Testament, James 2:18, "Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works." And, James 2:26, "For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also."
Christianity envelopes a "big tent" of believers which are divided between those adherents who view their reference source, the Holy Bible, as the inspired word God and those that don't believe the Bible is literally true. Subsequently, you will find all kinds of interpretations of the Bible from its devotees.
Unlike Buddhism, Christianity does affirm an afterlife which entails a heaven and hell. The concept of a soul is highly touted in Christianity.
Zen, on the contrary, doesn't get hung up in all kinds of authorities, scriptures and theoretical doctrine. There is no discussion of an afterlife in Zen. Zen Buddhism does not worship a god. It is often referred to as the "belief of no faith". It is concerned with the meaning of life. It's really a philosophy. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, we find that Zen emphasizes the attainment of wisdom and self-enlightenment through meditation known as zazen.
Zen is a school of Mahayana Buddhism referred to in Chinese as Chan. It goes by Zen in most of the English speaking world.
An Indian monk named Bodhidharma is credited with spreading Zen from China and throughout the South East Asia. He focused on direct insight about one's own experience, under the instruction of a Zen teacher.
Meditation is the vehicle for self-enlightenment.
The goal of Zen is to obtain the Buddah Nature which includes inherent wisdom and virture. This in turn will afford the devotee a wise perspective on life.
Zen places little emphasis on doctrine and intellectual discussion. Rather, wisdom and insight that the Buddah achieved, Zen devotees believe, came from the meditation exercises he went through, not the readings or words he studied. This is why Zen followers are encouraged to meditate or use "zazen".The goal of zazen is "satori", the zen term for enlightenment.
As wikipedia.org points out, Zen Buddhists practice koan inquiry inorder to demonstrate their progressive wisdom during their meditative states. Koans appear to be nonsensical verbal discourse relating to famous Zen Masters. There are no correct answers to these verbal puzzles. An expert zen teacher supposedly can determine if a student is "getting it".
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