RINSAI VS. SOTO ZEN

The two schools of Zen that are currently the most active are Rinzai, which favors the koan; and Soto, which employs the zazen method.  Though Ch'an, or Zen as it is pronounced in Japanese, was introduced from China into Japan several times prior to the twelfth century A.D., it wasn't until Eisai (A.D. 1141-1215), a Japanese scholar monk, went to China, studied it, and brought it home that it took hold in Japan.  The Lin-Chi school of Ch'an was the style that Eisai studied and brought back, Lin-Chi transliterated as Rinzai.

Although zazen, sitting in meditation, is also an important part of Rinzai, in Rinzai the emphasis is on sudden enlightenment gained through the "conquering" of verbal or nonverbal impasses.  These impasses are in the form of the unanswerable question, called koan, the nonsensical dialog, termed mondo, and the unexpected silences, paradoxes, pantomime, blows, and other techniques that are used to shock the monk into awareness.

The Rinzai monk often serves for long periods, even for a lifetime, in the monastery, under the direct supervision of a Zen master.  The monk is expected to solve a certain number of koans, fifty or possibly more, for which there are no established "answers."  Much depends on the monk’s relationship with the master in working out the koan.  A lot of Rinzai teachings are secret because much of what takes place depends on intuition rather than on formal doctrines or written scriptures.

One of Eisai's later disciples, Dogen (A.D. 1200-1253), eventually doubted the koan method, broke with Rinzai, and established the other great form of Zen called Soto.  The Soto, or gradual school, aims at the same ends, but proceeds somewhat differently.  Soto stresses quiet sitting, again zazen, which is the practice of observing one's mind in tranquility.  This sitting is considered to be an Indian form of meditation as this is the method practiced by Gautama Buddha himself. 

Soto stresses the immediacy of the present, which is to say the "acting like the Buddha" in the present rather than trying to become like him in the future.  Dogen spoke of it in his great work Shobogenzo, or Treasury of the Eye of the True Doctrine.  He wrote, "Without looking forward to tomorrow, every moment you must think only of this day and this hour.  Because tomorrow is unfixed and difficult to know, you must think of following the Buddhist way while you live today."