Someone wrote to ask about Vipassana (as practiced in such countries as Thailand, Burma, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, and Laos) and Zen (in China, Viet Nam, Korea, and Japan). Being neither scholar nor teacher, I’m on thin ice here; but, being a fool, I’ll charge ahead and try to explain (with help from ReligionFacts).
Founded in India over 2,500 years ago, Buddhism remains the dominant religion of the Far East and is increasingly popular in the West. Along its historical journey through many lands and encounters with religions and philophies along the way, Buddhism has developed into a wide variety of forms, ranging from an emphasis on religious rituals and worship of deities to a complete rejection of both rituals and deities in favour of pure meditation. But all share a great respect for the teachings (dharma) of the Buddha (meaning The Enlightened One).
The Theravada form of Buddhism is dominant in southern Asia and thus known as Southern Buddhism. Theravada means “The Way of the Elders” in Pali, reflecting the Theravadins’ belief that they most closely follow the original teachings and practices of the Buddha and the early monastics. The authoritative text for Theravadas is the Pali Canon, an early Indian collection of the Buddha’s teachings. The purpose of life for Theravadins is to become an arhat, a perfected being who has achieved nirvana and will not be reborn again. As a result, Southern Buddhism tends to be more monastic, strict, and world-renouncing than Zen, its Northern counterpart. [Please click Comments for a description of Vipassana that has come to the West.]
Zen is perhaps the most well-known school of Buddhism. The words “Zen” (in Japanese) and “Ch’an” (in Chinese) come from the Sanskrit word Dhyana, meaning “meditation.” Zen teaches that all human beings have Buddha-nature (the potential to attain enlightenment) within them. To overcome the barriers of “greed, anger, and ignorance,” Zen practitioners downplay the importance of scriptures in favour of meditation which may lead to awareness of ultimate reality. Training in the Zen path is usually undertaken by a student-disciple under the guidance of a master-teacher.
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someone wrote to my personal email address: “The Vipassana I know is very practical, with little formality, no priests and temples. Can you explain?”
Of course.
As I wrote in the blog, Vipassana is an ancient meditative practice … and, as you point out, also a 20th century movement by reformers in Burma seeking to simplify ritual and make this meditative practice available to laypeople.
This style of Vipassana reached North America in the early 1970s when cerytain Peace Corp members returned after studying with masters in Southeast Asia. Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield, and Sharon Salzberg are familiar names; they continue to teach and write popular books. google for Insight Meditation Society.
S. N. Goenka is a Burmese-born business man and meditation teacher. He has established a method of instruction which has proven very popular in around the world. Go to http://www.dhamma.org/ and in British Columbia to http://www.surabhi.dhamma.org.