The Zen rebels: obscure hermits and existential reformers (part 9). Japanese Zen Philosophy (part 2)

Is there still a reflection of the Japanese Zen Philosophy?  Within a society that have moved so far into a materialistic culture.  If the influences are fading or at least seen more as a novelty within Japanese religious history.    Zen, undoubtedly began its rich history in Japan from the 11th and 12th Centuries and to this day it can still be seen in its popular culture icons.  In the sense that the Japanese take on Chinese Ch'an (Zen) came into its own as it moved into a more modern age, even though, Japanese culture itself, in a contemporary sense, although not as obvious today, it is still intently an isolationist country.  Japan has always honored and fused outside influences and made it their own. However, despite its isolationism, the first Japanese Zen Masters via the transmission of their teachers, needed to integrate Chinese Zen and its vast lineage into a uniquely Japanese ethos, to which both China and Japan owe to the first patriarch of Zen Buddhism; Bodhidharma, after he arrived in China from India in the 5th Century.  

The integrating of Japaneses Zen into Japanese culture, holds a similarity to the early stages of Ch'an in China.  For it to adjust to early Chinese culture and religion, Zen had to attach itself and interweave with Taoism and to a lesser extent Confucianism – to which Zen Buddhism and Confucianism remained in a tenuous relationship with each other throughout Chinese and Japanese history.  More so as a jostling for political influence and favors, and it is Confucians that, in periods of political turmoil, had more at stake than Zen Buddhism.  Regardless, the critique that Japanese Zen became solely a Japanese Philosophy, in which some historians had stated began to almost separate its self from its Chinese Buddhism roots.  Needs to be looked at within the discourse of wars and conflict in Japan over the centuries, so for it to have gained a footing in Japan, within its early manifestation it had no choice but to captivate a warrior class, that being the Shoguns and Samurai.

Even if there is a correlation of Japanese militarism and Zen Buddhism, it was still able to align itself solely as an encompassing Japanese theory of Zen.  And over time it became the most recognizable Buddhist philosophy (with its own array of hermits,rebels and reformers) throughout history.  And the significance of the two schools, Rinzai (Linji) and Sōtō (Cáodòng), both laid down a solid base for Zen Buddhism maintaining what it had done throughout the centuries, to question ones reality – in its discipline of attachment and detachment from the mind within the self, a practice of cultivation through meditation.   Yet, the early Japanese masters, ensured that the Chinese linage and the monks and masters were respected and honored throughout its long history. While at the same time appeasing the way Zen teaches – that is not to attain or grasp for any prior influence, that in someways paradoxically adheres as a rejection of the linage and the patriarchs. As not to be reliant on it for guidance.  Placing the importance on the here and now of mastering reality.   Bringing it back to the root of meditation and the enlightenment of self subscribed by the two schools.   And this is where we find a Zen influence on Japan that remains to this day,  as a true iconic symbol of the appreciation of Zen history, The Daruma-Daishi (Bodhidharma) doll.

___

Authored by Adrian Glass