Practiced by millions of people around the world, Zen originated in China before spreading to Japan and Korea, and later to the Western world. 

Zen is a Mahayana Buddhist tradition that emphasizes simplicity, present-moment awareness, nonduality, nonconceptual understanding, and zazen (“just sitting”) meditation—the tradition’s most important practice. Focusing less on scripture and sutra study than other traditions, Zen places a great importance on the cultivation of mental clarity through meditation and the support of a teacher, also known as a Zen master, or sensei. 

Click through the decks below to learn more about the history and core teachings of Zen Buddhism. 

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What is Zen Buddhism? Zen is the Japanese name for a Buddhist tradition practiced by millions of people in East Asia and around the world.

What do Zen Buddhists practice? There are many different practices within the Zen tradition, the most well-known of which is zazen (“just sitting”) meditation. 

What is the history of Zen Buddhism? Zen can be traced all the way back to the 5th century with Buddhist teachers who followed the Silk Road into China. 

What are Zen’s major sects? Most Zen schools today can be traced back to the Linjing and Caodong schools of 13th-century China. 

Who are some prominent figures in Zen Buddhism? The Indian monk Bodhidharma, who is often credited with bringing Buddhism to China, is often called the “first ancestor” of Zen. 

What are some important texts in Zen Buddhism? While Zen emphasizes direct transmission over scripture study, there are a few key Mahayana sutras that have influenced the tradition.  

What do Zen teachers say about enlightenment? It’s not just something for a select few—it’s the inherent nature of all beings. We just need to clear our minds to truly see it. 

What is the difference between a Zen monk, nun, and priest? There are a number of different distinctions between Zen monastics in Asia and in the West. 

Are there female Zen teachers? While female Zen ancestors go back centuries, women Zen practitioners of recent decades have had to fight for the right to full ordination. 

Recommended Reading: 

• Small Mind, Big Mind, by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi 
• The Zen of Not Knowing, by Zenkei Blanche Hartman
• An Ear to the Ground, by Lin Jensen
• “That’s Very Zen,” by Clark Strand

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Traditionally speaking, “Zen” is not an adjective (as in, They were totally zen). Zen is a Japanese transliteration of the Chinese word Chan, which is itself a transliteration of dhyana, the word for concentration or meditation in the ancient Indian language Sanskrit. (Zen is Seon or Son in Korean and Thien in Vietnamese.) When Buddhism came to China from India some 2,000 years ago, it encountered Daoism and Confucianism, absorbing some elements of both while rejecting others. Chan is the tradition that emerged. In this context, Chan refers to the quality of mind cultivated through sitting meditation, known as zazen in Japanese, which many Zen Buddhists consider to be the tradition’s most important practice. 

Zen is as diverse as its practitioners, but common features include an emphasis on simplicity and the teachings of nonduality and nonconceptual understanding. Nonduality is sometimes described as “not one not two,” meaning that things are neither entirely unified nor are they entirely distinct from one another. Zen recognizes, for example, that the body and mind are interconnected: they are neither the same nor completely separate. Nonconceptual understanding refers to insight into “things as they are” that cannot be expressed in words. 

To help students discover nonduality without relying on thought, Zen teachers use koans—stories that appear nonsensical at first but as objects of contemplation in zazen lead to a shift of perspective from separation to interconnectedness. Because teachers play such an important role in Zen, the tradition emphasizes reverence for its “dharma ancestors,” or lineage, influenced by Confucianism’s teaching of filial piety. At the same time, throughout Chinese history, Zen challenged other Confucian ideas by stressing the absolute equality of all beings and women’s capacity for enlightenment. 

Ultimately, Zen Buddhism offers practitioners ways to heal their hearts and minds and connect with the world. These ways have differed over time and from culture to culture. In medieval Japan, for example, Zen monks served as doctors to the poor, doling out medicine and magic talismans, and as ministers, offering funerals and memorial services. Today in the West, many practitioners come to Zen looking to gain peace of mind and mental clarity through meditation. Like all schools of Buddhism, Zen begins with an understanding that human beings suffer, and it offers a solution to this suffering through recognizing the interconnectedness of all beings and learning to live in a way that aligns with this truth.

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Zazen is often taught as a goalless practice in which there is nothing to achieve; “just sitting” is in itself an expression of an already awakened mind. Dogen, the 13th-century founder of the Soto school of Japanese Zen, believed that a person practicing zazen is, in that moment, the Buddha himself, because the very act of sitting manifests the enlightenment mind that is who we really are.

Others believe that Zen has a distinct goal—awakening—and that direct effort is the only way to attain it. In the Rinzai school of Japanese Zen, practice may focus on answering koans. Koans are enigmatic or paradoxical questions or statements about reality that cannot be understood with the conceptual mind. Zen students may engage with these conundrums as part of a set curriculum that includes such well-known koans as What is the sound of one hand clapping? Guided by a teacher, the practitioner moves through stages of realization. A koan is ultimately about the practitioner: the biggest koan is how to live a fully awakened life.

For many people from East Asian cultures, Zen plays an especially important role in helping families express their continued love and respect for their ancestors—departed relatives who are in the afterlife awaiting rebirth. Many homes in Japan have small altars called butsudan with photographs of deceased relatives, memorial tablets, and offerings of flowers, candles, and food. Each August, people from across Japan head home for Obon, the festival of the dead, when deceased relatives are said to return from the afterlife for the day. Obon is not a morbid occasion but a time of community and celebration because everyone, Buddhist teaching holds, will achieve enlightenment someday.

Zen is also widely practiced through the arts. Traditions such as the tea ceremony, ikebana (flower arrangement), and calligraphy require meditative concentration and are known for inducing a kind of calm and bridging the perceived gap between internal experience and external reality. In the tea ceremony, practitioners perform precise, ritualized movements while “giving” beauty, order, and sustenance to their guests; folding a napkin just so is for the benefit of others first and then for oneself. For this reason, tea practitioners often say that “tea and Zen are one.” For most Zen practitioners, all activities—from chanting to bathing to cooking—are considered Zen practice, with no particular activity elevated over others.

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Zen arrived relatively late on this scene, in the 5th century, when a new wave of Indian teachers, including the monk Bodhidharma, traveled to China to spread their teachings. According to the traditional account, Bodhidharma brought the Lankavatara Sutra, which teaches that buddhanature is present everywhere and accessible through “emptiness,” the cessation of discriminating thought. The story of Bodhidharma’s failed interview with emperor Wu of Liang might be mythical, but it illustrates Zen’s fortunes at the start: a small, marginal transmission competing with other Buddhist schools that enjoyed far greater wealth and prestige. 

Zen finally found a foothold in China—where it was called Chan, from dhyana, Sanskrit for meditation—after one of the worst disasters in the country’s history, the An Lushan rebellion (755–763 CE), a civil war estimated to have killed two-thirds of the population. It was during this crisis that people embraced Zen’s teaching that claimed to directly point to the enlightened mind, always available in the here and now. With their countrymen killing or being killed and with the Tang Empire’s glories vanishing before their eyes, the Chinese had no time for abstruse theorization or complicated rituals. 

For centuries, Zen was China’s predominant Buddhist school—together with Pure Land Buddhism, with which it merged quite naturally—and its influence extended to Vietnam, Korea, and Japan. Like living traditions everywhere, Zen has never ceased to change and grow, at times with striking creativity. During the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), for example, the monk Hanshan Deqing (“Silly Mountain”) breathed new life into the dharma with his poetry, prose, and public lectures. In the 20th century, Hsu Yun (“Empty Cloud”) had a profound influence and his students almost single handedly revived Buddhism following the ravages of the Cultural Revolution. No matter what the future brings—and it’s sure to bring new challenges—Zen can draw on this legacy of adaptation as it continues to support the struggle for the liberation of all sentient beings.

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The Linji school, named for the Chinese master Linji Yixuan (d. 866 CE), developed the practice of meditating on gong’an (Jp., koan), brief stories that point to an aspect of enlightenment. These anecdotes are further boiled down to their essence, called the huatou, the “head of the phrase” or “source of the thought.” Using koans or huatou to focus the mind is the central practice of the Linji school. One oft-cited gong’an features the 8th-century monk Zhaozhou [Jp., Joshu] who, when asked if a dog has buddhanature (the potential in all sentient beings to become enlightened), enigmatically replied, “Wu [Jp. Mu],” or “emptiness,” referring to the fundamental empty nature of the mind. Over time, this gong’an was shortened to the huatou “What is Wu?” or simply “Wu.”

The Caodong school was founded by Dongshan Liangjie (807–869), and its central practice is mozhao chan (Jp., shikantaza), or silent illumination zen, a form of zazen that involves sitting with deep and open mindfulness of present experience. Dongshan Liangjie is also notable for his teachings on suchness (tathata), the ultimate nature of all things and beings.

In Chinese Zen, called Chan, Linji is by far the larger and more dominant tradition. Chan is perhaps best known in the West through Dharma Drum Mountain, an international organization founded in Taiwan by master Sheng Yen (1931–2009).

Linji was transmitted to the Korean Peninsula from China in the 9th century. In the 12th century, Korean Zen (Soen) Buddhists formed the Jogye order, combining elements of Linji with forms of Buddhism already practiced in Korea. Today, Jogye is the largest and oldest Zen school in Korea, and a 20th-century Jogye master founded what is now the West’s best-known Korean Zen order, the Kwan Um school. Another Soen order, Taego, was founded in the 14th century and emphasizes a more purely Linji approach.

Although it’s believed Zen reached Vietnam sometime in the 1st millennium, today’s Vietnamese Zen (Thien) evolved primarily from a branch of Linji that arrived in the 17th century. In the West, Vietnamese Zen is represented by the Order of Interbeing, founded by the Zen master, author, and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh (b. 1926).

Both Linji and Caodong Zen reached Japan in the 13th century. Eihei Dogen (1200–1253 CE), a Zen master in the Caodong tradition, founded the Soto school, which became the largest Zen school in Japan. Japanese Linji, called Rinzai, developed a unique approach to huatou meditation: Students work through a curriculum of hundreds of koans over their lifetime. Later, a third Zen school arose in Japan when Linji teachers from China were rejected by the Rinzai establishment, which objected to devotional practices that Chan had absorbed from the Pure Land school. The Chinese delegation was, however, allowed to continue as a separate sect called Obaku Zen.

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The Indian monk Bodhidharma (5th–6th century) is credited with bringing Buddhism to China and is called the “first ancestor,” or “first patriarch,” of Chinese Chan and Japanese Zen. He is famous for a possibly apocryphal dialogue with China’s Emperor Wu of Liang (464–549 CE). At their first meeting, Emperor Wu, who had spent vast sums building Buddhist temples, asked Bodhidharma how much merit his generosity had accrued. Donating to monastics is one of many good deeds believed to generate merit, which makes favorable rebirth more likely. But Bodhidharma answered, “No merit.” (Note: “no” here is the Chinese character wu [Jp. mu], which has a special significance in Zen practice and philosophy.) Flabbergasted, Emperor Wu inquired, “Who are you to question the merit of such deeds?” Bodhidharma replied, “I don’t know,” or “Not knowing.” Bodhidharma was saying that although merit exists, the extent of it cannot be known or fathomed because of its fundamental emptiness. When he answered “Not knowing,” he was pointing to the infinite, ineffable nature of our being as well as to the importance of opening ourselves to life’s mysteries.

The Sixth Patriarch of Zen, Huineng, lived in China in the 8th century, six generations after Bodhidharma. He was an illiterate woodcutter who is said to have achieved enlightenment upon hearing someone chant the Diamond Sutra, an important Mahayana Buddhist scripture. Huineng then entered a monastery, where he worked at a rice mill. The abbot, who was growing old, held a contest to find his new successor. The most senior student wrote a poem describing the mind as a mirror that needs to be cleaned of dust through constant mental training. But Huineng’s poem declared the very opposite: “Buddhanature is always clean and pure; where is there room for dust?” Huineng was rejecting the notion that enlightenment is achieved gradually, claiming instead that it is all around us, here and now. He won the contest and, as the abbot’s dharma heir—designated successor—helped spread the Zen concept of spontaneous awakening.

There are many other storied Zen figures who are remembered for their insights, poetry, artistry, or unique lifestyles, or for establishing new schools and practices. Among them: Dongshan Liangjie (807-869), founder of the Caodong school of Chan Buddhism in China; Linji Yixuan (d. 866 CE), founder of the Linji school of Chan Buddhism; Wumen Huikai (Jp., Mumon Ekai), known for The Gateless Gate, his 12th-century collection of Zen koans and commentaries; Myoan Eisai (1141–1215), credited with bringing both Rinzai Zen and tea to Japan from China; Eihei Dogen (1200–1253), founder of the Soto school of Japanese Zen.

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Early Zen was deeply influenced by several of the Mahayana (“Great Vehicle”) sutras that emerged in the early 1st millennium CE. Among these are the Lankavatara Sutra, which contains teachings on the nature of consciousness; the Avatamsaka Sutra, which describes how all things and beings are interdependent; and the Vimalakirti Sutra, which addresses the illusory nature of appearances and the concept of nonduality, the idea that an understanding of existence is incomplete if one views the world according to rigid dichotomies. In the 8th century CE, the Diamond Sutra, which presents Madhyamaka, or Middle Way teachings, emerged as the foremost sutra of the Zen school and arguably has remained so since. The brief, closely related Heart Sutra―said to be a distillation of the Diamond Sutra―is chanted daily in most Zen temples. 

One of the most important texts of Zen history, the Platform Sutra, is not a sutra in the standard sense of the word. It was composed as a record of talks given by Huineng (638–713), the Sixth Ancestor of Zen. However, scholars believe the original version was not composed until sometime after 780, and some details in it are contradicted by historical records. Even so, it is a treasure of Zen teachings on enlightenment.

During the Song dynasty (960–1279), Zen teachers in China compiled collections of gong’an (Jp., koan) stories, brief anecdotes that point to an aspect of enlightenment. In time, other teachers added footnotes, pointers, verses, and commentaries to the original stories. These became the classic koan collections still used as subjects for dharma talks and meditation. The most significant of these are the Blue Cliff Record, the Book of Serenity (or Equanimity), and The Gateless Barrier (or Gateless Gate).

Song-dynasty Zen also produced many “extensive record” [outside traditional Buddhist scripture] and “lamp record” [lives and teachings] texts that preserved biographies of important teachers, along with sermons, poems, lineage charts, and anecdotes. Most of what we know about early Zen teachers comes from these records.

As Chan (Jp., Zen) spread to the Korean Peninsula, Vietnam, and Japan, teachers in those countries made significant contributions to Zen literature. Prominent among these are a collection of commentaries on the Diamond Sutra by the Korean Zen monk Gihwa (1376–1433) and Vietnamese lamp records. Well-known Japanese texts include the Kana Shobogenzo (or just Shobogenzo), a collection of essays by Eihei Dogen (1200–1253), founder of the Soto school, and the autobiography Wild Ivy and other works by Hakuin Ekaku (1686–1769).

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One of the oldest Zen teachings is Ordinary mind is the way. In other words, the enlightened mind that understands the true nature of existence and the clouded, ordinary mind that gets angry at bad drivers, for instance, are actually the same. Zen practices like zazen meditation are meant to help us clear our minds by recognizing the impurities and letting them go. The job of the Zen teacher is to guide students in this work so that they can directly experience the enlightenment that has always been with them.

Some Zen teachers don’t say much about enlightenment—or even use the word at all. That’s because giving us ideas about it doesn’t help us realize it. Instead, a teacher might talk about kensho, a Japanese word that means “seeing one’s true nature.” Kensho is most often described as an “opening” experience in which one suddenly awakens to the true nature of the self and has a personal realization of sunyata, or emptiness, a concept central to Buddhist philosophy. While kensho is a significant milestone on the path—especially in the Rinzai school of Zen and the Linji school of Chan—the process of awakening goes on forever. There is always something more to be clarified, and Zen Buddhist practice is a lifelong endeavor.

You may have heard about the famous historical debate in Zen between advocates of “gradual enlightenment”—awakening happening only after many years of practice—and those who believed it happens suddenly. But over time, the Zen community realized that both sides were right. All schools of Zen today believe in sudden enlightenment, meaning that the enlightened mind is already present, and realization of that mind may come to any of us in an instant. But at the same time, what is realized in a moment needs to be integrated and deepened through further practice, ideally under a teacher’s guidance. This is known as “sudden enlightenment and gradual cultivation.”

Gradual enlightenment is often associated with the Caodong, or Soto school of Zen, but this is inaccurate. Soto’s founding teacher, Eihei Dogen (1200–1253), taught that enlightenment is already present. He discouraged students from thinking of enlightenment as a goal, because striving toward a goal reinforces the illusion of a self who might achieve it. Instead, Dogen taught that practice and enlightenment are one activity. Instead of struggling to “get” it, be still and let it unfold, he said.

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But in 19th- and 20th-century Japan, anti-Buddhist governments imposed “modernization” measures that ended the bhikkhu sangha. Since then, monastics have been required to take only 16 precepts, which prohibit lying, stealing, and other offenses but are less restrictive than the precepts for full ordination. Male monastics in Japan are allowed to marry and have families, and most do. Even more controversially, they can choose to drink alcohol, eat meat, and raise children in “family temples.” Because of cultural prohibitions and personal preference, most female monastics do not marry but live in community with other nuns.

In the English-speaking world, people often refer to Japan’s married male monastics as priests to distinguish them from celibate monks, but in Japan, there is no clear-cut distinction. Unlike in the Catholic Church, where priest designates clergy who can conduct mass and are generally more engaged with society than cloistered monks, in Japan the difference between priests and monks is largely semantic and open to interpretation.

These Japanese customs have been widely adopted in Western Zen communities, where it is common for both ordained men and ordained women to marry, and celibacy is seldom a requirement. While ordained Japanese women may refer to themselves as nuns when speaking English, ordained women in the West are more likely to describe themselves as priests than as nuns. But aside from this nominal difference, ordained women in Japan and the West have the same qualifications, ethical precepts, and training.

In Japanese Zen a female member of the clergy could call herself a monk, a nun, or a priest depending on the situation. However, in other Chan/Zen traditions across Asia, the title of priest is seldom used, and monks and nuns take the full precepts and lead celibate lives.

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Zen Buddhists are regarded as masters only after their teacher has given them dharma transmission, recognition of their enlightenment. According to the traditional Zen Buddhist account, Shakyamuni Buddha gave the first dharma transmission to his male disciple Mahakashyapa, which began an unbroken chain of master-to-disciple transmissions that created the all-male lineages of the Zen schools that exist today. While these accounts are valuable in that they represent the hopes, values, and accomplishments of practitioners of the past, they are not literally true and were more likely constructed by men wishing to legitimize their lineages.

According to tradition, one of Bodhidharma’s three Chinese heirs was the nun Zongchi. And recent scholarship on mortuary inscriptions in caves from 5th- and 6th-century China show that nuns meditated, studied the dharma, and engaged in ascetic practices such as fasting. The inscriptions tell of nuns performing miracles, “ceasing karmic causes,” and attaining complete enlightenment. In the 6th century, the monk-scholar Baochang wrote a collection of biographies called Lives of the Nuns, which became a Chan classic. And during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), innovative Linji teachers named women to positions of authority over the objections of Confucianists. In medieval Japan, women formed convents in which they studied, attained enlightenment, and taught disciples. However, these convents later fell into ruin as a result of fires, poverty, and lack of official support, making it difficult for historians and practitioners today to ascertain how women practiced and in what capacity they taught.

Within the last 50 years, women practitioners around the world have fought for the right to full ordination (the ability to receive the complete ethical precepts), equal institutional standing, and the right to have disciples and run their own temples, and they have made progress. In Taiwan, for example, women monastics outnumber men.

Today, women lead some of the major Zen centers in the United States but continue to struggle to thrive, exercise authority, and tell their stories in a largely male-dominated sangha. However, the women (and men) who advocate for equality are calling out sexual harassment and abuse in Buddhist communities, and creating resources for support.

The Soto Zen Buddhist Association, for example, recently approved a female ancestor’s document for use in daily chanting, to supplement the previous all-male lineage chart.

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