Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Buddhist
Who Practices Zen? And Why? And to What End?

Who Practices Zen? And Why? And to What End?

Last updated on: November 1, 2011 at 3:02 pm by James Ford

Who Practices Zen? And Why? And to What End? 2011-11-01T15:02:06-07:00 James Ford

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

There have been three blog postings recently about Zen practice that particularly caught my attention. Jiryu Rutschman-Byler wrote a compelling reflection on the transmission of the Dharma from one culture to another, Dosho Port offered a reflection on the place of ordination within Zen practice, while Brad Warner opined in passing how perhaps the time for Zen clergy had passed.

Taken together I thought this demonstrated some of the creative energy going into our contemporary Western Zen practice, and together they sparked some thoughts rising in my own heart.

Jiryu offered a particularly important caution. He opened by citing the example of how when Buddhism came to China, the Chinese substituted their own words for many technical Dharmic terms. Without a doubt this changed things, particularly what people thought they were encountering in this new religion, actually it altered what people were encountering in some real ways. Using Dao to stand for Dharma (actually and Buddha) added layers of meaning not there when the tradition made its way from India to China. In my opinion as the dust settled, these were mostly useful enrichments. But, Jiryu was mostly concerned with how, particularly at first, these sometimes cavalier adaptations offered more confusion than assistance. I hope I’m accurately conveying his point here. Be careful of assuming you know something and can change it without damage to the deeper project. Perhaps your changes will be harmful to the tradition you care so deeply for.

I feel he was cautioning us here in the West as we go headlong into our own vision of the Dharma, or more properly visions. No doubt there’s a fair amount of bathwater sloshing about that isn’t at all necessary for the transmission of the great Way to our time and place. But, we do need to be careful about losing the baby as we pour off that water to make room for our own cultural engagement.

Then Dosho offered in response to my own earlier posting on how to pursue ordination with Soto Zen here in the West his own experiences as a young practitioner. He painted a vivid picture of a committed Zen student who mentions once that he would like to ordain, and how nothing came of it for years, and then out of the blue his teacher announces the ordination. For Dosho, if I correctly characterize his point, ordination was a step along the way of practice. It has its own currents, mostly going on beneath the waves.

He specifically questioned the point of a ministerial aspect to ordination.

Sort of, in a way, following this path of reasoning, Brad offered how we might not all, in fact, be better off without ordinations.

I’ve probably mischaracterized everyone’s points. But, lets let the straw men I’ve constructed stand for issues I think people do raise, and which are important.

First, a certain humility on the Way is of vast importance.

Only don’t know has endless layers of riches for us if we open our hearts wide.

And cautions about thinking we know things should be repeated often.

And, of course, of course, in this world of change we must act.

Second, the Way is open to everyone.

The essentials are in fact not all that hard to comprehend.

The heart of practice is found in the admonition to sit down, shut up, and pay attention.

The heart of that is intimacy.

There are two points for us to find as living truths within our own being as we walk this intimate way.

The first can be described in a couple of ways. The classic way, and in general my preference is that there are no essences, we are all at core wide open, boundless. The old technical term is shunyata. One can say shunyata is our family name. We can also say without too much damage to who we are that we are all one. Or, another way, it’s all not two. Indra’s web is a useful image for this.

And there’s one more point. There is a sense in which, of course, there are two. We, you and I, as our separate identities are not a dream, not an illusion, not fake. We are as real as real can be. But, and it is, I admit, a very large but, but we are temporary. Our reality is contingent. We are each of us a moment in a great wave of relationships, of constantly shifting causes and conditions.

The “I” of it all is passing.

In my experience precious, lovely. And, here today, and gone tomorrow.

The rest is upaya. (Actually even the preceding words are upaya, pointers…)

And I hope we’re cautious and understand these things said and done are not merely expedients, they are our lives.

As people of Zen the first thing to consider, I would say, is practice.

Our practices, all the stuff and bother of the transmission is to help us to come to find these descibed realities as genuinely our realities.

And, out of that to create our lives as graceful things, the birds of heaven.

In support of that there are just a million different things going on.

There are the currents of practice themselves, of formal disciplines like shikantaza and koan introspection.

And there are the currents of the discipline. Finding guides. Finding companions.

Historically this has been the province of Vinaya ordination, the province of ordained practice.

The ordained have also served, always, the larger community in various ways, mostly what we in the West would consider ministerial.

In Japan the focus of the ordained changed considerably, offering in addition to formal practice an increasingly clear ministerial function.

And here in the West two things follow.

First, practice is for everyone.

If you practice Zen you are a Zen practitioner.

Everything else is extra. Might be very useful, but it isn’t necessary to deepening the practice.

And, second, ordination continues to have value, if not so much to deepen practice (Not to belabor the point, thinking it a deepening of practice is to my mind a mistaken view), but as an adjunct to practice, opening a clearer way of ministry, of service to our sisters and brothers on the way.

The making of teachers is often bound up within the clerical life. And I have no problem with that so long as it is understood that it has nothing intrinsically connected to ordination.

And we do need the teachers. The community is important and provides much teaching. And it is actual human teachers who have practiced for years and years and who have received sanction first by their own teachers and then by the communities among whom they settle, that provide the necessary pointing along the way.

I’ve written a lot about how we need to let go of some of the high flown rhetoric around teachers. But, I hope I’ve conveyed how strongly I feel teachers are nonetheless critical to the Zen way.

There are good reasons, I feel, that the preparation of teachers in general is caught up with the preparation of ministers, of priests, of the ordained ways that we’ve inherited. And it need not be that way.

Okay.

My response to those responses to our current situation.

May all beings be well…

Uncategorized

Previous Post

June 3, 2011

'Tis the Season

Next Post

June 4, 2011 Matt Dillon Hangs Up His Guns...

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category A Christmas Carol Abolitionist African-American Ahmadiyya Alan Watts Aldous Huxley Allen Ginsberg Amedkar Jayanti American politics American Zen Anaheim Zen Sangha Anglican Annie Besant April Fool Armageddon Art and Religion artificial intellegence Atheist Awakening B R Ambedkar Barlaam & Josaphat Beatnik Between Bhagavad Gita Bible biography birthday bodhisattva Bodhisattva Precepts Book burning Book of Common Prayer Book of Mormon Brahmo Samaj Buddha Buddhism Buddhist Buddhist Lord's Prayer Butterflies Calendars cartoons cat ChatGPT Chicken Tortilla Soup choices Christian atheism Christian mysticism Christian origins Christian Science Christian Zen Christianity Christianity and Buddhism christmas Christmas Truce Christopher Isherwood Church of Later Day Saints Cinco de Mayo circus covenant critical thinking culture D. T. Suzuki Dalit Buddhism Daniel Defoe Desert Fathers and Mothers dharma talk Dogen Donald Trump Dongshan's Five Ranks Dorothy Day dream Duty Easter ecology Edwin Arnold emptiness Empty Moon Zen Network Episcopal Church Eternal Now Ethics evolution existentialism Faith fantasy Fathers Day film film review fire Five Ranks Folk music food Form and emptiness Four Seals Francis of Assisi Francis Xavier Free thinker friendship George MacDonald Gerald Heard Glenn Taylor Webb God Good Friday Gospel of Gospel of Mark Gospel of Thomas grace Graduate Theological Unioin Graduate Theological Union Guanyin H R Blyth Hakuin Ekaku Hanamatsuri Hanukkah Harada Yasutani Zen Heart Sutra Henry David Thoreau Hermann Hesse Hinduism History and Religion history of religion Holy Spirit home Hospitality Icon Ides of March Isaac Newton Islam Islamic mysticism Jack Kerouac James Luther Adams Jiddu Krishnamurti Joan of Arc Johannes Gutenberg John Donne joke Judaism justice karma kensho King James Bible koan Koun Yamada Kyoto School Lewis Carrol Liberal Christianity Liberal Religion Life Plan Community Liminal literature Literature and Religion Liturgy Lord's Prayer Love Mahatma Gandhi Mahayana Martin Luther King Jr Mary Baker Eddy Mary Magdelene Mary Oliver Mayflower Compact Meditation memories memory metaphor money money and religioin Mormons Mother's Day movie review mysticism mythic Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church New Thought Nichiren Buddhism Nonduality not knowing Omar Khayyam Pacific School of Religion pagan Palm Sunday Passover peace Pentecost perennialism Phantastes Philip Kapleau philosophy Pilgrimage poetry Poetry and Religion politics Prayer Precepts Printing Press prophecy prophetic spirituality psychology Pure Land Queer religion queering religion Quietism Ram Mohan Roy rebirth recipe Relationships and religion religion religion and history Religious syncretism Resistance Retirement Retreat review Rissho Kosei Kai Ritual Robert Aitken Roshi Robert Ingersoll Rohatsu Romani religion Rosie the Riveter saints samadhi SanboZen Sangha Satyagraha science science and reigion science and religion science fiction seminary sermon Sesshin Sex and Religion Shinran Sikh Sikh tradition silence Social Justice Socially Engaged Buddhism Society and religion Soto Zen soul spiritual community spiritual practice Spirituality Sufism Suicide superstition Taoism Television Teresa of Avila Thanksgiving theological schools Theosophy Thomas Merton Time Transcendentalism Transcendentalist Trinitarian Trinity Uncategorized unitarian Unitarian Christianity Unitarian Universalist Universalism Vajrayana Vedanta Walking war Willa Cather William Ellery Channing wisdom women and religion women in religion World Teacher Writing zazen Zen Zen Center Zen inspired retriement zen meditation Zen Precepts Zen women

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which Christian season is marked by purple, penance, and preparation before Easter?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Advent Epiphany Feast of All Saints Lent