Quotes About Ch'an

Chinul, the twelfth-century Korean Ch'an master, expresses this freedom magnificently in his treatise Secrets of Cultivating the Mind:

Dharma companions filling mountains, a sangha forms of itself: chanting, sitting ch'an stillness. Looking out from distant city walls, people see only white clouds.

Dhyan traveled from India to China along with the Buddhist monks, where it was referred to as Ch'an. This yoga traveled through the Southeast Asian countries to Japan and became Zen, and found expression as a whole system of direct insight without an emphasis on doctrine. Zen is a spiritual path that has no scriptures, books, rules, or rigid practices; it is an uncharted path.

According to Ch'an (and Zen), understanding comes only by ignoring the intellect and heeding the instincts, the intuition.