Chan Buddhism is a major Chinese Buddhist sect attributed to Bodhidharma that emphasizes attaining Buddhahood, the supreme Buddhist religious goal, through enlightenment of one’s own mind, which subsequently spreaded to Japan and named as Zen. In Chan Buddhism, the word “Chan” comes from “Dhyana” in Sanskrit (Soothill and Hodous, 1937), which refers to meditation, samadhi (one-pointed concentration or perfect absorption), but nevertheless goes beyond the meaning of dhyana to become the manifestation of wisdom with simultaneous perfect composure of the mind (Huineng, 1969).
With its focus on personal enlightenment of the mind in the present life, Chan Buddhism is characterized from the other Buddhist sects by its disrespect for religious rituals, sacred texts, godly figures or intellectual understanding, but instead emphasizes on meditation, intuition, master-student relationship and practising and realizing within the mundane here-and-now life.
Development of the Enlightenment Sect
Our...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Bibliography
Chan, W.-S. (2004). Concentration, illumination, illumination forgotten: Three levels of Chan meditation. In Does no-thought mean no thought? Buddhadharma, Summer, 50–53.
Chan, W.-S. (2006a). Huihu, (Dharma Dictionary). Buddhadharma, Spring, 96.
Chan, W.-S. (2006b). Illusive thoughts, attachment and enlightenment (In Chinese). Buddhist Compassion, 176, 46–47.
Chan, W.-S. (2008). Psychological attachment, no-self and Chan Buddhist mind therapy. Contemporary Buddhism, 9(2), 253–264.
Hu, S. (1953). Ch’an (Zen) Buddhism in China: Its history and method. Philosophy East and West, 3(1), 3–24.
Huineng. (1969). The Sutra of Hui Neng. In The Diamond sutra and the sutra of Hui Neng (A. F. Price & W. Mou-Lam, Trans.) (4th Chap., p. 42). Boston, MA: Shambhala Publications.
Sheng-Yen, Master. (1979). “From the small ‘I’ to no ‘I.”’ ch’an. (In Chinese with English translation) (pp. 86–106). Taipei, China: Dongchu puplications.
Sheng-Yen, Master. (1988). Ox Herding at Morgan Bay. New York: Dharma Drum Publications.
Soothhill, W. E., & Hodous, L. (1937). A dictionary of Chinese Buddhist terms (with Sanskrit and English equivalents and a Sanskrit-Pali index) (p. 66, 459). London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this entry
Cite this entry
Chan, WS. (2010). Chan Buddhism. In: Leeming, D.A., Madden, K., Marlan, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-71802-6_773
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-71802-6_773
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-0-387-71801-9
Online ISBN: 978-0-387-71802-6
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science