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The word Zen is the Japanese form of the Chinese word Ch’an, which is the Chinese form of the Indian word Dhyana, meaning a particular kind of mediation. The Buddha, 2500 years ago in India, taught the importance of this kind of mediation in achieving enlightenment. A thousand later, we are told, Bodhidharma (Путидамо, Дамо или Бодхидхарма: названия одного и того же человека или это разные люди, а может прозвища?), and Indian missionary, took this message to China. There, followers of Lao Tzu assimilated it to their way of life, called Taoism. Their attitude of going along with the nature of things, harmonized with the non-self-assertive, noncraving acceptance of life, as taught originally in India by the Buddha and then in China by Bodhidharma. This school of Buddhism was called Ch’an. The great arts of the Sung dynasty in China were created primarily by Ch’an-trained people.
When monks brought Ch’an to Japan in the twelfth century, it developed even more rapidly and influenced the culture even more profoundly than it had in China. Called Zen by its converts, it shaped not only the religion of the people, but also the orientation of the creative workers in sculpture, painting, architecture, landscape, gardening, house furnishing, theatre – even bushido, the code of the warrior, and the arts of swordsmanship and archery.