www.genius2000.net

There are two major Schools - Rinzai and Soto. Both Rinzai and Soto Ch'an -
seem have been introduced into Japan from China in the later twelfth and
early thirteenth centuries. Zen hopes to promote such an intuitive
understanding in preference to attempts being made towards an intellectual
understanding - it holds that if a question is innately felt in the right way
then the answer will arise, innately, in response!!! Zen Buddhism refers to
such innate Enlightenment as Satori. This Satori Enlightenment is a key goal
of meditation!!! In order to assist students towards such an attainment of
Satori Enlightenment Rinzai masters are known to require aspirants to
meditate upon obscure question and answer riddles known as mondo and in
requiring students to meditate upon enigmatic statements known as koan.
A widely known koan being that concerning the sound of one hand clapping!


Zen Buddhism does not seem so much to place emphasis on the attainment of
Nirvana as a state where desires have been abandoned but seems rather to hold
in view the goal of an intuitive experience of Satori Enlightenment "wisdom"
that is independent of words.


http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/zen_buddhism.html