Zen... not the Maruti Zen

I think I have been bitten by the ZEN bug. I just happened to buy a book on Zen and now I am addicted to the concept behind Zen and its innumerable parables/stories…


Let me share some info on Zen with you….

Zen philosophy for ages has had a mystic effect on the spiritually attuned minds. The manner in which the principles are unfolded is unique and effective. In the modern era Zen is equivalent to the oriental style of spirituality. But, did you know that Zen actually had its origin from the Vedas and the puranas?

It was a south Indian prince by the name of Bodhidarma, who had had an early Hindu upbringing and later embracing Buddhism, who as a monk wandered to the east (China, Japan) and conceived and spread the thoughts of the Zen philosophy that is prevalent today.

The Interesting part of Zen teachings are its stories. Each story carries a deep meaning which might not be clear to a casual reader. Beauty of these stories is that the readers can have varied interpretation and understanding based upon their perception.

These stories are also known as the koans or the puzzles. Yes, these can be puzzles as each person may interpret the story differently, only a person with higher sense of understanding can interpret each of these correctly. Now, you might ask, “Do we have fixed or predefined solution/translation to it?” The answer is NO. These stories carry no further elaboration or explanations. It is said that different Zen masters had different interpretation of the koans and had their separate set of disciples. The koans that we read now, are scenes that have happened between the master and the disciple; It is said that the disciples spent years pondering on these koans.

What I liked about Zen is that it makes you THINK, it makes you use your mind and also apply it. If you can interpret these stories/koans positively and try implementing them in life, then I would say that you are going to be one cool dude!!

It is also known that the Ninjas follow the Zen school f teaching and they implement the essence of Zen into their art.

Over the years man masters have added more koans to the repository. And just like the panchthantra and the Jataka /Hitopdesha tales have been popular in far east.

You can find the koans on the internet and also what others have tried to make out of these koans. It will be interesting to see how varied and conflicting they are.

These are links that lead you to Koans and other Zen related articles.

http://www.ashidakim.com/zenkoans/zenindex.html

http://www.ibiblio.org/zen/cgi-bin/koan-index.pl

http://www.angelfire.com/electronic/awakening101/mumonkan.html