The Japanese form of Buddhism, known as Zen, is a system of meditation and sustained self-discipline aimed at completely transforming the everyday experience of its adherents through teachings of insight and self-awareness.
Buddhism began in India in the 6th century BC, and a monk named Bodhidharma took it to China in AD 520. The type of meditation he taught became known in China as ch’an. In the 12th century, it was introduced into Japan, where it has flourished ever since as Zen.
In Buddhism, the sense of a fixed personal identity is seen as the most potent illusion standing in the way of enlightenment. Everyone wants to believe that the self or personality with which they identify is a permanent one, but Buddhism holds that everything has to change—including this. The Teaching Centre helps you see yourself as part of a never-ending process of change and loosen your attachment to a particular self-image.
Who can help
Zen meditation and training aim to help anyone who needs deeper insight and self-awareness in their daily life or is dissatisfied with the materialistic ‘I-centred’ way of life that dominates Western society. The new perspective taught by Zen and the effects of practising techniques such as meditation may also help with problems such as stress, anxiety, and depression, which are aspects of daily life for many Westerners.
Seeing a Zen teacher
Zen aims to develop a direct understanding based on intuition that goes beyond normal thought and reason. Three main techniques are used: daily life practice, meditation, and memorable anecdotes, riddles, and puzzles designed to carry thought beyond the limits of the intellect.
A Zen teacher aims to develop a direct understanding based on intuition that goes beyond normal thought and reason.
Daily life practices
The aim is to apply the Buddhist principle of ‘Mind Emptiness’ in every waking moment. This means being continually aware of your responses and devoting entirely to each activity as you perform it, rather than wishing you were doing something else or saying, ‘I want…’ or, ‘If only…
The difficulty lies in overcoming the common desire to hold on to illusions and desires, even though they can cause anger, frustration, and disappointment.
Zen teaches that the willful, demanding side of the personality can be tamed by recognising these negative feelings for what they are and by accepting and ‘suffering through’ them. In this state, happiness and good fortune are gratefully accepted when they come, but the student does not become attached to them since he knows that, like everything else, they will pass.
Meditation, known as za-zen (literally, sitting meditation), is a daily practice. Meditators sit cross-legged on cushions, balancing their weight equally on the buttocks and knees, keeping their spine erect and head upright.
At first, they learn to meditate by silently counting their breaths from one to ten. When other thoughts arise, the meditator must set them aside without dwelling on them and start the count again.
Za-zen is often both physically and mentally uncomfortable. Maintaining the same posture for long periods can be painful, and meditation forces students to confront the turmoil of their restless thoughts.
With practice, however, meditators learn to let thoughts come and go without making judgments about them. Eventually, a state is reached where the sitter is aware without a personal ‘I’ who is aware.
Za-zen is practised daily, either privately or in a group. Occasionally, more extended periods of meditation, known as sessions, can last hours or even days.
Anecdotes, riddles and puzzles, Zen abounds with stories, conundrums, parables and paradoxes intended to trap or jolt the rational mind, freeing the student for new ways of thinking. For example, one story shows two monks looking at a flag flapping in the breeze and arguing. One says: ‘The flag is moving. The other insists: ‘No, the wind is moving.’ A passing master rebukes them, saying,’ Your minds are moving. ‘Even this, teachers say, is not the last word.
More advanced Zen students are sometimes given a koan by their teacher to meditate on. These are puzzles that cannot be understood or solved by reason. Two examples are: “What is the sound of hand clapping? “Show me your original face before you were born.”
The effect confronts the intellect with a barrier that no amount of logical thinking can penetrate. Instead, insight may burst in with a response born of the immediate moment—a smile, a shout, the sight of raindrops trickling down a windowpane. The answer is to ‘un-ask the question; the problem lies in calling it a problem.
Zen teaches that with each moment of insight, the stranglehold of the personal ‘I’ on the student’s way of thinking is loosened, and a new, deeper understanding grows. With this understanding comes an ability to live comfortably in the present—whatever the circumstances—and a feeling of travelling light, without firm attachments to the everyday world.
Zen: An orthodox view
There is a danger that the unfamiliarity of Zen could make it attractive to people who are damaged by or out of touch with everyday life. However, Zen is not a form of psychotherapy, and it cannot provide easy relief from mental or emotional troubles. The amount of self-confrontation involved may even make it dangerous for some people with weak psychological defences. Zen encompasses an approach to life and living founded on an oriental view of the universe. Many of the methods practised by Zen monks have been introduced into Western stress-reduction programs, but learning them through Zen itself also involves embracing the underlying Buddhist philosophy.
ZEN GARDEN: Meditating amid beauty and peace
The primary purpose of a Zen Garden is to provide an ideal outdoor setting for meditation, which Zen Buddhists regard as the basis of their religion and their chief way of reaching spiritual enlightenment. To this end, the garden’s traditional focal point is a rock or small group of stones meant to take those who view them out of the immediate, everyday world and into a state of mind where thought can flourish freely.
The rocks are framed in a setting—such as a small backyard or a corner of a back garden—that separates and distinguishes them from their wider surroundings. The size and nature of the setting, however, are immaterial. The area’s layout is important and leads the spectator’s eye towards the ‘shrine’.
At its simplest, a Zen garden can consist of three or four strategically placed stones, with a foreground of smoothly raked gravel or closely cropped grass. If you already have a well-planted and secluded garden, all you need to do is put your ‘shrine’ in place and possibly put down some gravel or a short stretch of grass.
If you have the space, however, you can create a more elaborate garden with converging lines of flowerbeds rising to form a mound behind the rocks. A backdrop of plants can be chosen to match and enhance the shape and size of the stones. The picture can be ‘framed’ by an overhanging tree. Finally, the setting should be enclosed by a wall, fence, or dense, evergreen bushes, which will cut it off from the outside world. This sense of privacy is essential for the setting to be free of everyday associations.
However, no two Zen gardens are precisely alike, and a well-designed garden should reflect its creator’s artistic and aesthetic tastes. To achieve this, careful thought should be given to the proportions of the various elements which make up the garden.
The size of the ‘shrine’ must fit in with the total size of the garden. It must not be so large that it dominates the scene or so small that it may be overlooked at first sight. Consideration must also be given to the amount of earth used for the mound and flanking flowerbeds, the appropriate amount of open space needed in the foreground (again, not too much or too little), and the height and bulk of the plants used to provide the garden with privacy.
The exact balance between these various elements is up to you. The arrangement can be a mixture of interwoven shapes, colours and textures – simple overall but rich in complex and stimulating detail. On the other hand, it can be basic and uncontrived.
However, two critical aspects must be borne in mind. Firstly, the rocks should be set off-centre so that they do not merely blend in with the symmetry of the walls behind and on either side of them. Secondly, to achieve the maximum, concentrated effect, the rocks should be arranged as simply and naturally as possible – their different shapes and sizes create a pleasing but uneven pattern. (Rocks which are too ‘perfectly’ arranged to leave little to the onlooker’s imagination.)
The power of such simplicity is graphically shown in the gardens of the Zen Buddhist temples of Daitoku-ji and Ryoan-ji on the outskirts of the former imperial capital of Japan, Kyoto. Laid out in the late 15th century, the Ryoan-ji garden consists of 15 large stones set in an expanse of grey-white gravel, which is raked daily. Apart from a few mosses, there are no plants. Even so, the rocks’ bare beauty and surroundings inspire people worldwide.
But whichever form of garden is chosen— the complex or the simple—it should provide the perfect setting to encourage and nurture deep and contemplative thought.
The Zen garden at the working temple of Daitoku-ji in Kyoto is among the most celebrated in Japan. Simplicity is the keynote, and the ‘shrine’ of grey rocks is fronted by well-raked gravel and backed by shrubs and conifers. The garden is revered by the temple monks and admired by visitors.
