Zen as taught by Bodhidharma and passed on down through China & Japan was an adaptation to Chinese culture of what, essentially, appears to be a Zen Buddhist approach to enlightenment. One could even say that Zen is the philosophy of the Tao and the "Tao Te Ching is the worlds oldest zen poem" (Alan Watts).
The word Zen itself is the Japanese word for Dhayana meditation from the Indian Yogic culture (derived from the Chinese word for it, i.e."Chan"). Where yogic culture sees meditation (za-zen or blank minded sitting meditation) as one technique to master to the zenist reaching and maintaining this meditative, spontaneous mind and living directly from the mind, is the goal itself. This site explores zen buddhism.
