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Encyclopedia of Religion entry forCh`An TsungThe name of one of the principal schools of thought in Chinese Buddhism. Ch‘an means Buddhist meditation, and tsung denotes School. The school was founded by Bodhidharma, the Patriarch of Indian Buddhism, who settled in China in A.D. 526. He urged the true disciples to cultivate the inner being, the heart, the nature, of Buddha, and not to concern themselves about externalities such as writings and ritual. The disciples must receive oral instruction, and must practice the " inward look " or deep abstraction. " The philosophy based upon this was the ` emptying of consciousness ‘—that is to say, the complete subjectivity of our human conceptions and impressions." Bodhidharma became known popularly as the Wallgazer. " Every outward manifestation was indeed superfluous as far as Bodhidharma‘s contemplative aim was concerned—whether worship, image, or recitation; and it may be that in those early times his school had really discarded these things, although, naturally, such is no longer the case." In course of time the school split up into five subdivisions, which all attached importance to objectivism and externals, and opposed the absolute subjectivism of the Ch‘an school. See H. Hackmann. citations: Encyc. of Rel., Canney
article created 2006-04-12 , last updated 2006-04-12 |
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