Zen, Beyond Buddhism

Zen, beyond Buddhism will consider that Buddhism still offers another surprise, the evolution which occurred when it spread from India to China around the sixth century AD. A new School, Chan, was established there by the monk named Bodhidharma, which later spread as Zen to Japan and Eastern-Southern Asia: in the last century, it further established itself in America and Europe. The unique nature of Zen can be identified immediately from the same definition provided by Bodhidharma as a special transmission outside the scriptures, not founded upon words and letters, which, by pointing directly to one’s mind, lets one see into one’s own true nature, thus attaining Buddhahood, the enlightenment. It is evident what a radical shift this was from the nature and structure not only of the doctrines of the other religions but even from the traditional Schools of Buddhism themselves. This direct new approach to the deeper aspects of human nature, and to the actual individual liberation from the constrictions of life experiences, is revolutionarily unique and allows to regard Zen in its turn as a step beyond the religious aspects of the other Buddhist traditions.