About Chan (Zen)

Chan, also known as Zen, is a way of looking directly at one’s own True Nature. Each of us is born, lives and dies, and yet we may go an entire lifetime without ever realizing that there’s more to ourselves than we think. Indeed, we have the capacity to come to a very direct understanding of what we really are and what our relationship to the universe around us truly is if we will just look. Chan is a way of looking, a way to focus our attention on the truth of our own life. It is direct realization of our true nature.

In order to point at this true nature we practice Chan meditation. A famous saying describes Chan practice, among others, as “a finger pointing to the moon.” The moon’s brilliance is there for all to see, and the finger points the way. The finger itself is merely a way, a path, a vehicle for us to get at the truth. The essence of Chan has little if anything to do with rites, rituals and so forth, even though these may be employed as a means of encouraging mindfulness. Chan is directly concerned with getting at the truth.

Whether or not the man named Bodhidharma actually existed is still a matter for some debate, but it is very useful in our exploration of the origins of Chan. As the legend goes, Bodhidharma was a Buddhist scholar from India who visited the court of the Chinese Emperor Wu of the Liang Dynasty in the sixth century CE. Following this visit, during which he is said to have debunked the Emperor’s view of Buddhist teachings, he traveled west and took up residence in a cave near the fabled Shaolin Monastery. He spent nine years in that cave meditating. Bodhidharma was an expert in the teachings of the Lankavatara Sutra which stressed the direct realization of one’s Buddha-Nature, and the subsequent meditative school which took root actualized these teachings.

By this time, Daoist thought was over 3000 years old and was woven into the fabric of Chinese society. Daoist and Buddhist scholars had intermingled for several hundred years before Bodhidharma’s time, and many books looking at Buddhist teachings in a Daoist way had been written. The two systems were generally considered to be very complimentary.

Bodhidharma is credited with becoming the First Ancestor of Chan. The word Chan was a Chinese pronunciation of the Sanskrit word dhyana, which referred to the Buddha’s teaching of meditative concentration. But the Chinese interpreted the word to mean “awareness.” Thus the Chan school was centered around the utilization of meditative concentration, rather than relying on sacred texts, in order to attain a direct awareness of one’s true nature.

As time passed more Zen teachers began to make their way to North America, including such figures as Nyogen Senzaki, Nakagawa Soen Roshi and Sokei-an Sasaki. The daughter of Sasaki’s wife met and eventually married the noted English author Alan Watts, paving the way for him to come to the U.S. Watts, a former Episcopal clergyman, helped push Zen into the national consciousness. He coined the phrase “Beat Zen” to describe the kind of Zen practice which had become fashionable on the west coast in the 1950s. By this time, small Zen groups were forming and the number of practitioners was increasing. Watts’ most famous book, “The Way of Zen,” is credited with bringing many people to Zen practice.

Later came traditional Chan teachers like the Venerable Xuanhua, a disciple of the famous Master Xuyun. Xuanhua founded the Gold Mountain Monastery in San Francisco as well as the Sagely City of 10,000 Buddhas and a number of other Chan monasteries and temples. The noted Master Shengyen later founded the Chan Meditation Center in Elmhurst, New York. Many Chan monasteries and temples have sprung up in California and New York state as well as in Canada. Zen centers such as the San Francisco Zen Center and Dai Bosatsu Zendo in New York state continue to keep the Japanese variant of Chan vibrant and alive. Both the Chan and Zen traditions can now boast hundreds of sitting groups and dozens of monasteries in North America. Both Chan and Zen continue to grow and evolve to meet the needs of 21st-century practitioners who are seeking to actualize their True Nature.