a Japanese sect of Mahayana Buddhism that aims at enlightenment by direct intuition through meditation
Zen is the Japanese word for ‘meditation’ and is a name for a school of East Asian Buddhism (known as Chan in China) that traces itself back to ‘a special transmission outside the teachings’, brought to China from India by the possibly mythical 6th-cent. figure Bodhidharma. Known for its antinomian style in the West, Zen monks have traditionally undergone some of the strictest training in East Asian Buddhism — Professor Donald Lopez
[Japanese zen religious meditation, via Chinese (Pekingese) chan and Pali jhāna from Sanskrit dhyāna, from dhyāyati he thinks]