Chan Buddhism, Beijing, and Me

[bredmond812陈秉劲]

Hello,

I am an athiest who wants to learn Chan (zen) meditation in order to focus better, and eliminate wasteful cognative side-tracking. I also am planning to go to China soon, probably Beijing. I was interested to know if there was Buddhism was common enough in Beijing for people to learn it there. I know the state is athiest (like myself), but my understandint is that there has been some tolerance showed to "religions" (lets not get into the argument of what is and isnt a religion here) lately.

Also, would i become some kind of suspicious character to the Chinese government if i went and tried to learn Chan meditation at some kind of Buddhist place? I dont want them to think i am going overthere to support the Falun Gong, or any group like that.

Another question...does anybody have any expereince with Chan Buddhism? I want ot learn some of the philosophy and meditation practices, but i dont want to get involved in prostrations or diety devotionalsim. Is this something that can be separated? Does anybody have an Idea about how these Buddhist places, either in China or America, would respond to these particular needs of mine?

[gato]

This wiki answers.com page has a lot of info on Zen.

http://www.answers.com/topic/zen

DT Suzuki has written many books introducing Westerners to Zen Buddhism. You can probably find one of his books in your local library.

Buddhism isn't that prominent in today's China, at least not in the cities. I hear many people talking about Christianity, but few about Buddhism. There are those who go to temple to burn incense and such, but that's a type of traditional Chinese mystical worship that pre-dates Buddhism.

[bredmond812陈秉劲]

i know that there is a lot of information that i could find online about chan, but the meditative practices are a kind of physical discipline. Like a martial art, that requires the assistance of an instructor.

but thanks for the help.

[leather_strap]

From your interest herein I can tell that you are not an atheist like The Party is. If you were you'd think it horribly silly to even study such "superstitions" in the first place. ;-) I don't even consider even the most astringent Chan (Zen) Buddhism to be atheistic so much as nontheistic.