Simetra7 said:
So are you saying that the original meaning and practice of Zen meditation could eventually be lost forever, or are these teachings passed down through generations of certain dedicated families.
Well, this is a difficult question to answer quickly. To do it right, I have to distinquish between Buddhist meditation, and the practices specific to Ch'an (I'm going to use Ch'an because the Chinese are who developed the practices that later became part of Japanese Zen).
The meditation the Buddha mastered and realized enlightenment through is called
samadhi, which means union. It's called union because one's consciousness, normally split into several aspects (intellect, sense data, emotions, etc.) all merge into one single experience. The mind becomes still, and one experiences "oneness" with the whole of reality. This practice involves a series of methods where one learns to recognize the inner brightness of consciousness, its inherent vibrancy, a gentle pulse consciousness has, and a total release from holding or feeling the body. Believe me, it takes practice to get anywhere first because the thinking mind won't let go either of control of consciousness, or of the body.
Letting go becomes a big deal, because as one learns, one realizes that one is surrendering one's self to a greater "something" that will absorb it once one can get the mind to submit (just as Mohammed said). When that absorption happens, that is samadhi/union. Most people think the purpose of meditation is to stop thinking, but it isn't (not samadhi meditation anyway). It's just that thinking prevents absorption; the real goal of samadhi/union meditation is that absorption.
If an individual has the right inner methods, then he can attain union. One can get so good at meditation that he achieves it at every sitting; but alas, the experience fades over the day, so one keeps practicing daily so that the union experience can last through life's hassles. This partial, in and out experience is not enlightenment, which is when someone achieves permanent absorption. When that happens, then that person may go and teach others if the orignal teacher is dead.
So, back to the Ch'an story. What the Buddha did was to achieve permanent union, and then he set up a situation where he could teach. Never in history have students had the opportunity for so much attention from a master. The Buddha taught for 40 years, and as a result quite a few people realized enlightenment. These people (the "preservationists") kept the experience alive, teaching others through the generations, but as the religion of Buddhism grew some went off to teach in more "neutral" settings (i.e., where Buddhism wasn't the dominant thing).
Before China, it appears some Buddhists taught Hindu priests because meditation masters show up there. The great master Kabir claims to have been taught by a Hindu master, and many believe Kabir taught Nanak, who would initiate several generations of serious samadhi meditators before it deteriorated into the Sikh religion. Some say Jesus went to India during his "missing years" and learned union; that would certainly explain the presence of monks and nuns practicing union in monasteries centuries after Jesus' death.
Anyway someone went to China about a thousand years after the Buddha. As usual, a preservationist adjusts his message to fit the beliefs, values and attitudes of his audience (the Buddha, for instance, designed his message for the forest full of ascetics who were his first followers; his "middle way" was a message aimed directly at their severe self-denial practices which were often physically debilitating and even life threatening). The preservationist who went to China, thought to be Bodhidarma, likely found his most enthusiastic followers among Taoists. I say this because you often see in the pecularities of Ch'an the Taoist value of naturalness. This shows up in the best Ch'an koans where students are constantly pressed to experience, and stop maintaining a concept about enlightenment.
I consider Joshu the greatest of all Ch'an masters, someone who meditated for 40 years and waited for his master Nansen's death before teaching. His koans show the naturalness that Taoist understanding seems to have imparted to Ch'an. For example, someone asked Joshu, "Master, where is your mind focused?" Joshu answered, "where there is no design."
"No design," is a what union is like, which is what is practiced first and foremost in meditation. If you know that, then you can see what a true master, someone within the experience himself, is doing when he interacts with students. He is trying to keep them in the "oneness" experience all day. That's how the experience eventually becomes permanent.
Here's another good one (and reflects Taoist influence too):
A monk asked, "Master, what does the enlightened one do?"
Joshu said, "He truly practices the Way."
The monk asked, "Master, do you practice the Way?"
Joshu said, "I put on my robe, I eat my rice."
There is "no design again. The Way is not a concept but the undivided experience of the present. Another example:
A new monk asked, "I have just entered the monastery, and I understand nothing. Please master teach me."
Joshu answered, "Before entering the monastery, you understood even less."
In other words, before you entered the monastery you hadn't heard about the Ch'an concept of being an empty vessel and understanding nothing, but now that concept is in your head which violates "no design." Here's one of my favorites:
A monk asked, "When you do not carry a single thing with you, how is it then?"
Joshu said, "Put it down!"
That is a teaching of no design too. Joshu recognizes the monk is carrying a concept about not carrying concepts instead of being in the experience of no design.
I've tried to show what was really going on FIRST in the original Ch'an, which was samadhi meditation, just like it was with the Buddha's followers. What people now think of as Ch'an or Zen is merely the external techniques used to guide students to stay in the experience. But obviously no student can be guided who hasn't experienced union regularly, yet that is exactly what Zen today has become. It isn't about samadhi (and that's the only kind of meditation to associate with the Buddha), it is about naturalness, and koans, and slapping initiates, etc. It's like trying to drive a car without the motor in it. You aren't going to get anywhere with Zen if you don't have the union experience there that Zen was designed to assist in maintaining.
Now to answer you question. My point has been that I believe preservationists have kept the experience alive throughout the centuries. Samadhi meditation still relies on the same inner methods, but the
external methods change with each teacher. I don't see Zen as alive anymore, its time is past. But it I do think it was a great approach because it emphasized, just like how the Buddha taught, the experience and discouraged concepts.
Is there anyone around today qualifed to teach samadhi/union? As I said, I only discuss that in private.
it doesn't make the slightest bit of sense. 