Abstract
The main purposes of this thesis are to study the development of Rinzai Zen Buddhism as well as to study practices for enlightenment of Zen Buddhism, especially Sudden englightenment (Sudden Satori) of Zen Sect, Rinzai School.
The results from this research find that Rinzai Zen Buddhism development emerged when Bodhidharma made a pilgrime to China in the 10th of B.E. During that period, the Mahayana Buddhism was already proliferated in China, Korea and Japan. Philosophers, students and governors concentrated on translating Tripitaka and Sutras. They try to keep them in mind. Dharma dissemination of Bodhidharma is contrary; It focuses on meditation practices rather than chanting or reading Tripitaka. Later on when Bodhidharma had a large number of students and followers, they named this practice as “Chan Buddhism”. Bodhidharma then become the first Patriarch of Chan Buddhism. The Chan Sect has been continuously disseminated for 6 generations in China.
A Japanese monk named Eisai (1684-1785 B.E.), wandered into China to Study Chan Buddhism. He, later returned to Japan and founded Rinzai Zen School in 1734 B.E. Rinzai Zen is a high influential institute for applying Zen to the Japanese way of life and culture. These influences include martial arts, tea drinking ceremony, flower arrangement arts (Ikebana), Zen gardening etc., which are still prevalent today.
The main method for enlightenment of Zen Buddhism; starting from the 1st Patriach – Bodhidharma until present day of “Soto Zen”; has been the intensive meditation which is now widely known as “Zazen”. Although later Soto Zen Masters add Koan as part of their practices, Zazen is still the major method.
Rinzai Zen has clearly made their practices distinctive from original practices since Hui Neng period. Later on, one of his disciple named Huang Po invented mind-shattering techniques in order to deliberately instigate psychic turmoil e.g. hitting, shouting. These techniques are designed mainly to make practitioners get into their own inner-self natures as well as to focus their ‘consciousness of the present moment’ and to ultimately avoid both attachment (Upadana) and mental formation (Sankhara). Rinzai Zen believes that the Satori has a sudden characteristic and can happen at anytime and within any activity. No one can reassure what are steps necessary in order to attain Satori, however, the most popular practices are:- Zazen – Japanese seated meditation (same as Soto Zen), Koan – a story dialogue to provoke the inner insight, and Mondo – sudden dharma questions and answers.
There are 5 levels of Satori, the first 3 levels are noetic states and the last 2 levels are affective state or conative state. These are guidelines for both Rinzai Zen and Soto Zen.
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