Japanese Zen has its origins in China, where the first Zen masters taught and the first monasteries were found. Zen in Chi

Zen is universal and applicable to anyone, anywhere. Zen traditions do not add to an individual’s beliefs, on the contrary it helps to find what one really is. Zen arts, flower arrangements, haiku poetry etc, all lead to an experience of peace, clarity and self-consciousness. Zen is about the acceptance of the reality of one’s life and its every aspects: the painful and the joyful, the limitations and the freedoms. Zen seeks answers to life’s questions deep within an individual and challenges to find their own innermost being. The attitudes towards peace, non-violence to living beings, were the reasons for the Westerners to adopt Zen principles. Zen has survived twenty five hundred years and still continues its journey around the world carrying a positive spirit.

The inner power of Zen has been brought out through art. Zen art is a process where the artist and his creation becomes one. According to the monks, Zen arts offer a path or a way to inner development. To practice a Zen art, an individual has to free his mind from ego and any little disturbances to become “as carefree as a flower of the field.” Eventually with years of practice, one would be able to achieve the wholeness of the art and become one with the artist. Finally he would be able to experience the enlightenment that Buddha experienced under the Bodhi tree. The tea ceremony or Cha-no-yu is an ancient tradition in Japan that has carried the Zen spirit to the modern society. Tea was originally used by the monks to stay awake during long hours of meditation. Later, during the reign of Sung dynasty, tea became a part of the monks’ rituals that is used to produce tranquility. The Japanese Zen art of flower arranging or Ikebana symbolizes the emptiness of Zen. Flower arrangements ar

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