Zen history

It all started when Buddha gave Mahakashyapan a lotus flower quietly

Buddha was surrounded by many of his disciples unlike other times, Buddha remained silent

Tradition says that seeing Buddha in silence for so long, just gazing at his white flower, made almost all of his disciples and followers shake restlessly

Only Mahakashyapa understood the message and laughed

Buddha then gave him the white flower and transmitted his Dharma to him

I have given you everything that can be given with words, but with this flower I give Mahakashyapa the key of all teachings

All that can be said I have already said to you and what cannot be said with words, I have given it to Mahakashyapa

This was what the Zen masters called, and still do, "key transfer without deed"

When Buddha observes something, the quality of his consciousness is transmitted and a flower becomes one of the most receptive things on earth

Only one flower carried the Buddha status and it was filled with the only spiritual tradition: laughter

Because in Zen monasteries they have always been laughing

Although there are few other references to Mahakashyapa, other disciples were much better known and they are present in the scriptures, Mahakashyapa is one of the most revered, as he was the first to receive the Dharma from Gautama Buddha

Zen is born from Hindu consciousness, from Gautama Buddha´s thought

India has a very introverted conscience, hence is the cradle of many spiritual traditions

This tradition has been leading energy inward and deepening being for centuries

This movement is born with Buddha, but it responds to a long current that has grown

Buddha remembers that there were 24 Buddhas who flourished before him

After the birth in India, the tradition grew up for more than 1000 years until Bodhidharma traveled to China in the 5th century

Before the arrival of Bodhidharma, Buddhism in China had been an exercise of an intellectual nature, but he changed everything and people stopped talking about Zen as if it were a philosophy

Bodhidharma was the son of a king of South India, of a great empire

He said to his father: "If you cannot save me from death, then let me find something that is beyond death" ande gave up the kingdom

Bodhidharma was started by an enlightened woman Pragyatara

she told him to go to China and that's why he left India, he became then the first enlightened Buddhism master known in China

This trip took him 3 years

The seed of India grew in China And it took on extraordinary proportions, China is a balanced place to grow

Legend says that bodhidharma was the one who created tea to meditate, which is expressed through this nice story

I want to tell you the legend of Bodhidharma's eyelids and the origins of tea

There is a nice story that says that Bodhidharma, Zen founder was the one who discoverer tea, he had been meditating, facing the wall, on a mountain called Tak for 9 years and fighting every day against sleep, his eyes fell

Remember the dream symbolizes unconsciousness, he wanted to remain conscious night and day, until one night he realized that it was impossible to stay awake Then he cut his eyelids and put them on the ground, so there will be no way to close them

History says that a little bud was born from those eyelids and a plant was born from that little bud

It was tea

Zen goes beyond Buddha and Lao Tzu, It is a beautiful flower that is born from the fusion of both

Japan is a very outgoing territory, it is the ideal place so that the seed that was born in India and grew up in china flourish by opening up to the world and releasing its fragrance

Let's take a look at the Japanese outer consciousness is very significant for them, their clothes, their houses, their food

everything is extraordinarily rich

Japan celebrates the simplest things, like having tea

Rinzai carried Zen from China to Japan but he had lived with Chinese teachers and shared some of the greatness and beauty of the absurd approach to awakening

This philosophy was welcomed by Japan, around 1200 and cultivated under the name of Zen

Rinzai became famous as the master of screams

He used the screams to bring silence to the people

From there it was strongly shared around the world reaching our western thought

In the 13th century the Japanese monk Dôgen, after a stay in China, implanted Zen Sôtô in Japan

Master Dôgen is the founder of our school

He is also considered one of the greatest philosophers of Buddhism

Zen profoundly influences all Japanese culture, in that country more than 20,000 temples bear witness to its remarkable diffusion

Zen Buddhism was discovered in the West in the early 20th century through martial arts such as aikido, tea ceremony, flower arrangement or Japanese gardens

Suzuki played an important role in the knowledge of Zen in the West, since his work connected many intellectuals who showed interest and wrote about it

The depth of his philosophy and the purity of his aesthetics provoked a remarkable enthusiasm in artistic and intellectual circles then, all this ended up leading to a direct practice of which zazen (Zen meditation), is the source

But the mere idea of studying it is contrary to Zen, you can have it or not, it is just a matter of forgetting

There are many people in the west who are looking for something fresh and new

Zen brings a new vision but most of the practitioners continue with that intellectual approach, typical of the West