How Zen defines itself...

Bodhidharma's definition:

A special transmission outside the scriptures;
No dependence on words and letters;
Direct pointing to the mind of man;
Seeing into one's nature and attaining Buddhahood.

Zen is sometimes called "the face-to-face transmission of the dharma outside the sutras." Throughout the history of Zen, teachers have transmitted their realization of dharma to students by working with them face-to-face. This makes the lineage of teachers critical. A genuine Zen teacher can trace his or her lineage of teachers back to Bodhidharma, and before that to the historical Buddha, and to those Buddhas before the historical Buddha.

Certainly, large parts of the lineage charts have to be taken on faith. But if anything is treated as sacred in Zen, it's the teachers' lineages. With very few exceptions, calling oneself a "Zen teacher" without having received transmission from another teacher is considered a serious defilement of Zen.

While we're talking about teachers, I should mention Zen masters. In my experience, the phrase "Zen master" is hardly ever heard inside Zen. Popular notions of "Zen master," however smarmy, roughly correspond to what a Zen teacher is. The title "Zen master" in Japanese, "zenji," is only given posthumously. In Zen, living Zen teachers are called "Zen teachers." An especially venerable and beloved teacher is called "roshi," which means "old man." I'm not sure how that works when the teacher is a woman, however. In any event, if you ever run into someone who advertises himself as a "Zen master," be skeptical.

Bodhidharma's definition also says that Zen is not an intellectual discipline you can learn from books. Instead, it's a practice of studying mind and seeing into one's nature. The main tool of this practice is zazen.

By Barbara O'Brien