The history of all of China is closely connected with Chan Buddhism, which in Japan is called Zen Buddhism. The influence of this religious and philosophical trend was and is so strong that it even became a symbol of China, along with Shaolin Wushu. Chinese Buddhism is quite different from orthodox Buddhism, as it has features of the Tao philosophy.
The founder of this branch of Buddhism is Bodhidharma. It was he who once came to the Shaolin Monastery and developed a system of self-defense. Despite popular misconception, the martial system was originally only one of many disciplines that students mastered. When Bodhidharma came to the Celestial Empire, he saw that preaching the word of the Buddha was not necessary here. The patriarch believed that the essence of the teachings of Sitharha could be understood only through training of the body and spirit. And if classical Buddhism developed in the eastern countries as a religion of mercy, then Ch'an Buddhism responded to the impulses of the soul of a medieval warrior. This was explained by the fact that this branch of the teaching absorbed elements of the philosophy of Tao. In Chan Buddhism, intuition was more important than intellect, and fortitude and willpower were more important than rational thinking, the adept was required to persevere andpurposefulness. Therefore, Patriarch Bodhidharma began to preach Chan from wushu, and not from meditation. In addition, the objective reality required the ability to stand up for themselves from the students of Shaolin. Robbers often attacked wandering monks, as they could not fight back. But over time, the situation has changed dramatically. Bandits would rather attack a company of soldiers than a single shaven-headed monk.
If you start to analyze this Shaolin Buddhism, its foundations, even for the uninitiated, are similar to the teachings of the Taoists, who considered the Void to be the beginning of everything. But the similarity is not only in this. Chan Buddhism teaches that our visible world is constantly in motion, and this moving world is an illusion. The real world is at rest. It is made up of dharmas, invisible elements that come into countless combinations with each other. All this forms the personality of the individual, realizing the law of karma. According to this law, everything that happens to a person is the result of his actions in past incarnations, and all deeds in this life will inevitably affect the next reincarnation.
A person must realize the illusory world as the "body of the Buddha", a person must strive to comprehend the "essence of the Buddha" not somewhere outside this world, but in everything that surrounds him, first of all - in himself. Thus, self-knowledge became the basis of the practice of Shaolin monks.
Taoist and Buddhist teachings have one more thing in common: the core of these two currents is the idea"emptiness of the enlightened heart". Even Lao Tzu wrote that the ideal state of a person, the ideal of knowledge, is a return to the Void. Chan Buddhism is the training of body and spirit. Without a divine patron, a person in a harsh world must rely only on himself. And if in classical Buddhism with enlightenment the preacher breaks the circle of reincarnations, then in Chan Buddhism everything is different. Having received intuitive insight and realizing his place in the world, a person begins to look at reality differently and finds inner peace. This is the ultimate goal of Chan Buddhism.
