Historical Dictionary of Chan Buddhism

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The popular name for Chan Buddhism, in the West, is Zen Buddhism, as it was Japanese scholars who first introduced Chan Buddhism to the West with this translation. Indeed, chan is a shortened form of the Chinese word channa, rendered from the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which denotes practices of the concentration of the mind through meditation or contemplation. Although rooted in the Indian tradition of yoga, which aims at the unification of the individual with the divine, meditative concentration became integrated into the Buddhist path to enlightenment as one of the three learnings (sanxue) of Buddhism. Early Buddhist (or the so-called Hinayana Buddhist) scriptures include the teachings on four stages of meditation, four divine abodes, four formless meditations, the tranquility (samatha) and insight (vipassanā) meditations, and so on. Early Buddhist communities commonly practiced these meditations, along with the moral disciplines and the study of the scriptures and doctrines....