Zen Buddhism

Japan’s spare, disciplined school of meditation and everyday awakening.

c. 1191 CE → · Japan · Dharmic

Zen is the Japanese development of Chinese Chan Buddhism, brought over around 1200 and organized into the Rinzai and Sōtō schools by Eisai and Dōgen. It holds that awakening is realized through disciplined seated meditation and attention to ordinary life rather than through doctrine. Its aesthetic of simplicity shaped Japanese arts from the tea ceremony and calligraphy to gardens and poetry.

Key figures

• Eisai (brought Rinzai)
• Dōgen (founded Sōtō)

Texts

• Shōbōgenzō
• Koan collections

Beliefs

• Awakening realized through zazen
• Ordinary activity as the field of practice
• Insight beyond concepts

Rituals

• Zazen (seated meditation)
• Koan study
• Tea, calligraphy, and gardens as practice

Grew from

• Chan Buddhism

Connections in the atlas

• Thích Nhất Hạnh
• Shōbōgenzō (Treasury of the True Dharma Eye)
• Mount Hiei and Enryaku-ji
• Francis Xavier's mission to Asia
• Ensō
• Retreat and monastic withdrawal (ritual)
• The Japanese (Yamato)
• ▶ How Buddhism crossed Asia
• D. T. Suzuki
• The Heart Sūtra
• Kyoto's temples and shrines
• Buddhism to Korea and Japan