Zen = Taoism
Zen Buddhism = Institutionalization of Taoism within a Buddhist frame
@Meaningness @Failed_Buddhist @danlistensto
@DBolellipic.twitter.com/N5CB4Ga3WW
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I tend to study a billion different things concurrently. Always felt the link between Zen and Buddhism was weak and that it was more like Taoism, but I didn't have the evidence to prove it until now.
I think I disagree that it's a weak link, or even that there's anything to "prove". Bodhidharma (or whoever the real historical figure was) _did_ transmit dhyana yoga and madhyamaka to China and there would be no mystery school called ch'an/zen without that.
China was an advanced society at the time that already had a deeply rooted mystical tradition though, so of course the two blended, rather than one superseding the other and becoming dominant in an orthodox form. Zen is very heterodox because of this blending.
Yeah I knew about the blending, but this book really surprised me with how the balance is far more Taoist than Buddhist and that Taoism too stemmed from Indian yoga that came to China 1000 years earlier, and people thought Bodhidharma was a student of Laozi.
ha, well, it's China. everyone and everything that goes to China becomes mostly Chinese within a few centuries (and sometimes sooner than that, e.g. Kublai Khan). America may have a similarly powerful cultural core too. Western Buddhism is very interesting in 21C.
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