Talk:Chan

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There seems to be a problem with the correct displaying of the Chan character. The alternate form that appears at present is that of the Japanese simplification (presumably this was intentional although the usage of "or" makes it ambiguious), and despite my efforts at adding the simplified form (which contains two abbreviated strokes for the Dan character), the character is always displayed as the former. Is there some innate problem with displaying both concurrently, especially considering the two are only differentiable via a single stroke? --Taoster 21:56, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

What you see is just a font display problem. If you go to the following link http://www.unicode.org/cgi-bin/GetUnihanData.pl?codepoint=79AA you can find out what the reference glyph should look like and what your browser can display. You can see the simplified equivalance of the same character too.

Contents

[edit] Merge?

Why would we merge this with Zen? - Nat Krause 06:55, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Zen and Chan has gone separate paths. Each deserves a page of its own with cross reference. 67.117.82.1 01:38, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Interesting reading

For Chinese wikipedians, read http://book.bfnn.org/books2/1547.htm about how Chinese Chan evolved over the centuries. 67.117.82.1 01:38, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Universal Dialectic?

I'm not quite clear on why there's a link to Universal Dialectic. I don't see how the concept of taiji relates to Chan except that they're both Chinese. From what I understand it's a concept of Taoism, and I think the links between Taoism and Chan can be easily overstated. The link might lead a reader to conclude that the concept plays a key role in Chan, which from my understanding is not the case. - Theli 93

[edit] Persian?

I've yet to find any reference which says Bodhidharma would or may have been Persian. I remember there was some discussion awhile back because of a single author saying as such, but I hardly find that substantial evidence. Should this be rendered differently to avoid confusion? -- Hidoshi 18:45, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merge from Southern Chan?

There has been a merge tag sat on Southern Chan for a long time, proposing a merger to this article. I know nothing of the subject so can't comment, but wanted to bring it to your attention to hopefully resolve the proposal. Kcordina 12:43, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Since there have been no comments, I have revisited the articles, and think they should be seperate. I have therefore removed the merge tags. Kcordina Talk 08:37, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
I propose they be merged. --B9Anders 19:00, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
Along the lines of what B9 is saying below, if anything, there should be an article on so-called Northern Chan. "Southern Chan" is virtually all of the Chan and Zen that we are familiar with today. - Nat Krause(Talk!) 03:29, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Considering that there was consensus on merging Chan into Zen (see Talk:Zen#Merge_Chan.2C_Seon.2C_Thien_into_Zen, I am merging "Southern Chan" also into Zen. --Knverma 16:22, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] edits

B9Anders - April 31st 2006.

I have edited inaccuracies of represensation and emphasis. The 'daoist' influence is an early 20th century myth that does not hold up in the face of modern scholarship. The Theravada parrallel is so simplistic it is just inaccurate.

The discussion of seperate styles deserves mention of Huatou as a defining feature of Chan buddhism.

D.T. Suzuki, a thoroughly japanese-oriented scholar who is also outdated has little place in a discussion on Chinese Chan.

Also mentioned hanshan, not only as a seminal late figure in chan, but also to demonstrate that pureland and chan conjoint practise is not a modern invention and by no means neccesarily a polution, as the former entry might suggest.

In modern times, it is more appropriate to speak of Hsu Yun than Shengyen as a seminal figure, and probably Hsuan Hua as well.

Thoughts for further improvement: The bodhidharma controversy receives a fair deal of attention in the history chapter. wouldn't it be more appropriate to afford this attention to the northern/southern/platform sutra authenticity controversy?

Also, should there perhaps also be a section on the doctrinal features of Chan?

The southern Chan entry is irrelevant. Virtually all Chan today is southern in origin and the northern branch is only relevant as a historic enterprise. should be merged.

PS. Apologies if I am stepping on toes with the edit. I edited the entry as my first course of action on wikepedia and am only now reading up on wikiquette et al. Will have a look at providing sources later and adding a doctrinal section.

[edit] Proposing a re-write of the entire article

--B9Anders 19:11, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Main problem with the article, apart from having everything lumped into its history section, seems to be no real references cited except suzuki (whom I deleted) who really should be the last one to be mentioned.

Unless someone wants to add in their references to the current, I therefore propose to scrap the entire article, and I will put up a new one with proper references. I'll try and use resources that are made available online where possible.

This article will also have more sections. Off the top of my head, I am thinking:

1. Defining features of Chan. 2. History 3. Chan & Zen - differences and similarites. 4. Links

[edit] A standard for Chinese names

Noticed Nat Krauses edit of Hanshan's name (I quite agree, btw. I wrote 'silly mountain' to distinguish him from 'cold mountain', but 'dequing' does the same) and think perhaps we should agree to a common standard of mentioning Chinese names.

Pinyin seems the obvious spelling to use to my mind, although there are scholars who feel that due to the tradition in western buddhology there has been of using wade-giles that this should be continued, and indeed for an encyclopedia entry I can see the good sense in that as those scantly familiar with Chan are probably as likely to encounter these figures in older more classic sources where they are written in wide-giles and thus be able to recognise them, than in their pinyin form.

Nonetheless, Pinyin is standard now. I would personally prefer it to be as per Nat's edit. The pinyin name followed in paranthese by the Chinese character, but also feel that there should be a mention of their names in wade-giles, perhaps inserting that in paranthese instead of the Chinese characters?

Thoughts? --B9Anders 09:14, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

I lean towards standardizing on pinyin and adding reference to all historical spellings including WG. I see this no difference from changing Peking to Beijing. Beijing should be used from now on, but Peking must be mentioned to tie to old publications. In this case, since two "hanshan"s are spelled the same way and they are both related to Buddhism, it is important to add the native text to disambig the "silly" mountain from the "cold" mountain. Multiple homonym mappings plus multiple transliteration methods give rise to a very confusing spelling mess, that is the main reason I propose standardized spellings in conjunction with native text disambig. Kowloonese 18:40, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Chan and Japanese Zen

Hello, I'm a sinologist from the german wp. The definition of Chan in this article is a little bit strange: Chán is the Chinese name for the school of Mahāyāna Buddhism very similar to Zen. Chan is not only similar to Zen, but the origin of Zen. Chan developed in China and came from there to Japan. The most japanese schools have their oringin in chinese schools of chan. For example Rinzai is only the japanese name for the chinese chan-master Linji, the founder of this school. If anyone here is able to read german, the german article is much better than this. Please excuse my bad english :-)--17:05, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] read the brittanica encyclopedia article in its entirety

The Encyclopedia Brittanica article in its entirety states that most stories surrounding Bodhdiharma are legend. It further does not even credit Bodhidharma with founding Zen and states that the formation of Zen/Chan is due to indigenous developments within China. Quit pushing your P.O.V. pro-Indian edits, freedom skies. Not everything came from India.

Encyclopedia Brittanica

"Chinese Ch'an (from Sanskrit dhyana, “meditation”), important school of Buddhism in Japan that claims to transmit the spirit or essence of Buddhism, which consists in experiencing the enlightenment (bodhi) achieved by Gautama the Buddha. The school arose in the 6th century in China as Ch'an, a form of Mahayana Buddhism; though introduced centuries earlier, Zen did not fully develop in Japan until the 12th century. In its secondary developments of mental tranquillity, fearlessness, and spontaneity—all faculties of the enlightened mind—the school of Zen has had lasting influence on the cultural life of Japan.
Zen teaches that the Buddha-nature, or potential to achieve enlightenment, is inherent in everyone but lies dormant because of ignorance. It is best awakened not by the study of scriptures, the practice of good deeds, rites and ceremonies, or worship of images but by a sudden breaking through of the boundaries of common, everyday, logical thought. Training in the methods leading to such an enlightenment (Chinese wu; Japanese satori, q.v.) is best transmitted personally from master to disciple. The methods recommended, however, differ among the various sects of Zen.
The Rinzai (Chinese: Lin-chi) sect, introduced to Japan from China by the priest Eisai in 1191, emphasizes sudden shock and meditation on the paradoxical statements called koan. The Soto (Chinese: Ts'ao-tung) sect, transmitted to Japan by Dogen on his return from China in 1227, prefers the method of sitting in meditation (zazen). A third sect, the Obaku (Chinese: Huang-po), was established in 1654 by the Chinese monk Yin-yüan (Japanese: Ingen). It employs the methods of Rinzai and also practices nembutsu, the continual invocation of Amida (the Japanese name for the Buddha Amitabha), with the devotional formula namu Amida Butsu (Japanese: “homage to Amida Buddha”).
During the 16th-century period of political unrest, Zen priests not only contributed their talents as diplomats and administrators but also preserved the cultural life; it was under their inspiration that art, literature, the tea cult, and the no theatre, for example, developed and prospered. Neo-Confucianism, which became the guiding principle of the Tokugawa feudal regime (1603–1867), also was originally introduced and propagated by Japanese Zen masters.
In modern Japan, Zen sects and subsects claim some 9,600,000 adherents. Considerable interest in various aspects of Zen thought has developed also in Western countries in the latter half of the 20th century, and a number of Zen groups have been formed in North America and Europe."


Bodhidharma article - the other two paragraphs that you can see if you were willing to look-

"Considered the 28th Indian patriarch in a direct line from Gautama Buddha, Bodhidharma is regarded by the Ch'an as their first patriarch. Because he taught meditation as a return to the Buddha's spiritual precepts, his school was known as the Dhyana (meditation) sect. The word was converted in the Chinese to Ch'an and in the Japanese to Zen.
The accounts of his life are largely legendary. According to one such story, he cut off his eyelids in a fit of anger after falling asleep in meditation. On falling to the ground his eyelids grew up as the first tea plant. The legend serves as a traditional basis for the drinking of tea by Zen monks in order to keep awake during meditation."

Kennethtennyson 17:09, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge Zen and Chan Please

Zen and Chan Buddhism are the exact same thing. Merge the two articles please.

btw, I added this line: Chán is the Chinese name for the school of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Zen is merely the Japanese name for Chán.-intranetusa

This article is about Zen in China. There's no reason to merge it; perhaps it should be renamed (this would presumably also require renaming Seon and Thien). Also, the sentence, "Chán is the Chinese name for the school of Mahāyāna Buddhism" makes no sense.—Nat Krause(Talk!) 07:12, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
N.B. I've (anonymously) corrected that sentence which, as you rightly point out, "makes no sense" (damn! I just can't seem to stay away; must be too much wiki-taṇhā built up in me or something). —Saposcat 11:58, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Chán is the Chinese name for the school of Mahāyāna. Zen is the Japanese name for Chan/the school of Mahāyāna.

What doesn't make sense? People today think they're different - that sentence was just pointing out they are the same. Also, there is no "Zen" in China because it is called "Chan" in China.

by the way, this sentence sums it up nicely "Chán is the Chinese name for the school of Mahāyāna Buddhism known in Japanese as Zen."

-intranetusa

"What doesn't make sense?" The part that doesn't make sense is where you say, "the school of Mahāyāna". I don't know what the intended meaning is. "People today think they're different - that sentence was just pointing out they are the same. Also, there is no 'Zen' in China because it is called 'Chan' in China." These two sentences appear to contradict each other. If Zen == Chan, then there is Zen in China and Chan in Japan. Also, "Chán is the Chinese name for the school of Mahāyāna Buddhism known in Japanese as Zen" is a true statement, but it shouldn't be the first sentence of an article; if so, it defines the article as being about the word chán rather than the thing described by the word.—Nat Krause(Talk!) 04:39, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
we should merge chan and zen... most encyclopedias do. Zenman 22:53, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia is the largest encyclopedia in the world. Most encyclopedias don't have a separate article on Zen in China, because it is too narrow of a topic for them.&mdashh;Nat Krause(Talk!·What have I done?) 23:07, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Zen and Chan had long history of independent development. If there are enough differences in the two branches, then two articles should be maintained. However, if the two separate articles are too short, then it would not be a bad idea to merge and then add a section on how the two diverged. This is similar to articles about two siblings, should you describe them as two individuals or should you just lump them together as siblings in one article? Kowloonese 23:15, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Redirect to Chen (surname)

I see a serious problem with the redirect. Clicking on What links here shows a long list of articles that link to Chan as a form of Zen. Unless this problem is fixed it may be better to at least have a disambiguation page which provides links to Zen as well as to Chen (surname). --Knverma 09:07, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Disambig is indeed a much better idea. I have dropped the redirect. Reword descriptions if needed. ian-Kiu 10:54, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Just found a Chan (disambuiguation) page with a spelling mistake. Should that page be deleted and have this page redirect to a new Chan (disambiguation) page? Ian Kiu 05:56, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Pages with spelling error in title should definitely be deleted. I saw there is no page linking there, so this is also no problem. From my observation regarding the usual practice on Wikipedia, I think creating Chan (disambiguation) would have been necessary if Chan was used for some other article, but in this case I think it is not necessary. --Knverma 10:03, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Child

Isn't chan also a Japanese title for child? Similar to San and Kun? JayKeaton 15:15, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

This is already covered by the Honorifics Title link. --Simmerl 11:48, 18 July 2007 (UTC)