zhen or zehn? - zhen is 'precious', and 'dragon', also 'knowledge', and even 'love'
some interesting zhen music:
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/buddhazhenor maybe just 'zen'?...
oh, to tell what is zen...to tell is to tell, to know is to know
wiki says about zen:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen"Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism. The Japanese word Zen is derived from the Chinese word Chán, which in turn is derived from the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which means "meditation" or "meditative state."
Zen emphasizes experiential prajńā in the attainment of enlightenment. As such, it de-emphasizes theoretical knowledge in favor of direct realization through meditation and dharma practice. The teachings of Zen include various sources of Mahāyāna thought, including the Prajńāpāramitā literature and the teachings of the Yogācāra and Tathāgatagarbha schools.
The emergence of Zen as a distinct school of Buddhism was first documented in China in the 7th century CE. From China, Zen spread south to Vietnam, and east to Korea and Japan. As a matter of tradition, the establishment of Zen is credited to the South Indian prince-turned-monk Bodhidharma, who came to China to teach a "special transmission outside scriptures" that "did not stand upon words".
In China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam, the local name of the tradition is always cognate to Sanskrit dhyāna. (Japanese: Romaji: Zen, Hiragana: ぜん, Kanji: 禅/禪; Chinese: Traditional: 禪, Simplified: 禅, Pinyin: Chán, Wade-Giles: Ch'an; Cantonese Jyutping: Sim4, Shanghainese (Wu): Zeu [zř], Nanchang Gan: Cen; Korean: Revised Romanization: Seon, McCune-Reischauer: Sŏn, Hangul: 선, Hanja: 禪; Vietnamese: Quốc ngữ: Thiền, Hán tự: 禪)"
zen koans are clues to enlightenment: "what is the sound of one hand, clapping?" is a famous one-liner koan designed to propel the student into enlightenment
zen is very popular, and also can be very deceitful and lead one away from true enlightenment - different versions emphasize different things, and none now really embrace the non-physical world
in the paraphrased words of buddha zhen, a master of zen buddhism: if you do not do exercise with your zen, you are fat and lazy and you will only find fat and lazy enlightenment !
nice post blue dan, lots of insights for this old taoist zen practitioner
This post has been edited by esoterica: Jun 29 2010, 10:10 AM