A comprehensive article on Zen and the focus on Shaolin

09 July 2021 The Academy Founder Articles

 

In Kung Fu, Shaolin is called concentration (Chen or Zen)
 The famous phrase Zen and tea both have the same taste
Zen calm is action-oriented calm, not passive.  Zen art is the concentration of internal forces so that one can use all those forces to perform one's actions. "Zen avoids speaking, because what he wants to say does not fit into language, because it does not fit into words and letters.  Zen is an attempt to see the universe again, free from the limiting presuppositions that have overshadowed the human point of view.  A kind of direct encounter with the universe:

 

When I started studying Zen, it was a mountain, a mountain;
 Because I thought I had reached Zen, the mountain was no longer a mountain
 But when I came to the complete identification of Zen, the open mountain was the same mountain

Crossing the Zen River, we encounter the same familiar truth again.  But the look that passes through the Zen corridor is not the same as the initial look.  Direct contact with existence and truth is the ultimate goal of Zen. And according to Zen monks, this approach does not require thinking.  In the extreme, it can be said that Zen is an attempt not to think.  This is not done by yoga alone, and in Zen stories we see many examples where a person reaches enlightenment.  A person who has not had any training to reach Zen!  Enlightenment is one of the basic concepts of Zen.  One who reaches enlightenment or (satire) understands the truth absolutely and does not make analogies.  Analogy is only about relative cognition.  Satori is also fundamentally different from Buddhist samadhi.  Samadhi is the enlightenment that comes with certain rituals and is usually a kind of immobility while saturation begins with movement.  There are sometimes shortcuts to reaching satire that one discovers, and these are usually innumerable.  When a person reaches enlightenment, he is silent about the truth and its meaning, yet he owes it to his disciples.  The way to teach them is a way that is created not by discussion but by action.  They experience the Zen themselves.

 

One day, a traveler asked Fu Kushu, the master of Zen: Both speech and silence are wrong!  How can this not be done?
 "I often think of Conan in April," Fukushu said.  Quebec sings among fragrant flowers !!  Is the answer perfect?

Zen art is not just the abandonment of thought.  Zen is opposed to everything and at the same time sometimes takes advantage of everything.  Not thinking in some circumstances may be a plague on the way to Zen!  Zen begins life with paradoxes!  And at the same time, in the heart of his ultimate truth, he sees no place for contradiction. Everything is as it seems!  Zen's attempt at these verbal paradoxes stems from his disbelief in concepts.  In Buddhist traditions, concepts are rooted in a kind of misguidance.  It is the Buddhist motto that everything is a perceptual illusion, let it pass.  At the same time, according to Joseph Campbell, this slogan is changed in Zenist thinking, which is a kind of Buddhist sect: everything is as beautiful as it is! Let the beauty of the truth of love and knowledge have no fixed and absolute definitions.  What is true is life, not the beauty of life!  What is true is the water and the sea and the sound of birds!  And according to the famous Quan: "It is that the willows are green and the flowers are red!  Quans are usually like a riddle and have a poetic prose (they usually use simple language and are very naturalistic like haiku): Cold kills you with cold and heat kills you with heat!

The origins of Zen can be found in Chinese Taoism and monthly Buddhism.  In fact, Zen is the Chinese "Chen" (truth) that originated from the monthly tradition of Buddhism (the Great Way) and is intertwined with the soul and spirit of Japanese culture.  One of the deepest concepts that Zen deals with is the concept of emptiness.  According to Zen philosophy, it is emptiness that causes creation.  If there is no space, it cannot be filled.

Wake up the soul without touching anything!

 

 
Philosophically, Zen knowledge has three levels.
 Conceptual cognition, relative cognition and absolute cognition.
 Cognition is the same as basic cognition. For example, when we look at a string from a distance, we may think it is a snake.  This cognition is usually superficial and deals with appearances.
 In relative cognition we measure phenomena by analogy.  We know the door because it is different from the window.  The mountain is different from the plain because it is taller!
 And ... and absolute cognition occurs after enlightenment!

 "Zen art is art without art."  There may not be such a precise (!) Definition of Zen to describe Zen.

 

Zen has foundations that must always be rebuilt and re-emerged in order to understand the truth more deeply.
 Zen is an attempt at liberation.  And of course, again, this is an introduction to a story in which two Zen masters define the meaning of Zen.
 
 Zen is neither psychology nor philosophy yet it is everything!
(Jung, after examining the similarities and differences between Zen and Meister Eckhart's mystical point of view, examines several Kwan and considers Zen as his attempt to separate himself from me.

One day a professor on the podium was talking about the truth of Zen.  But his words did not affect his disciples.  When the master saw this, at the end of his speech, he turned his cane in the sky and said loudly: Do you know what this is?  The students each answered in amazement or laughter at this question: a cane, a piece of wood, a sacred stick ... but the teacher, while still shaking his cane, said: No!  This is all the truth that I have wanted to explain to you over the years, this is Zen!  And then he came down from the podium while still shaking the cane in the air.  This master Kwan reached the ears of the great master Shokoui.  He said at the end of a speech: If I were him, I would not say so!  One of the monks immediately asked him: So what did you say?  Shokui shook his cane in the air, came down from the podium and walked away!

Sifu Marami