What is Zen, Is Zen Buddhism? A lot of people seem to say that

>Can I be a Christian and also practice Zen?
Yea, you can also be an atheist, polytheist, asexual homo at the same time, pick your favorite gender now while it is hot. It's 2017, my friend, you can be the special little snowflake you want to be and everyone has to respect it.

>>3142673
being christian is too worldly to be compatible with zen

>>3142673
Zen is a philosophy and yes you can practice it if you are a Christian. You can be of any faith or world view and practice Zen. A good place to start is with the late Alan Watts. Hundreds of hours of his lectures are in YouTube. He dedicated his life to studying Zen Buddhism and eastern spiritual philosophies, so he could bring it all back and translate it in western language for us.

Zen is short for zazen which means sitting meditation.

The word zen comes from the Chinese chan which comes from the indian dhyana which means concentration/mindfulness/awareness/meditation or something like that.

Zen is everyday mind. It's just being present in the now, being aware that you're alive, aware of everything going inside and around you, realising the conditions for happiness are ever present at all times, being content and fulfilled, not worrying about the future or ruminating about the past, seeing things as they truly are, etc etc etc

Of course you can be a Christian and practice meditation. Christianity has its own meditative traditions too.

>>3142673
stick with taoism

zen is for cucks

>>3142683
You are wrong and stupid and die.

>>3142735
One of the core things of christianity is that this life doesn't really matter and only the eternity in heaven (or hell) is really important.
But sure, combine it with Zen, that is, according to this guy, >>3142725 all about the here and now and don't worry if you go to heaven or not cause who cares.

You just want to call yourself Christian or Zen because you believe it makes you sophisticated.

>>3142673
Chan Buddhism = Taoism + Buddhism

>>3142831

Incorrect.

>Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

That's zen.

>>3142856
Lo is not a word.
That sentence could be applied to every religion and it's completely empty shit. "Hurr look into ur heart dude." Wow, so deep. Do you really think this quote is good? What exactly do you think this tells you? It sounds nice, but, at least to me, this has absolutely no meaning. If you see any in it feel free to explain it.

Zen according to google:
a Japanese school of Mahayana Buddhism emphasizing the value of meditation and intuition rather than ritual worship or study of scriptures.
Going to church and reading the bible are absolute core things in Christianity.

>>3142881

>lo
ləʊ
exclamation archaic
used to draw attention to an interesting or amazing event.
"and lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them"

The teachings of jesus ate the core of Christianity. He said there not to look anywhere else for the kingdom of heaven because it is always already with us. In the same way, zen teaches that the pure land of the buddha is already always around us and we don't need to look anywhere else for it but the present.

There is no need to be hostile. It doesn't help you or anyone else.

>>3142891

Are the core*

>>3142891
>He said there not to look anywhere else for the kingdom of heaven because it is always already with us
> buddha is already always around us and we don't need to look anywhere else
You really don't see the contradiction? It's actually two contradictions. (God with us, yet we need Jesus. We got Jesus, yet we need Buddha and vice versa)

What exactly would "the kingdom of heaven is already with us" mean? You could interpret it into pretty much everything you want to. It's a sentence without meaning. It sounds fancy, nothing else.

>>3142974

There is no contradiction to see. Contradiction is a product of discriminating mind, which is the cause of all conflict and suffering.

http://serazard.com/lib/Living-Buddha--Living-Christ.pdf

You can use Zen practices however the philosophy and reasoning to them is deeply hostile to Christianity.