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Zen Buddhism & Orthodoxy: That’s Just Like, Your Opinion, Man

Zen Buddhism & Orthodoxy: That’s Just Like, Your Opinion, Man

Last updated on: August 5, 2015 at 4:23 pm by James Ford

Zen Buddhism & Orthodoxy: That’s Just Like, Your Opinion, Man 2015-08-05T16:23:25-07:00 James Ford

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According to the good folk at Wikipedia it was on this day in 435 that Emperor Theodosius II banished the recently deposed archbishop and patriarch of Constantinople, Nestorius, who had already retired to his former monastery in Antioch, to exile in the upper reaches of Upper Egypt.

Nestorianism, the name given to the views associated with him about the nature of Christ became the orthodoxy of the farthest eastern branch of early Medieval Christianity. Nestorian churches were founded in India and even China. It came to call itself the Church of the East, suffered several schisms over the centuries, and with its patriarch now in exile in Chicago, Illinois.

I find the Nestorians endlessly interesting, and not only for their part in the creation of the only Christian church I think I could comfortably belong to, now sadly gone with the shifting sands of time. But, after setting me to think for a moment or two about how religions get going, and how before long an orthodoxy appears, and what comes with that orthodoxy, another mind bubble appeared.

This a bit less concerned with religion and orthodoxy, right thinking, although connected, but more with what is right, what, spiritually is true. So, related at least tangentially to the history of Nestorianism I found myself moving on to a different example, one a bit closer to home for me…

Recently on Facebook, Brad Warner, a Zen priest I like quite a bit who is himself fond of provocative statements, sometimes they even appear to be statements he believes, opined “There is no consensus philosophy in Zen Buddhism and there never needs to be.” Immediately I found myself thinking of a couple. Starting with zazen, the formal meditation style that gives the tradition its name. But also a couple of Buddhist doctrinal statements including the Buddha’s great observations about anicca, change, anatta, no abiding self, and that pervasive angst, anguish, anxiety, the stress of existence the Buddha named dukkha. And, beyond that, the source of our escaping the rounds of hurt, finding the absolute identity of the phenomenal universe and everything in it with the great boundless, the empty, sunyata, the realization of which is heart wisdom, prajna.

So, while in the great scheme of things not a terribly long list, still a list where those who agree are inside my understanding of what it means to be a Zen Buddhist, and those who do not are not, whatever they may choose to call themselves. Certainly from one angle, at least, an orthodoxy.

So, for a more or less post-modern liberal, let’s all get along kind of guy like me, how do I square my general disdain for orthodoxies, with my deep belief some things are true?

And “believe” is the operant word. A couple of years ago I had some generally fun exchanges with a Mennonite theologian. We pushed each other on what we actually held to be axiomatic truths, and as he pushed me on mine, I had ultimately to fall back on two things 1) I believe it because it is within my experience, and 2) my experience is confirmed by elders I respect, both through the literature of my tradition, and by in the flesh spiritual directors within the tradition. The bottom line of that, while confirmed within community, what I hold true comes out of my personal experience, or, can be boiled down to my personal experience.

(There is a number 3) added in an hour or so after I first posted this, as I was thinking about it. Nothing in these views I find myself holding contradict what is generally known about the universe within the mainstream of the scientific community. An important point for me…)

So, what about someone who has a different personal experience? What about someone who practices Zen but affirms God at the center of it all, like many of my Christian Zen friends who fall broadly under the rubric, panentheist. A pantheist asserts everything taken together is the divine, a position easily held by a Zen Buddhist, while a panthentheist holds that everything is divine and there is something extra, what they see as the God of creation. For me no problem they hold that view, although I see no good reason under heaven to have that extra bit beyond how it allows them to claim their Christianity along with their Zen. On the other hand I don’t tend to think of them as Zen Buddhists, and they don’t tend to call themselves that, instead they’re Zen Christians, or, for some Zen Buddhists and Zen Christians, a linking that probably calls for hyphens, and still okay with me. But out there on the internets there is someone who claims to be teaching Zen who also asserts there is an essence, a soul at the heart of it all, and the whole purpose for Zen is for us to realize that immortal reality. And I consider that person a false Zen Buddhist teacher.

Now, there are those who don’t consider me authentically Zen Buddhist. A brief perusal of the reviews at Amazon of my latest book can confirm this, along with details of exactly how I fall short.

Now let me throw another bit into the mix. Words count. While it is obvious to anyone that words are mutable things, their meanings changing over time, nonetheless at any particular moment in time they stand for particular things. Their misuse becomes obvious, when intentional it can be delightful and open new doors, but when unintentional, or misinformed, it can be painful to read. And Zen Buddhism has some specific meanings, I would suggest those definitions I put in earlier as pretty good minimal examples.

In my opinion.

But, the bigger deal for us, I think, is how we approach things. This has two different facets, at least.

First: Do we really believe it is all up for grabs. Are we to be like Humpty Dumpty, “When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.” Or, while noticing everything is indeed in flux, and meaning shifts, still finding enough constancy or rhythm, or pattern, to allow things at least their provisional reality?

And then there is that other thing: I find this is the secret. As it says in the Christian scriptures, “examine all things, and hold fast to that which is good.” But, even that holding needs to subject to the next examination. And this requires a kind of letting go.

So, in a moment there is something called Zen Buddhism. Those words in fact had somewhat different meanings at different times and places, and no doubt will again have different meanings, more or less. And with this there are things we can know now, with which to guide our experience, as pointers, and perhaps in time, as confirmation.

But, the secret with these truths is to hold it all lightly. At least as lightly as we can… Truth as a moveable feast. A feast found as we let go.

Then, in that open handed, in that open hearted moment I suspect something different opens for us than being right. As I see it Buddhism is an accident of history. Like Christianity. Like human beings. What we’ve all been gifted with is a way to see, and a way to sing songs about that seeing.

When the dust settles, what we’re being invited into is something lovely, something that heals the broken heart. And I know it really doesn’t matter so much whether we find it by dedicating large amounts of time to sitting still and just shutting up, or, to hearing a gospel song and finding the heart responding.

There, here, the words, as precious and useful and passing as they are burn away in the presence.

Something like that found gathering down by the riverside with a genuinely open heart.

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