Zen Buddhism

Bodhidharma was an Indian sage who lived sometime in the fifth or sixth century AD. He is the undisputed founder of Zen Buddhism.

A man walking across a field encounters a tiger. He fled, the tiger chasing after him. Coming to a cliff, he caught hold of a wild vine and swung himself over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Terrified, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger had come, waiting to eat him. Two mice, one white and one black, little by little began to gnaw away at the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine in one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!

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A Zen Path Leads to the Entrance to the Garden at Koto-In
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There are two main lineages of Zen Buddhism in Japan: Rinzai Zen and Soto Zen. Both share a disregard for the original Vinaya rules for monks and a focus on sitting meditation (Zazen).

The rest of this article on the difference between Rinzai and Soto Zen Buddhism.

See also the Zen of Rinzai master Torei.

Yasutani Roshi

The fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that I am here and you are out there.

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Blossoms play a huge part in Japanese art.

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Hsuan Hua (literal meaning: "proclaim and transform"; April 16, 1918 - June 7, 1995), also known as An Tzu and Tu Lun, was a Chan (Zen) Buddhist monk and an important figure in bringing Chinese Buddhism to the United States in the 20th century.

Hsuan Hua founded several institutions in the US. The Dharma Realm Buddhist Association (DRBA) is a Buddhist organization with chapters in North America and Asia. The City of Ten Thousand Buddhas in Ukiah, California is one of the first Chan Buddhist monasteries in America. The Dharma Realm Buddhist University is a Buddhist college, and the Buddhist Text Translation Society works on the phonetics and translation of Buddhist scriptures from Chinese into English, Vietnamese, Spanish, and many other languages.

The rest of this wikipedia article

Travers Christmas Humphreys, QC (15 February 1901 - 13 April 1983) was a British barrister who prosecuted several controversial cases in the 1940s and 1950s, and later became a judge at the Old Bailey. He was an enthusiastic Shakespeare scholar and proponent of the Oxfordian theory. Author of numerous works on Mahayana Buddhism, he was in his day the most noted British convert to Buddhism. In 1924 he founded what became the London Buddhist Society, which was to have a seminal influence on the growth of the Buddhist tradition in Britain. His former home in St John's Wood, London, is now a Buddhist temple.

Humphreys was the son of Travers Humphreys, himself a noted barrister and judge. His given name "Christmas" is unusual, but, along with "Travers", had a long history in the Humphreys family[1]. Among friends and family he was generally known as 'Toby'. He attended Malvern College, where he first became a theosophist and later a convert to Buddhism, and Trinity Hall, Cambridge; he was called to the bar by the Inner Temple in 1924.

The same year, Humphreys founded the London Buddhist Lodge, which later changed its name to the Buddhist Society. The impetus for founding the Lodge came from theosophists with whom Humphreys socialised. Both at his home and at the lodge, he played host for eminent spiritual authors such as Nicholas Roerich and Dr Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, and for prominent Theosophists like Alice Bailey and far Eastern Buddhist authorities like D.T. Suzuki. Other regular visitors in the 1930s were the Russian singer Vladimir Rosing and the young Alan Watts. The Buddhist Society of London is one of the oldest Buddhist organisations outside Asia.

With thanks to wikipedia

Brad Warner was born in Hamilton, Ohio in 1964. His family traveled a lot for his father's job and he lived in different countries around the world but grew up mainly near Akron, Ohio and attended Kent State University. As a teenager Warner got into the music of the 1960s and hardcore punk,[1] and a friend of his took him to a show by Zero Defex. He auditioned for and joined the band after finding out they needed a bass guitarist. He began practicing Zen Buddhism under his first teacher, Tim McCarthy. Warner later studied with Gyomay Kubose.

He has played with Dimentia 13.

After the financial failure of his Dimentia 13 albums, Warner got a job in Japan with the JET Programme, and then later in 1994 with a company who made cheap Japanese monster movies. Warner played the roles of various foreigners in their films. While in Japan he met and trained with Gudo Wafu Nishijima, who ordained him as a priest.

He agreed to write articles for SuicideGirls, the online soft porn site.

In 2007 he directed the documentary film Cleveland's Screaming, which depicts the punk rock scene in Akron and Cleveland in the 1980s. Also in 2007, Gudo Wafu Nishijima named Warner the leader of Dogen Sangha International.

In 2008 Warner lost his job with the Japanese company he had been working for in the States.

As of January 2009 he is self-employed and leads the Dogen Sangha International.

All this according to wikipedia (2010)

Gudo Wafu Nishijima (Nishijima Gudo Wafu) (born November 29, 1919 in Yokohama) is a Japanese Zen Buddhist priest and teacher.

As a young man in the early 1940s, Nishijima became a student of the noted Zen teacher Kodo Sawaki. Shortly after the end of the Second World War, Nishijima received a law degree from Tokyo University and began a career in finance. It was not until 1973, when he was in his mid-50s, that Nishijima was ordained as a Buddhist priest. His preceptor for this occasion was Rempo Niwa, a former head of the Soto Zen sect. Four years later, Niwa gave him shiho, formally accepting him as one of his successors. Nishijima continued his professional career until 1979.

During the 1960s, Nishijima began giving regular public lectures on Buddhism and Zen meditation. Since the 1980s, he has lectured in English and has had a number of foreign students, including American author Brad Warner and teacher Jundo Cohen. In 2007 Nishijima and a group of his students organized as the Dogen Sangha International.

Nishijima is the author of several books in Japanese and English. He has also been a notable translator of Buddhist texts: working with Chodo Cross, Nishijima compiled one of the three complete English versions of Dogen's 95-fascicle Kana Shobogenzo, based on his 13-volume modern Japanese translation and commentary, and often considered as the most exact and faithful in existence; he also translated Dogen's Shinji Shobogenzo. As of December 2005, he is working on an English translation of Nagarjuna's Fundamental Verses of the Middle Way.

According to wikipedia 2010

Sheng-yen (Pinyin: Shèngyán, birth name Zhang Baokang) (January 3, 1930 - February 3, 2009) was a Buddhist monk, a religious scholar, and one of the mainstream teachers of Chinese Chan (Japanese: Zen) Buddhism. He was the 57th generational descendant of Linji in the Linji (Japanese: Rinzai) School and a 3rd generational descendant of Master Hsu Yun. In the Caodong lineage, Sheng Yen was the 52nd generational descendant of Master Dongshan, and the direct descendant of Master Dongchu (1908-1977).

Sheng-yen was the founder of the Dharma Drum Mountain, a Buddhist organization based in Taiwan. During his time in Taiwan, Sheng Yen was well known as one of the progressive Buddhist teachers who sought to teach Buddhism in a modern and Western-influenced world. In Taiwan, he was one of four prominent modern Buddhist masters, along with Masters Hsing Yun, Cheng Yen and Wei Chueh. In 2000 he was one of the keynote speakers in the Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders held in the United Nations.

Born near Shanghai in mainland China, he became a Buddhist monk at the age of 13. In order to escape religious persecution from the People's Republic of China, he went to Taiwan in 1949 by enlisting in a unit of the Nationalist Army out of necessity. He became a monk again in 1959 and from 1961 to 1968 he trained in solitary retreat in southern Taiwan. He then completed a master's degree and doctorate (1975) in Buddhist literature at Rissho University in Japan.

He became abbot of Nong Chan Monastery in Taiwan in 1979 and founder of the Institute of Chung-Hwa Buddhist Culture in New York City in 1980. In 1985, he founded the Institute of Chung-Hwa Buddhist Studies in Taipei and the International Cultural and Educational Foundation of Dharma Drum Mountain in 1989.

He taught in the United States starting in 1975, and established Chan Meditation Center in Queens, New York, and its retreat center outside New York. He established Dharma Drum Retreat Center at Pine Bush, New York in 1995. He also visited many countries in Europe, as well as continuing his teaching in several Asian countries, in particular Taiwan. In this way his work helped to bridge East and West and convey the Dharma to the West. He was known as a skillful teacher who helped many of his students to reach enlightenment mostly through meditation. Sheng-yen gave dharma transmission to several of his lay Western students, such as John Crook. Later on, John Crook, and several other Western disciples of Master Sheng-yen, such as Simon Child, Max Kalin, and Zarko Andricevic, formed the Western Chan Fellowship.

Sheng Yen's health was poor in the last couple years of his life, although he still gave lectures at several retreats in Taiwan. He declined a kidney transplant, stating that he did not expect to live for long, and he would rather save the chance for others who need it.

According to wikipedia 2010

Katinka Hesselink has been fascinated with religion for as long as she can remember. She started studying theosophy and the world religions in earnest when she was 19. She loves reading books about any and all the spiritual traditions, and reviews them online.

She even did a stint of university studying World Religion, specializing in Buddhism and Indian religions.

She has gathered inspiring quotes and informative articles on Buddhism, Sufism, Mystic Christianity and of course theosophy on her website Katinka Hesselink Net. On her popular spiritual blog All Considering she shares her knowledge, experiences and thoughts on spiritual topics. On her blog Contemporary Buddhism she shares her thoughts about how Buddhism clashes with Western culture and how to deal with that.