History of zen yoga

Here's a part of an article I've been writing on Zen Yoga for wikipedia. This is the history and origins section. Previously I wrote an article putting Zen yoga in context with all the other main styles out there - read it here.

Origins with the Buddha

The first mention of the word "yoga" seems to have been in in the Rig Veda, written around 1500 B.C.E, together with a description of the hierarchy of mind-body constituents—the senses, mind, intellect, etc. – and ways to control them. 

From the very earliest city-states in the region now known as Iraq, people spread in all directions, including the East. One group, that some call the Aryans, emerged on the steppes of Eurasia about 4000 yrs ago. In Sanskrit they were the “Aryas” (“Aryans”). The root of this word served as the foundation of the name of the conquered Persian territories, “Iran”. The Aryans first entered India around 1500 BC and drove the native Harappa-Mohenjodaro people southwards. 

The class division of the Aryans and the conquered darker-skinned native people into nobility and tribesmen was gradually expanded to become the caste system of India. The Sanskrit word for caste, “varna", also means colour. By the ninth century B.C.E., the religion of the Aryans was codified in the Vedas. Ritual and offering were central to their beliefs, and these could only be performed by the spiritual caste, the Brahmins. The ritual act of making offerings was even, at times, venerated even more than the gods themselves, and as a consequence the Brahmins became very powerful and secretive.

The concept of yoga appears again in one of the key pieces of literature that evolved from the Vedas called the Mahabharata. This great story, including a section known as the Bhagavad Gita, became seminal for the development of later Hinduism and Yoga.

The Buddha grew up in a time of great political and spiritual upheaval. In Northern India at around 500 B.C.E., the merchant class was on the rise. The separate kingdoms emphasis on wealth accumulation and the use of violent force, caused an increasing restriction in peoples' freedom and their suffering become increasingly greater. Spiritual practice, which offered ways to alleviate this suffering, had become increasingly ritualised and restricted only to the Brahmin caste. As a result, a number of ‘radical’ spiritual schools and teachers emerged (the ''shamana'' schools) in reaction to the established orthodoxy (sometimes called the “movement of the forest sages”). Common to them all was the rejection of a supreme god, such as Brahma, or any other form of a creator, and they all offered ways to alleviate suffering and paths to liberation to people of all castes.

The Buddha trod the middle path between some of the more extremes that appeared, accepting as parts of the path to liberation the use of logic and reasoning, ethical behaviour, and the direct “knowing” gained through insight and meditation. He taught that there are no absolute “things”, there are only processes in a constant state of change (''annica''); that there is no fixed or permanent essence or soul (''annata''); and that suffering is inherent to life (''dukkha'') (the Three Marks of Existence). His way of liberation was the end to suffering.

The Buddha described four foundations (or bases) of mindfulness in the Satipatthana Sutta – mindfulness of the body, of sensations, of the mind, and of dharmas (i.e. phenomena, thoughts, arisings), and is recorded as saying, 

“There is one thing that leads to happiness in the present and liberation in the future; and what is this one thing? It is mindfulness of the body.” (Anguttara Nikaya, sutta I, 21). 

Thus mindfulness of the body is the direct way to liberation and the end of suffering. Zen yoga practice is primarily concerned with the body and sensations, and observing life as a process in a constant state of change, so is in direct line with the Buddha's method of awakening.

Again in the Satipatthana Sutta, the Buddha says

"Furthermore, when going forward & returning, he makes himself fully alert; when looking toward & looking away... when bending & extending his limbs... when carrying his outer cloak, his upper robe & his bowl... when eating, drinking, chewing, & savouring... when urinating & defecating... when walking, standing, sitting, falling asleep, waking up, talking, & remaining silent, he makes himself fully alert.

"In this way he remains focused internally on the body in & of itself, or focused externally... unsustained by anything in the world. This is how a monk remains focused on the body in & of itself."

Evolution into China and Japan

With the revival of the brahmana and caste system around the turn of the first millennium C.E. and the Muslim conquest of the Indian subcontinent in the 12th century C.E., Buddhism began to decline. However, yoga and Buddhism had already spread into neighbouring countries, including Tibet and China to the north. In fact, descriptions of yoga-type exercises were discovered in a number of silk and bamboo books in Mawangdui Han tomb in Hunan Province dating from way back to the early West Han Dynasty (around 400 B.C.E.), so perhaps it was more like a re-spreading or merging. 

At around 500 C.E., an Indian monk called Bodhidharma arrived in southern China and taught practices centered on meditation and the direct mind-to-mind transmission teachings of the Lankavatara Sutra. According to Chinese legend, he also taught a number of practices to monks to prepare them for meditation. These include a series of external exercises called the Eighteen Arhat Hands (Shi-ba Lohan Shou) and an internal practice called the Sinew Metamorphosis Classic. The Yijin Jing ("Muscle/Tendon Change Classic”) is also attributed to Bodhidharma. As these practices developed, they led to the creation of Shaolinquan school of Kung Fu.

As the Buddhism of Bodhidharma fused with the prevailing Chinese philosophies and practices of Confucianism and Taoism, it became Ch’an (from Sanskrit "dhyāna", meaning meditation or "meditative state"). Over the centuries, Ch'an spread to Japan where it become known as Zen, taking with it the rich combination of practices known variously as yoga, Qigong, Tao Yin, etc.

Dating back to around the fourth century C.E., Yogācāra (literally yoga practice) is one of the two main philosophical systems that underlies Zen. It contains a sophisticated psychology of awakening and emphasises the practice of mindfulness. This mindfulness leads not to an experience but to a total shift in the way we relate to all experiences. This shift is referred to in the Yogācāra tradition as parāvṛtti, "turning around”.

Hatha and Yantra Yoga

Hatha Yoga emerged as a discipline in the centuries following the Buddha, tracing its origins to the Yoga-sutras written by the sage Patañjali (from the 2nd century B.C.E.) and the Goraksha Samhita (written in the 11th-century by yogi Gorakshanath). The word 'hatha' in Sanskrit literally means 'force', so Hatha Yoga is the “Discipline of Force”. It stresses mastery of the body as a way of attaining a state of spiritual perfection in which the mind is withdrawn from external objects. The Buddha once related his experiences with a Hatha Yoga-stype breath-retention practice and found it had a great effect, but not conducive to awakening:

"...I stopped the in-breaths & out-breaths in my nose & mouth. As I did so, there was a loud roaring of winds coming out my earholes, just like the loud roar of winds coming out of a smith's bellows... So I stopped the in-breaths & out-breaths in my nose & mouth & ears. As I did so, extreme forces sliced through my head, just as if a strong man were slicing my head open with a sharp sword... Extreme pains arose in my head... There was an extreme burning in my body... And although tireless persistence was aroused in me, and unmuddled mindfulness established, my body was aroused & uncalm because of the painful exertion... But with this racking practice of austerities I haven't attained any superior human state, any distinction in knowledge or vision worthy of the noble ones. Could there be another path to Awakening?"

The word hatha can also be seen as a combination of two separate "Bīja mantras" or single syllables – "ha" representing the masculine or solar energy and "tha" as the feminine or lunar energy. Thus Hatha Yoga is the practice of bringing balance to the two opposing forces[4]. The first occurrence of the term 'hatha yoga' is in fact found in the Buddhist Guhyasamāja tantra dating from the 8th century[5].

Yantra yoga (or Trul khor) is a the Tibetan Buddhist parallel to the Hindu or Vedic Hatha yoga tradition. The discipline includes similar body postures (asanas) and pranayama practices, and includes mantra practice and visualisations. Originating with the mahasiddhas of India, it was brought to Tibet in the eighth century by the great master Padmasambhava and transmitted to the Tibetan Dzogchen master Vairochana. Its practice is nowadays found in all schools of Tibetan Buddhism.

Modern Zen yoga in Japan

In modern times, Zen masters Hogen Daido Roshi and Harada Tangen Roshi, in particular, have advocated and taught yoga practices to compliment their Zen training. In an article published in the Buddhist Society's Middle Way magazine in May 2014, a student of Hogen Daido Roshi recalls that he constantly imparted the importance of mixing moving Zen (do-zen) into Zen practice: 

"...there are four kinds of Zen: sitting, standing, lying, and moving. We should practise them all. Whatever we do, we must do it fully, mindfully, wholeheartedly, one thing at a time without being attached to or involved in it. When we practise moving Zen, the quality of our daily lives becomes very different.”

In Zen, the inseparability of the “body-mind” is often stressed, together with the need to retain our flexibility for life. Hogen Roshi taught that:

 “By doing yoga and zazen, we can begin to appreciate the real state of our body and mind, both of which are stiff and unpeaceful. We should not hate them. Please, let them be as they are. Taste their special bitter taste”.