Historic Process

In this century, the west saw a fast expansion of Buddhism, until then confined to the East (Dumoulin, 1992: viii). With Buddhism, we see a radically different way of thinking and seeing the world because it is based on the absence of God and the idea that everybody is his own Buddha (literally "the enlightened being"). Through the practice of meditation, discipline or devotion (depending on the Buddhist school), everybody can get enlightened and become a Buddha . Moreover, for Buddhism, men and nature are part of the same whole. Nature was not created to serve men as dictates Christianity. These elements - the possibility of individual enlightenment, of liberating mind and union with nature - had a big appeal and opened the doors for Buddhism to disseminate itself in the west through the most varied schools from the whole Asia.

In Buddhism the way to realization does not involve something similar to the Christic identification. The Son of God's support does not exist. Enlightenment is not seen as a union with a Supreme Being, but as an accomplishment of a supreme state. The knowledge of this nirvanic state, that is, our true intrinsic nature, is obscured by virtue of our ignorance, in all its forms. The search for our true nature demands permanent and penetrating attention from us in all our acts, words and mental actions. Therefore, the occult and gnostic character of Buddhism has its pillars in wisdom and universal compassion for all sentient beings, because, by understanding the roots of our delusions, one can understand all sentient beings. Facing this symbolic construction, the rigid character of the Christian moral ethics becomes, for part of the followers, impossible of being complied upon. Catholic Church starts to represent a retrograde posture. It ceases answering the expectations and representations generated by society. Although it has undergone a restructuring process by the change of the Catholic Action, which culminated in Vatican II (1965), in order to assist the urban demands, this did not mean a real answer to the world turned laic. The disillusions generated by World War II, the cold war, widespread disbelief, as Hannah Arendt puts it so well, widespread evil, made the world not only laic but a disbelieving one. The result would be an individual search for meanings in the world and in oneself.

The influences of the east were brought through Buddhism by the Counterculture movement that started in 1950's and its development - the New Age. The beatnik movement opened the doors for Zen Buddhism in the United States. The beats saw in Zen's plea for unattachment to worldly things the answer to their rebellion against values of the bourgeois society of the post World War II. Jack Kerouac, one of the movement's main spokesperson, predicted a "rucksack revolution", where young Americans would leave production and consumption society and would meditate in the mountains. In his book the Dharma (1) Bums of 1957, Kerouc wrote: "What we need is a floating zendo (2), where an old boddhisatva can mush (Tricycle, 1995: 73)." The possibility of freeing the mind as taught by Zen Buddhism was confused with freedom from social convention (Tworkov, 1989: 7). Zen boom flourished among artists and intellectuals in late 1950's. Alan Watts and D.T. Suzuki were the ones who popularized Zen through their books written on it for a western audience.

Indeed, from the 50's on, people in the west were in search of other forms of spirituality out of western canons, as the Catholic or Protestant religions. People started seeking holistic movements, characterized by symbols attached to nature, to the idea of healing (3) the planet and the individual. Hence, a way of life which integrates man and nature. The idea that a new lifestyle, which included meditation and a connection with the sacred would bring health and happiness, paved the way for the popularization of several Buddhist sects, among them Zen.

(1) Word originated of dharman, which appears in the Vedas and has the sense of decree, law, practice, obligation, morality and religion. Buddhism uses dharma meaning Buddha's law or teaching (Tricycle magazine, 1997: 63).

(2) Zen Hall, that is, Zen meditation room.

(3) "Disease is lack of harmony, it is opposed to healing, which is the way to the psychophysical (physical body), psychological (emotions and feelings) and psychospiritual (subtle energy) liberation. The path to healing has as a goal health, that is, enlightenment. The way to transform disease into health is the spiritual practices, purification and accumulation of merit and wisdom (through virtuous actions). The Buddhist body is a healthy and enlightened body (Lama Shakya in a workshop in São Paulo, 1996)".

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