The Word "Chan"

The word chan (Wade-Giles romanization: ch'an). from which Chan Buddhism, or Zen Buddhism, takes its name, is a Chinese transliteration of the Indian Buddhist tern dhyana, meaning "meditative concentration" or "meditative practice." Applied specifically to the Chan or Zen school, it carries the particular sense of the cultivation and experience of enlightenment itself, and not just any sort of meditative experience. Thus Chan Buddhism is often characterized as the school of meditative experience and enlightened insight par excellence, for it claims to embody and transmit the living wisdom that Siddhartha Gautama achieved when he became the Buddha, or "enlightened one."

---Master Sheng Yen---