The detachment from being
Again and again the question comes up what exactly Chan (Zen) is.
Generally speaking, Chan is the very personal practice of self-discovery, self-observation. This sounds very simple at first, but in practice it can be accompanied by strong distortions. First of all, not everyone likes to see what they find, and secondly, it is difficult to focus the mind, to get to the point. And then there is the matter of "enlightenment", which Buddha recommended to his followers, but which does not come easily at all.
In any case, Chan Buddhism is the path to personal freedom, without fears and useless attachments, which makes the philosophy of the teacher of all teachers practicable for all people, but also difficult.
Those who are new to the subject should first use the teaching to a kind of feel-good Buddhism, and then dive deeper into the philosophy. The "enlightenment" as the absolute essence of Buddhism will probably not be able to follow all interested people. Especially if you are new to Chan Buddhism, then everything is very confusing, the Buddhist teachings have many different directions, each country has, just by the language, completely different approaches.
So also when this spiritual orientation meets the Central Europeans, who like to put up a statue of Buddha, but have hardly come into contact with his teachings. Here, the rules of Buddhism are gladly adapted to the existing structures of the prevailing religion (Christianity) in order to please the taste of the majority.
Right now, Western Buddhism is in an enormous crisis, because (as said) the person of Buddha has been accepted, but the average Central European can do little or nothing with the words from the past. Alone to make a choice among the different directions of Buddhism (Japan, Korea, China, Tibet, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Thailand, etc.) overwhelms many people so much that they already throw in the towel here.
Every Buddhist direction is then subject to innumerable rules, commandments, prayers: Is it allowed to have sex, eat meat, what about the family, what about rebirth, were there gods and saints? The things to follow are endless, generations continued to add their views, the thicket of teachings became denser and denser.
I follow the pure teaching of Buddha, as well as the Chan teaching (Zen) superimposed on it, which was developed in the Shaolin Temple in China about 2000 years ago. I fade out all views introduced afterwards. The original words of the great teacher may have been written down only after his death (sutras), but in their core they all point in the same direction ("enlightenment").
Buddhism is characterized by self-initiative, detachment from one's own being is the focus, cessation of suffering is the goal.
To integrate the ideas and methods of the great teacher in the West does not seem to be an easy undertaking, the individual Buddhist schools argue too hard, groups form, everyone has something to criticize about everyone. Only one's own path leads to Nirvana, the other branch errs, the splinter in the eye of the other is naturally large, the beam in front of one's own face is ignored.
The goal of the Chan is to "enlighten" the mind, that is, to detach it from being. Are you interested?
The way is the goal!

Apply to everything your mind, and when you have analyzed it and found it good for you and everyone else, then you can believe in it, live by it and help your neighbor to live by it too
- Buddha - "The Enlightened One" - honorary name of Siddharta Gautama - 560 to 480 before the year zero

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