One Word in Three Languages
This Japanese word means “meditation.”
What is zen?
In this legend, the Buddha teaches without saying a word.
What is the Flower Sermon?
Legend says this monk from India sat facing a wall for nine years.
Who is Bodhidharma?
“Show me the sound of one hand” is the best-known example of this kind of puzzle.
What is a koan?
This is the Zen experience of enlightenment, a flash of insight into one’s true nature.
What is satori?
This Sanskrit word “dhyana” means this.
What is meditation?
Mahakasyapa alone smiled at the Buddha’s silent teaching and became the first __________ in a long lineage that traced itself to the Buddha. Hint: it begins with a "p."
What is a patriarch?
Tradition says this sixth Chinese patriarch arrived at the monastery as an illiterate woodcutter.
Who is Huineng?
This is the periodic private meeting where a disciple gives the master an answer to an assigned puzzle.
What is dokusan?
This other "k" name for "insight" or "enlightenment" in Rinzai zen which means “seeing one’s nature.”
What is kensho?
If you visited the school of Buddhism flourishing under Huineng in seventh-century China, you would call it by this name.
What is Ch’an?
Zen sets aside speculation about the nature of reality and insists on this instead.
What is firsthand (direct) experience?
The line of patriarchs ended because Huineng refused to do this.
What is name a successor?
This kind of puzzle can be solved by cleverness. A koan cannot.
What is a riddle?
You might expect a Rinzai student’s first satori to end the training. Instead, it marks this.
What is the beginning of real training?
Zen is not its own branch of Buddhism. It is one school inside this “Great Vehicle.”
What is Mahayana?
The Flower Sermon shows that Zen’s deepest teaching passes in this way, without depending on words.
What is from mind to mind?
With no more patriarchs, authority passed to these masters, whose title means “old teacher.”
Who are roshis?
A student brings the master a brilliant, perfectly reasoned answer to a koan. This is how a master would likely respond.
A friend says a monk that has achieved satori is finished for good. He is confusing satori with this permanent liberation from samsara.
What is nirvana?
Zen Buddhism traveled across three countries to finally become "zen." These are the three countries in order.
What are India, China, and Japan?
Zen’s insight cannot be put into words, so no book can pass it on. Only this person can, which is why Zen keeps careful track of who taught whom.
Who is a teacher, a master, or a roshi? (all are acceptable)
The 28th patriarch from the Buddha opened the line in China, and the sixth Chinese patriarch closed it. Name both.
Who are Bodhidharma and Huineng?
Zen says direct experience is impossible while this is busy interpreting. The koan exists to stop it.
What is a logical mind/rational mind/full mind?
A monk’s first flash of insight fades, but Zen says it isn’t gone for good. He or she should expect this to happen next.
What is another satori (often stronger and more intense)?