Zen and Japanese Culture

Abstract

Many scholars, both in Japan and in the West, point out the interwoven relation between Zen and Japanese culture. In the West, Japanese culture is often considered the direct opposite of Western culture. The purpose of this chapter is to present some, but certainly not all, features of Japanese cultural context that seem to promote or support the way of living that reflects the heart of Zen. To do so, I will focus mainly on notable features of Japanese sociolinguistic context (e.g., verbal community) that maintain cultural wisdoms linked to Zen. This chapter will focus less on Japanese arts, poems, tea ceremony, and skilled practices (e.g., martial arts), as these cultural practices and their links to Zen are discussed extensively elsewhere. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)