This course explores cultural, philosophical, practical, and spiritual developments of the Zen Buddhist tradition from its inception in fifth century BCE India with the Buddhist founder Gautama Siddharta the Buddha to its historical development flourishing in China and Japan. Around the sixth century CE, the monk Bodhidharma brought Chan Buddhism from India to China putting more emphasis on direct experience. Then when Chan Buddhism arrived in Japan it was called Zen Buddhism. Two major Zen schools developed overtime in Japan: Rinzai (use of koans) and Soto (use of zazen). The goal of the Zen Buddhist experience in Japan was satori or enlightenment. We will take a close look at the historical development of Zen Buddhism in the 20th Century with an introductory book by Heinrich Dumoulin and then we will turn our attention to the main scholars and contemplative writers who made Zen popular in the West, especially D. T. Suzuki, Thomas Merton, and Thich Nhat Hanh. We will explore Zen Buddhism through the perspective of the Kyoto School in Japan (Nishida Kitaro, Tanabe Hajime, Suzuki, Hisamatsu Shin?ichi, Takeuchi Yoshinori, Nishitani Keiji, Ueda Shizuteru, and Maso Abe). And we will use case studies of how Zen Buddhism was brought to the West through interfaith dialogues with Christian authors (Thomas Merton, Hugo Enomiya-Lassalle, Ruben Habito, William Johnston, and John Wu), and through the studies of Western psychologists interested in Zen (Carl Jung, Erich Fromm, and others). No previous study of Zen Buddhism is required.
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