we can, because it could slip underground as quickly as it came out of nowhere.

Submitted June 06, 2019 at 08:50AM by rockytimber http://bit.ly/2Mw9pRA