Dark side of Zen tradition

Declaimer: if one is interested one can find more about each of the points made by himself.

• Zen masters based the whole lot on the Mahayana sutras which are of a questionable origin and authenticity.

• The whole Zen lineage starting with the supposed first Zen Patriarch Bodhidharma is shrouded in mystery and uncertainty.

• In the 6th century biographies of famous monks were collected. From this genre the typical Chan lineage was developed. These famous biographies were non-sectarian. The Ch'an biographical works, however, aimed to establish Ch'an as a legitimate school of Buddhism traceable to its Indian origins, and at the same time championed a particular form of Ch'an. Historical accuracy was of little concern to the compilers; old legends were repeated, new stories were invented and reiterated until they too became legends.

• At the time where the tradition was living with all its 'masters' there was lots of infighting and disagreement going on.

• The whole tradition split into various schools which were in disagreement with each other.

• At some point the whole tradition was more of an elite political institution exercising power, not Dharma.

• The kind of zen masters that were active in the past have not survived to the present day.

• At one point in time the tradition become a rather psychopathic display involving cutting up animals, cutting off fingers of children, supposedly one school stealing possessions from another to prove its more authentic than the other, beating up disciples for asking reasonable questions and alike. This has not survived to the present day.

• Apparently the acceptance of successor in a lineage was more of a matter of politics and propaganda than it was about the students capacity - take the story of Faru - Faru is notable in the history of Zen because the concept of a lineage, a fundamental notion in the identity of the school, seems to have originated with either him or his immediate followers. His epitaph speaks of an unbroken line of mind to mind transmission from Gautama Buddha to Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen, to Faru's teacher Hongren, and on to Faru himself. Other students of Hongren, however, claimed that they were the next point on the lineage and not Faru, however. These included Laoan, but most importantly Yuquan Shenxiu, who had a competing epitaph claiming he was the next patriarch of the lineage after Hongren. In modern Zen institutions, however, neither Shenxiu or Faru is traditionally considered the true heir of Hongren; that distinction lies with Huineng, a monk far less notable than Faru or Shenxiu who rose to prominence only after his death thanks to an extensive campaign by his student Heze Shenhui.

• There is a wide discrepancy between what and how one master teaches to the next and the teaching never stayed the same thorough the history. In other words there is no 'one zen'. See university book report: http://enlight.lib.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-BJ001/bj001545818.pdf

Enjoy!

Submitted December 30, 2018 at 01:43PM by ZaoPing http://bit.ly/2GJS3O9