Veeky Forums view on zen Buddhism?

>hinayana
I think you mean theravada. Hinayana is what smug mahayana """"buddhists"""" call non-mahayana.

I think Zen is a better entry point to Buddhism for westerners. It's kinda like radical theravada.
Once you are familiar, you learn pretty fast not to get obsessed with all the "schools" and just read everything and ignore the ethno-cultural baggage they literally all have one way or another.

I really don't care for it's stance on anal creampies

This guy is proof that Zen can go toe-to-toe with any Western philosophy.

I highly recommend Zen Training by Sekida.
He always refused to be ordained, but was more knowledgable than 80% of monks.

Shunryu Suzuki is basically the dude who introduced Zen to the West Coast. (After the Beat Gen made everyone interested.)
His English was very good, so he was able to express a lot of the general thoughts.

Sawaki Kodo is another popular author. His no-bs attitude resonates with Westerners. He is also one of the guys who saven Japanese Zendos from becoming funeral parlors.

But sooner rather than later you should also read the Pali Canon (Rupert Gethin's books are the gold standard), and the diamond and lotus sutra. Or else you'll miss a bunch of references and core ideas.

name and recommended work to start off with please and thank you

Shoes Outside the Door might help you avoid toxic teachers.

Kitaro Nishida. I'd start with an Inquiry into the Good. But you might not understand much if you're not grounded in Western and Eastern philosophy. If that is the case (not being grounded), look into some anthologies of the Kyoto School.

Zen isn't too bad. The weakness is that it de-emphasizes (but thankfully doesn't outright ignore) the textual background of Buddhism, which can be great if you're looking for insight or motivation.

The assumption that Zen makes (which is arguably what all new people to Buddhism make) is that if they consider:
1) the emphasis of experiencing things for yourself in Buddhism, along with
2) the history of Siddhartha Gautama,
then they conclude that experiencing things is of the utmost importance. And to a degree, that can't be knocked as untrue. But the Nikayas suggest that good and proper guidance is probably more important than just "experiencing" your way to Nirvana/Nibbana.

Gautama basically said "yo, reaching Enlightenment was really fucking hard; I don't even know if I can teach this to people". (Majjhima Nikaya 26 [accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.026.than.html]: start from the paragraph containing "But this generation delights in" and go on)

He changes his mind rather quickly, but you can see how the monastery setup and emphasis on learning from teachers, scriptures, memorization, etc. comes up as important (in Theravada, at least).

Nips fucking love Catholic imagery and symbolism; it's everywhere in animu and mango.

have you read the novel or seen the movie Silence?

No, but I know the gist.

That was a cultural and primarily military and economic conflict from four centuries ago. If you're too autistic to separate that from popular artistic taste in the present you're literally autistic.

Catholic themes and imagery are more mainstream in Japan than in the modern West, at least the United States.

Is Kyoto School worth looking into?
I get the impression it's just "Look, we can into Heidegger also!"

It's sorta like that. Moreso German Idealism than Heidegger specifically. Similar conclusions as Heidegger tho.

What happened to Japanese Zen after Meiji era was very bad. It became more family oriented and destroyed the celibate tradition of what Ch'an/Zen was all about.

Don't listen to that guy. My number 1 recommendation for you is the Platform Sutra translated by Yampolsky. That is the foundational Zen/Ch'an sect before it split into 4 different schools.

>Don't listen to that guy. My number 1 recommendation for you is the Platform Sutra translated by Yampolsky. That is the foundational Zen/Ch'an sect before it split into 4 different schools.
I wouldn't suggest it as intro text, m8. Tho essential, so thanks for mentioning it.

I wouldn't get so hung up on different schools. It only really matters to Japanese people.

The swordsman.

And even then, it isn't by will but by the grievances of others that he carries himself to the sword and only then by the pull of the optimal compromise that he OR SHE will eventually gouge the sword from its sheathe to carry it forth with might.
There's a lot more going on in there.

the buddha-mind and bodhisattva concentration reek of bullshit trying to make buddhism more optimistic than it is. Where are all the pessimistic grouchy buddhists who deny our ability to reach wholesome states?

>catholicism is more important to Japanese identity and culture than buddhism because I saw some crosses in anime!
>gets mad and calls other people autistic

>an entire philosophy premised on the fact that the human condition is fraught with unwholesome mental states, delusions and dukkha
>and to be fully free from this, while the ideal, may be impossible and needs constant practice
>as evidenced by the fact that the fucking Gautama Buddha was angry and sad because of the wars in his home long after his "enlightenment"

My main focus in Buddhism has always been Zen and some Theravada. And most of the authors in that field aren't exactly "optimistic". Pragmatic would probably be a better term.

I think you've been too influenced by weirdos like Thich Naht Hahn and shills like the Dalai Lama.

Anime is catholic

positive-nihilist schizo-occult buddhizm is the only true way...

it is important to get a grasp on western religion before going east...

Something practiced by southeast Asians and also very annoying white people

Reminder:
Translucent Stupa - Great Buddhist Books v2.0 - 2015.06.02

People should probably grab that from Pirate Bay, it's a dying torrent and it has absolutely shit-ton of content that's not on Libgen etc.

I think it's fucking amazing.

I've been practicing meditation for about 15 years now, not always necessarily under a Zen (in particular Rinzai Zen) umbrella, but it's been part of the core of my practice.

If you really want to get into it, prepare yourself to not understand a ton of things at first.

Then, once you start thinking "I kinda get parts of it," you'll understand that you understood way less than you thought...

Keep going at it for a few years after that, and then, and only then, you might start understanding why you don't really understand anything.

Then you'll be ready to openly talk about it and
maybe even give a proper opinion about it.

To give you an example, if you decide to get into it via Rinzai, one of the first cases you'll be presented with will be Joshu's Dog.

Now, think of Joshu's Dog as you would think about the definition of the Limit of a Function in mathematics: the first time you see it it might sound like non-sense, over time a teacher might try to explain it to you; at first it'll be presented via a definition that is just a working definition, but, you can be damn sure that it is not: you're only seeing a minuscule aspect of its unfathomable reach.

In fact, even if you study mathematics for many many years, you'll not see the "final form" of the definition of a Limit for a really really long long time, it might even change in name for a bit, depending on what you study; only then you'll start to see that what you thought was the limit of a function is nothing but a particular case of a much more complicated subject that extends its reach to all of mathematics, after that you'll see how that concept spreads itself into many other areas in the sciences.

Another way to think about it is that Joshu's Dog is a Zipped file that you'll have to manually unzip through meditation, and Joshu's Dog is immensely compressed.

For anyone to truly start grasping the complexity of the problem you'll have to start first by grasping the processes of your mind via subjective "non-instrospection," or in other words, meditation based on the concepts of Mindfulness, Equanimity, and Impermanence.

If you're lucky, you might one day hear about the three nens... Pro-tip: Try to grasp what they're pointing to...

alvinalexander.com/photos/zen-training-three-nen-actions

Jump into it, you won't regret it.

By the way, Joshu's Dog "ends" after one single answer, but a real Zen interview would consist of several follow ups to your first answer, and all of them must come from a spontaneous but "enlightened" state, each one of them going through different nens. If you even hesitate on your answers, your teacher will smell the bullshit and send you back to "sit on it" for a while.

Hope this helped.

This is a good academic answer.

So what is the thing you're talking about?

...

It may seem a basic question, but I have come to what seems to be a very different understanding to the general one. I think we would all agree on the Pali text e.g. at suttacentral.net/pi/dn22#82:

Katamañca, bhikkhave, dukkhaṃ ariyasaccaṃ? Jātipi dukkhā, jarāpi dukkhā, maraṇampi dukkhaṃ, sokaparidevadukkhadomanassupāyāsāpi dukkhā, appiyehi sampayogopi dukkho, piyehi vippayogopi dukkho, yampicchaṃ na labhati tampi dukkhaṃ, saṃkhittena pañcupādānakkhandhā dukkhā.

Translations are where we might disagree on:

"Now what, monks, is the Noble Truth of Suffering? Birth is suffering, old age is suffering, death is suffering, grief and lamentation are suffering, sorrow and despair are suffering, being joined to what is not liked is suffering, being parted from what is liked is suffering, also not to obtain that which one longs for is suffering. In brief, the five clung to aggregates are suffering."

In this translation I read 'sokaparidevadukkha' as 'grief and lamentation are suffering'. I don't read 'dukkha' there as 'pain' and to get: 'grief, lamentation, pain', but read dukkha there with the same meaning it occurs in the other eight occurrences in the paragraph. Thus, to me, only the first three items (birth, aging and death) could be interpreted as physical and all the others are mental.

To me, the summary sentence 'In brief, the five clung to aggregates are suffering' would be accurately paraphrased as: five aggregates (life) / + clinging / = suffering. And the summary of the First Noble Truth as 'Life is Suffering', is certainly not accurate, as it leaves out 'clinging', but understood to have come from the belief that birth, old age and death are meant there to be physical.

I note that the summary sentence is not:
saṃkhittena pañcakkhandhā dukkha
in brief the Five Aggregates are suffering
which to me would mean 'Life is suffering'.

Unfortunately, I have not found 'Life is Suffering' which in Pali would be 'jīvitam dukkham' anywhere in the Tipiṭaka by a digital search. So to me, the belief that the First Noble Truth means that, is just an interpretation, even though a very popular one.

Now dealing with the first three terms usually taken as physical and seemingly having texts to explain them as such, I have found repeated times the Buddha is recorded to have given psychological meanings (redefinitions) to key terms, clearly including 'death'.

“For this, monks, is death in the Noble One's Discipline: that one gives up the training and returns to the lower life”
(awake.kiev.ua/dhamma/tipitaka/2Sutta-Pitaka/3Samyutta-Nikaya/Samyutta2/19-Opamma-Samyutta/01-Pathamovaggo-e.html)

So, for me Nibbāna is the fading away and cessation of the Five Clung to Aggregates, not the Five Aggregates and the Buddha realised complete Nibbāna (parinibbāna) under the Bodhi Tree and lived a happy life (without birth aging and death) for 45 years till the 'breaking up of his body' (kāyassa bedha) which is the phrase he most often used for the end of life of a arahant, not 'death'. And terms with parinibb* were used mostly to refer to the living arahant.

So in summary it's meant to be the mental process of life-aging-death and not the gathering and dissolution of the body that causes dukkha?

I always thought dukkha was always meant to be life+clinging, and not just life though.

>buddhism

>Buddhism, in its various forms, realizes the radical insufficiency of this changeable world; it teaches a way by which men, in a devout and confident spirit, may be able either to acquire the state of perfect liberation, or attain, by their own efforts or through higher help, supreme illumination. Likewise, other religions found everywhere try to counter the restlessness of the human heart, each in its own manner, by proposing "ways," comprising teachings, rules of life, and sacred rites. The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions.

vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651028_nostra-aetate_en.html

Lowest rung on the intellectual ladder together with existentialism, Heildegger and Niggercheese for confounding psychological issues with philosophical inquiry, projecting all over the place and being as pretentious as you can be about it. Unsolicited therapy advice useful only to unstable simpletons. If you are not "in need", best to ignore it until it returns to the depths of metaphorical reddit.

>dae white people
pretty trite desu

>japan
>southeast asia

There isnt one true way, but were i forced to give my opinion, what comes closest to truth is something along the lines of Sarcastic Post-Sarcastic Neonicklandian Anti-anabsurdist Contrarianism.

this

I can't into Pali, but I took my Gethin translation.

First of all, I'd not use physical vs psychological as categories for dukkha. From my understanding, it isn't a meaningful distinction in Buddhism. At best it's a pragmatic one.

I think what throws many people off in the cited portion is "birth is dukkha". But the following passage helps us out there:
>"This is the noble truth of the origin of suffering: the thirst for repeated existence which, associated with delight and greed, delights in this and that, namely the thirst for the objects of sense desire, the thirst for existence, and the thirst for non-existence."
I understand this portion as "What could be more of an act of clinging to life/the skandha than birth?" The cultural context being that birth is kind of a pseudo-voluntary action.
Another pointer (which I am not sure to have read in the Pali Canon, but certainly in interpretations) is that there is no true distinction between birth and death, beyond how we view it through the lens of the aggregates.
>in brief the Five Aggregates are suffering
I think that is kinda implied tho. After all, the five aggregates are the backbone of atta/atman, which are "rejected".

>I always thought dukkha was always meant to be life+clinging, and not just life though.
That is what leads to dukkha, but I think the key point is that clinging/desire/difficulty/"want of satisfaction" themselves are dukkha.
A comparison that always helped be is:
A child falls down while playing and scrapes it's knee. It either instantly stands up to play more (pain, but no true discomfort) or it sits up, looks around for the parents to confirm the appropriate response. If the parents frown, suddenly the tears start flowing. (Which would be dukkha through attachment to the pain).

Oh, and another issue I might want to point out is that "life" has a different meaning in this context. I think we tend to view the term from our cultural context of "vital(ism) vs unvital/dead", while that kind of dualism is rejected in Buddhism. You are the same as everything else. "You" just have aggregates and therefore dukkha.

This is layman af, but I hope it helps.

It is pretty universal.

Zen buddhism isn't actual buddhism.
Zen was the most popular form though as it didn't concern itself all too much with morals and ethics but having a strong mind and being able to controll emotions. Warriors often practiced Zen or even more it was mandatory with their training. Zen teachings are one of the first schools that question what we perceive right and wrong with statements such as: ''See the buddha, kill the buddha.'' Though killing is regarded as bad. Killing a buddha does come with certain benefits for the person who attained this state as he wouldn't have to reincarnate thus ending his earthy mortal life for the immortal life in the heavens.

I think it was also spread to the shoalin practicers as a way to ''intensify'' their training as such they could relax their muscles and regenrate quicker and better.

It can be a great step but I wouldn't be convinced this is the ''way'' though there are allot of masters who attained enlightenment this way but it isn't buddhahood.

One doesn't exclude the other.
There are many different schools of buddhism.
If you really delve into it though the sitution is often laid out as this: It takes eons and eons to reach a wholesome buddha state or even beyond that what some may refer to as christ consciousness.

Essentially if I may believe the great dharma drums buddhahood is the profound realisation of dharma. Which is conduct of behaviour according to one's state of being(including profession/relatives/education etc etc).
So is the dharma of a hunter not the same as the dharma of a king.

Though essentially all religions share one principle that lays the foundation which is to serve a higher purpose, higher than oneself. If you look at all the prophets/masters and so on you can see that they all share this trait.
Wether it is jesus, mary, buddha, mohammed, a mystic and so on.

It seems that with the buddhistic school of no self doesn't mean no self, but selfless. In a way. Language isn't trancendental in nature and thus makes it rather difficult. This is my interpertation.

Long post aye? Enjoy.

Dharma also includes learning (lessons) if I am correct.

A master once was asked what the difference is beetween budha and bodhisattva

Here is his answer:

Bodhisattva: Delivers beings from suffering from thought (though in a sentient way)
Buddha: Delivers beings from suffering without thought.

>Zen buddhism isn't actual buddhism.
"The difference between a Buddhist and a non-Buddhist is that a Buddhist has difficulty answering the question."
- (attributed to) Kodo Sawaki

One last note:

Only self realised masters can break the conduct of dharma as Krishna has in the epic Mahabharata if they deem fit.
You likely won't see a buddha smoke cigarettes but essentialy he/she could and not suffer from the consequences (karma).
This is more an example to illustrate karma which also corresponds the frame of reference we have about good and bad.

Krishna an epic god has killed and can do so because he is not affected by the karma. Krishna supported the idea of killing murderers because this would be benificial to their karma.

I really could go on and on about this stuff but I probably shouldn't.

I am just giving a perspective from my own interpertation.

I'll just give a though. There are quite a bit of interpertations on what buddha meant when he said that life is dukkha. One of them is a strategy of buddha to get people to be interested and active into attaining enlightenment as buddha perceived man to be very ignorant.

Another is that buddha did really feel that life sucked as everything is but a fleeting moment of joy or pain. And that only true happiness can come from within, which makes life merely a school with many obstacles to realize a higher truth. And I don't know about you but I for once didn't like school at all.

It's hard to defnitely say what a being ment when saying such things as we all have our own frame of references. It's like listening to a song and trying to find out its meaning, many people will then ofcourse fit the song into their own life experiences, events, understanding. Though to really know what the song ment you'd have to ask the author.

So it's a process that requires you to think? It sounds pretty interesting in my opinion

I really don't think the comparison of Hindu karma and the Buddhist concept of it, is accurate at all.
The Buddhist concept of karma has more to do with causality. Not so much with atman.

It is also noteworthy that there are scriptures which describe Gautama Buddha to have karma after his enlightenment. (Something to do with him hearing of wars in his home and being saddened and angry. Couldn't find while skimming, but someone surely has it somewhere. I believe it was a letter.)

Zen Buddhism is for white people who are too cool for Christianity

You might enjoy Kodo Sawaki.
Quite insightful, if you feel you are getting hung up with muh lineages and muh terminology.

>Brahma is omnipotent
>yet he cannot escape the wheel of life and death, and is still a subject to impermanence, suffering and non-self

I was thinking today that I needed something new to read, I'll take up on your suggestion! thank you!

Anything specific you recommend to start with? I assume he's an author?

It's a belief system, and you will find what you seek just like any other belief system, and ultimately, it's garbage!

That's not really an argument

There are a bunch of anthologies and translations in German. Sadly, I guess English is more barren or was mainly published by students.
I'd go with The Zen Teachings of Homeless Kodo.
I haven't read his commentary on The Song of Awakening, but I've heard good things.

Gudo Nishijima was one of his students. I suppose he'd also make many references to him.
(He has also produced one of the better translations of the Shobogenzo, in case you are interested. I'd also put that on your reading list.)

Oh, I found this by one of Nishijima's students.
antaiji.org/en/services/
A couple stuff translated here.

Nishitani Keiji is very worthwhile. Religion and Nothingness is a masterpiece

Alright thanks Ill start looking into it tomorrow!

Thanks, I'll look into it.

Nihilism? I thought they were more interested in phenomenology.

thank you anonkun, i was about to spazz about this.
it's pretty board but a lot of the koan collections are great fun. philosophy most likely to make you laugh in public

Zen Flesh, Zen Bones is a great collection of koans and also features the vigayan bhairava tantra.

Surprisingly, the catholic church has been pretty cool about spreading Zen Buddhism throughout Europe.
My Rinzai Zendo is in a Jesuit church and is run by an ex-Jesuit monk.

Haven't read that one. Quite a few of the classics are online for free. Not sure about this translation but have a pdf of The Blue Cliff record
terebess.hu/zen/Blue-Cliff.pdf
The Gateless Gate is pretty easy to find too

...

this post just seems like a perfect reflection of zen buddhism

all this talk and you've literally said nothing at all

You got it.

Nothing.

It doesn't require for you to do so.

But it's interesting that this is what you got from what I said...

You seem to be an expert on Zen Buddhism already.

Zen Buddhism (and most of the Vajrayana tradition, including especially Tibetan Buddhism) are a perversion of the original teachings and messages of the Buddha, and is therefore Buddhism for pseuds. Its mainstream status in the West is the result of normies. The true path to enlightenment comes from the Theravada tradition, which adheres to the core teachings of the Pali Canon, and not nonsensical deities which the Buddha would never have followed, and have been abused in Tibet, for example, to enslave people as serfs.

but theravada is boring and tiresome

Did... Did you just confuse Vajrayana with Mahayana while trying to sound like an authority? And what the hell are you trying to say with that deity thing, Zen is one of the most secularized and iconoclastic religious out there.
>You spit, I bow.

Asserting intellectual views without understanding the dharma through practice, is a perversion of the original teachings and messages of the Buddha.

Control your senses then come back and reassess your beliefs.

reminder that zen comes from CHAN buddhism whose pedagogical philosophy resembles something like a computer (knowledge transmitted through a flaming lantern): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chan_Buddhism#Esoteric_and_exoteric_transmission

>Did you just confuse Vajrayana with Mahayana
Vajrayana is accepted as a constituency of the Mahayana branch, but some also refer to it as its own branch. I am referring only to the Tibetan traditions of the Vajrayana, and I did not mention or intend to imply anything about the Mahayana.

>Zen is one of the most secularized and iconoclastic religious out there.
>reminder that zen comes from CHAN buddhism
Agreed. I meant to target Tibetan Buddhism with my statement.

This is the core of Zen Buddhism, but it isn't an argument against the Theravada tradition.
>Control your senses then come back and reassess your beliefs.
You can do that as a Theravada practitioner, since it is not a prerequisite to understand the texts prior to meditation. Having said that, I think that Zen does not emphasize the original teachings of the Buddha in the form of the Pali canon enough, which I think is a signficant part in aiding the goal of "controlling your senses."

But how is Zen a perversion? Why mention Vajrayana?

I am arguing that it is a perversion because it does not see the Pali Canon and other central Buddhist texts as significant, and therefore resembles Chinese tradition (i.e. Taoism) more than Buddhism.

>Why mention Vajrayana?
That is another argument against Tibetan Buddhism and its deities (see: Wrathful Deities) which draws on the similar perversion (i.e. straying from the original Buddhist texts) of Zen. And to clarify, the Vajrayana yana (and Mahayana to an extent) is relevant due to its influence on the system of deities in Tibetan Buddhism; I am just referring to the belief in deities which has destroyed Tibet by giving rise to serfdom.

>But how is Zen a perversion?
Also see

and see

I practice Zen Buddhism and the Pali Canon is pretty basic stuff. In my Zendo, it's referenced constantly.
Perhaps not as much as in other schools, as Zen has a larger body of work to draw from and is quite focused on practice as central aspect of Buddhism. But calling that perversion is a stretch.
I get what you mean with stuff like Tibetan Buddhism, which essentially just mixed Buddhism with local Shamanism.
But at large Chan/Zen Buddhism had a similar goal as Theravada, in that they tried to strip the practice and the teachings from all the BS.
Which, by the by, is absolutely in line with Gautama Buddhas teachings in the Pali Canon.
At best I would concede that Zen temples and monasteries in Japan have a tendency to be little more than institutions for cultural rituals like funerals. But one could say that about pretty much every branch of Buddhism (or religions in general) and has been criticized by many Zen scholars/monks/abbots and there are movements to fix the problem.

It just seems like a weird thing to say. If you want perversion, perhaps focus on shit like Ōmu Shinrikyō.

Well, I don't know how I would categorise Nishitani. Ultimately, he is concerned with overcoming nihilism by overcoming traditional representational metaphysics (I think?)

I disagree. Even Gautama Buddha made the distinction between the layman and the bhikkhu.
The transference of the dharma is still very much a thing in Zendos.

>But at large Chan/Zen Buddhism had a similar goal as Theravada, in that they tried to strip the practice and the teachings from all the BS.
The goal of Zen is completely opposite to Theravada, but relevant to Chinese culture. In your statement, since mostly the aspects of meditation were only taken from Buddhism, "BS" is therefore referring to lack therof, which is every other teaching of the Buddha that Theravada preserves. Hence, Zen is heavily influenced by Taoism and the other dominant ideas of Chinese culture at the time, which replaced much of the aforementioned. This change makes Zen resemble more of the already existing Chinese teachings, making it perverse from traditions (i.e. Theravada) which served to preserve the Buddha's teaching and nothing more.

>Which, by the by, is absolutely in line with Gautama Buddhas teachings in the Pali Canon.
It may be in line only in the sense that it retains parts of the meditation practice, but nothing more, and definitely not in the way the Buddha intended.

>Even Gautama Buddha made the distinction between the layman and the bhikkhu.
Agreed, but this is irrelevant to the fact that Zen does not resemble the core teachings of the Buddha outside of practice.
>The transference of the dharma is still very much a thing in Zendos.
Again, only in the aspects of practice. But, even then, for example, breathing techniques from Buddhism are very heavily influenced (and sometimes replaced) by existing Chinese techniques like Taoist meditation.

The Diamond Sutra -

It's a short read (approx. 33 pages), and it is actual Buddhist scripture. There's a really great translation online @ Diamond-Sutra.com

Just get it straight from the source. If you read that and don't get it, try reading it like Gotama and Subhuti are being sarcastic - then you won't need a scholarly analysis.

>it does not see the Pali Canon and other central Buddhist texts as significant, and therefore resembles Chinese tradition (i.e. Taoism) more than Buddhism.
I don't think this is the case. It seems to me more like Zen is concerned with the fact that Buddhist images, texts and even practices can become objects of attachment in themselves. Which to me is a problem with Therevada, which seems think the Pali canon exists and that it.

And even Taoism has sacred texts of its own. It stresses on spontaneity because Confuncianism has an even more extreme position of the above, in which ritual is above all else and one could be practicing and accumulating for all of one's life.

But I doubt either Zen or Taoism thinks you could jut ignore the texts completely.

Death cult.

>The goal of Zen is completely opposite to Theravada,
What, in your mind, is the goal of both respectively?
>since mostly the aspects of meditation were only taken from Buddhism, "BS" is therefore referring to lack therof, which is every other teaching of the Buddha that Theravada preserves.
Sounds like literally "Not Theravada = Perversion".
Layman rarely hear about stuff like Dyhana. But I'm pretty sure that more serious practitioners and certainly ordained practitioners are well versed in the scriptures concerning this.
>It may be in line only in the sense that it retains parts of the meditation practice, but nothing more,
Zen keeps the core tenets of Buddhism intact. That's all he ever suggested.
>and definitely not in the way the Buddha intended.
Starting to sound like a theist, m8.
>Agreed, but this is irrelevant to the fact that Zen does not resemble the core teachings of the Buddha outside of practice.
Could you please be more specific?
What exactly is lacking, in your opinion. Specifically. Noble truths, eightfold path, aggregates, anatta/anatman, etc. It's all there. What is missing to you?
>Again, only in the aspects of practice. But, even then, for example, breathing techniques from Buddhism are very heavily influenced (and sometimes replaced) by existing Chinese techniques like Taoist meditation.
I disagree. As stated before, the Pali Canon is still very much part of Zen Buddhism.
You make it sound as tho the only connection between Chan/Zen and Gautama Buddha is that both sit in lotus.

Also wut? Now your beef with Zen is that their pranayama is different from yours?

This is starting to sound like petty nitpicking.
I'll give you that Zen is more plain than most Theravada. But that's really all they are guilty of. They don't distort the Pali Canon, they don't add metaphysical assumptions from other religions (at worst they recognize common themes like with Tao), they knowingly avoid worship, they emphasize the continuous practice even when not sitting, they pay attention to transference of dharma, the ordained read pretty much everything you read and probably more, laymen are happily invited and given appropriate instruction,...

Could it be that Zen is simply not your taste and Theravada just resonates more with you? If you, that's cool and all. But you should probably acknowledge that, rather than running around, saying stuff like "Best Buddhism!". Because that's certainly waaay off, as far as Gautama Buddha's teachings go.

>the ordained read pretty much everything you read and probably more
Can you recommend any Zen texts? I'm interested in expanding my knowledge in the tradition.

Care to elaborate?