The Brief Hisory of Zen

According to tradition Zen was introduced into China at some time before 520 A.D. by the Indian Buddhist monk Bodhidharma (d.about 530 A.D.). The most important figures in Zen's early development, which is distinctively Chinese, wereCJ惠能 Hui-neng (638-713), 德山Te-shan (780-865), and 臨濟Lin-chi (d. 867).

The two main sects of Zen were brought to Japan be Japanese who had studied in China. The Buddhist monk 榮西Eisai (1141-1215) intruduced 臨濟宗Rinzai Zen in 1191 and the Buddhist monk 道元Dogen (1200-53) introduced 曹洞宗Soto Zen in 1227. Both sects flourish in Japan at the present time.

Western interest in Zen dates from the publication of the first authoritative account of the subject in English, Essays in Zen Buddhism by the Japanese scholar 鈴木大拙Daisetz T. Suzuki (1870-1966). After World War ll and the occupation of Japan a great interest in Zen developed in Europe and the United States, notably among artists, philosophers, and psychologists. It had a special appear for abstract and nonobjective painters and sculptors.

Philosophers have noted its affinities with the thought of the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), with the theory of general semantics of the American scientist and wirter Alfred Habdank Skarbek Korzybski (1879-1950), and some extent with existentialism as propounded by the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. Among the standard works on the subject are Introduction to Zen by Suzuki; Way of Zen(1957) by Alan Watts; Oriental Classics (1960) by R. H. Blyth; The World of Zen (1960) Edited by Nancy Wilson Ross; and A History of Zen Buddhism (1963) by Heinrich Dumoulin, S.J.