Zen - an art we ignored

Everybody should have heard of Zen - the Japanese art of meditation practiced by Buddist monks who seem to have their body and mind in communion. Zen is glorified by the Hollywood and its popularity in the western world ever increasing. Be it the old Chinese movies of martial arts or the latest "Matrix" the control of mind is always something which fascinates everyone. To be in a world of eternal happiness and not being affected by the everyday good and bad happenings are things which attract many of us.

What surprised me was that Zen had an Indian origin. A guy by the name of Bodhidharma travelled from Kanchipuram in Tamil Nadu to China to spread the word about Buddhism. He taught the Chinese monks the art of meditation (dhyan) which they called "chan". This later went to Japan as "Zazen" and then to the west as Zen.

If not for the Hollywood movies and the western books, I probably would never have heard of Zen. Isnt it ironic, that something that originated from India had to travel all the way around the world (literally!) for me to hear it back in India.

It seems Bodhidharma found that the Chinese monks at the Shaolin temple were totally out of shape (probably eating too much cheese!) and he wanted to set a regimen of exercises for them. These exercises along with the traditional Chinese knowledge of martial arts evolved into the modern day "kung-fu". There have been surmises that Bodhidharma could have transferred some of his knowledge of "Kalaripayattu" - a form of martial arts from Kerala. He seems to be credited for introducing tea in China too!

The last few statements may or may not be true, but what is true is that, we tend to ignore a lot of good things about our own country and try to look abroad for inspiration. India might not be the home of Newtons and Einsteins but we have our own share of "inventors" and philosophers. Its a pity that we were not taught about these things at school, so that we could feel proud of ourselves and act a lot more confident when dealing with the world.