BuddhaSoup wrote:It's my impression that so much of what is practiced in the US these days is far more "Zen," or the American new-age post Beat type stuff that has cemented itself well in the practice of Zen, but, to me, is now Zen, but really not so much Buddhism.
I've not had any experience with American Zen. My experience has been in Japan and Taiwan. Of course I've read and heard about American Zen.
Regardless, Japanese Zen, like much of the rest of Buddhism there, is a fossil of what it used to be. Japanese Buddhism is largely a hereditary priesthood that is routinely called a "funeral religion" (that means you only call a priest when somebody has died). Buddhism is irrelevant to most of Japanese society. In my experience I also found that a number of Soto Zen priests deny rebirth and karma. Some American Zen figures likewise get their ideas from native Japanese priests who have rejected some of the core teachings of the Buddha. This isn't universal, but these were senior members of the clergy.
In modern Chinese Buddhism there is no such revisionism. However, there are still relatively recent baffling ideas about how meditation relates to liberation. They might teach the bodhisattva bhūmis taking immeasurable kalpas to pass through, but then talk about various stages of meditation being equivalent to higher bhūmis though the practitioner is
still an ordinary being. They don't
really mean the practitioner is at that stage, but nevertheless they say it.
Part of the problem perhaps lay in the fact that criticism is disdained and thus critical discussions about doctrine don't seem to happen. The culture seems to be one where people are hesitant to stand up and tell someone outright that they're wrong and talking nonsense (that would be seen as inappropriate, uncouth and a lack of manners). In the context of a lineage especially nobody would challenge their superiors and hence illogical ideas are propagated rather than challenged and revised. In some cases immoral ideas (for instance an eminent teacher supporting the death penalty) are left unchallenged, too.
The evolution does seem to have root in not early Mahayana, but in later Mahayana, where there seems almost a perjorative attitude taken toward the early teachings of Buddha.
We have to be careful in our understanding of the Mahāyāna. Later Mahāyāna in India was, I think, not as antagonistic towards the Śrāvakayāna teachings as in East Asia. In East Asia come the fifth or sixth century there were almost no proponents of
Āgama teachings. However, that didn't stop a lot of authors from crafting imaginary "Hīnayāna" strawmen. In that context it was easy to dismiss the
Āgama teachings.
What seems to have emerged is a grand tradition of storytelling, with later sutras designed to characterize the Buddha as a god, a mythical deity, a supernatural being.
You should bear in mind that the Mahāsāṃghika school, long before any formal Mahāyāna appeared, had thought of the Buddha as a transcendental force (lokottara) rather than as a flesh and blood sage.
One good work which details this is
The Concept of the Buddha by Venerable Guang Xing.
http://books.google.com.tw/books?id=DTWZLMGFFgkCNote the following:
The Mahāsāṃghikas’ religious philosophy was based more on faith than on reason, and accepted whatever was said by the Buddha or, more precisely, whatever was taught in the Nikāyas and the Āgamas. As a result, they developed the concept of a transcendental (lokottara) Buddha based on the superhuman qualities of the Buddha, as discussed in Chapter 1 above. Two aspects of the Mahāsāṃghikas’ concept of the Buddha can be identified: the true Buddha who is omniscient and omnipotent, and the manifested forms through which he liberates sentient beings with skilful means. Shakyamuni was considered but one of these forms. The true Buddha supports the manifested forms that can appear in the worlds of the ten directions. In Mahayana Buddhism, the former aspect – the true Buddha – was developed and divided into the concept of the dharmakāya and the concept of the sambhogakāya; the latter aspect – the manifested forms – was developed into the concept of nirmaṇakāya. Thus, the Mahāsāṃghikas are the originators of the idea of the nirmaṇakāya, and the manifested forms can have many embodiments. Furthermore, they also introduced the theory of numerous Buddhas existing in other worlds. (p53)
The only problem with this quote is saying they believed in any kind of "omnipotence". I don't believe this was the case.
In any case, the Mahāyāna emerges from this branch of early Buddhism and not the Sthaviravāda, who had an alternative perspective:
The concept of the Buddha was significantly advanced at the time of the early Indian Buddhist schools, especially the Sarvāstivāda and the Mahāsāṃghika. The Sarvāstivādins were more empirical in their approach. They summarized and synthesized the attributes and qualities of the Buddha as described in the early sutras before formulating, for the first time, the two-body theory: that of the rupakāya and the dharmakāya. The rupakāya, according to the Sarvāstivādins, although impure, is endowed with the thirty-two major and eighty minor marks as well as a one-fathom halo. The dharmakāya is endowed with the eighteen exclusive attributes: the ten powers, the four kinds of intrepidity, the three foundations of mindfulness and great compassion. None of the constituents of either the rupakāya or the dharmakāya are innovative; rather, they consist of the qualities of the Buddha which were already present in early Buddhism. Some of them, such as the ten powers and the thirty-two major marks were simply taken from the Nikāyas and the Āgamas with further explanations. Other qualities, for instance the eighty minor marks and the one-fathom halo, were taken after careful synthesis. (p75)
.needless to say i'm a little too practical and too in love with structured approaches to really appreciate and enjoy the vague and mysterious zen. however i still find it deeply alluring and very much am still interested in it even if i did "officially" give up on it entirely, especially once i found out how different the zen idea is from what the buddha taught is the definition of samma samadhi (ie: the buddha said it's jhana, and no zen schools teach jhana, ironic since as you said: zen=chan=dhyana=jhana...). however the two may meet on the idea of vipassana. the oft quoted satipatthana sutta talks about non-jhana anapanasati and goes on to discuss other methods and says that these alone can lead to enlightenment. so perhaps this kind of idea is what is passed on in zen? who knows.
, Huseng. 
