8/24/2023 0 Comments Define zen world history![]() All you need to do this is a space to sit. Traditionally, one sits with legs crossed in the Indian style, regulating your breathing and focusing on your outward and inward breaths. Zazen, literally “seated zen”, is one common meditative practice. The only way to understand Zen properly is to do it. In this way the Buddha’s teaching about reality was transmitted to Kasyapa, not through words, but by direct experience. Only one disciple, Kasyapa, understood the meaning of the Buddha’s “flower sermon”, and he signaled his understanding with a smile. One day a crowd of Buddha’s disciples had gathered to hear him preach, but instead of speaking, the Buddha simply held up a white flower and gazed at it. There is a rather pretty story about the Buddha that illustrates this. Some truths cannot be expressed in words. While other schools focus on rituals and the study of Buddha’s teachings in the scriptures, Zen focuses on the prolonged meditation that originally brought the historical Buddha true peace of mind and enlightenment. What makes Zen different from other Buddhist schools is its emphasis on the direct experience of spiritual truths through meditative practice. In China, the Buddhist practices taught by Bodhidharma blended with native Taoist philosophy to produce Chán Buddhism which spread to Vietnam in the 6th century, Korea in the 7th century, and Japan in the 12th where it acquired the name of Zen. He is also supposed to have taught the monks of Shaolin monastery a regime of exercises to keep them physically fit that were the origin of Shaolin kung fu (but presumably he did that before the loss of his limbs). He is said to have lived for 150 years and at one point in his life to have sat and meditated for so long in a mountain cave that as the years went by his arms and legs withered and fell off (which is why Japanese Daruma dolls have no arms and legs). Some say he was Indian and some say he was Persian. Not a lot is known for sure about this legendary figure who is called Daruma in Japan, but there are a lot of stories about him. According to tradition a monk called Bodhidharma first brought Zen from India to China sometime in the 5th or 6th century. This term is itself a translation of the Sanskrit word dhyāna which refers to a kind of profound meditation. The word Zen is the Japanese way of pronouncing the character 禅 which is pronounced Chán in Japanese. ![]() Zen is a school of Buddhism that has been distilled through three cultures: Indian, Chinese, and Japanese, and which takes the practice of meditation as its primary focus. It first arrived in Japan in the 12th century, and its roots lie on the East Asian continent. Zen in its origins, however, is not Japanese. ![]() It feels no surprise that the haiku was created by Zen monks.When you think of the word Zen, what images spring to mind? Perhaps you might imagine a dry garden of raked sand and rocks, a graceful black circle penned in ink on white paper, a black-robed monk seated in the lotus position with eyes half-shut, or the ripples created when a drop of water falls from a bamboo pipe into a stone basin… Such images may seem deeply Japanese, and Zen has had a profound influence on Japanese culture, its meditative focus transforming traditional arts like the tea ceremony, flower arrangement, calligraphy, and the martial arts into well-honed philosophical practices. In Matsuo Basho’s poem Dewdrop, let me cleanse, the reader can experience his connection to nature, his seeking relief from pain, his surrender to the imperfection of life. Matsuo Basho described haiku as “Simply what is happening in this place at this moment.” What is human, what is nature, what is happening is reflected in these short, three-lined poems. The original Japanese form takes sounds and breath into account, and are typically shorter than the English counterparts that followed in later years. Haiku are poems that must be 5, 7, 5 in syllables. Haiku Poems Dewdrop, let me cleanse in your brief sweet waters. Such is the way of Zen, and such is the way of how Zen has found its way into design.ġ5. Modern Design House I is an example of how to find that peaceful space within a space that wouldn’t normally allow for it. Tokyo, a crowded compact metropolis, is quite the Zen challenger. Kojima said, “ not about living in empty rooms or areas, but about creating true well-being for body and soul.” The two-story house creates space where there is little. Architect, Ryushi Kojima, designed Modern Zen Design House in 2012 in Tokyo.
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