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Zen Villages: Perhaps an Idea Whose Time is Coming

Zen Villages: Perhaps an Idea Whose Time is Coming

Last updated on: August 21, 2017 at 12:12 pm by James Ford

Zen Villages: Perhaps an Idea Whose Time is Coming 2017-08-21T12:12:36-07:00 James Ford

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Over on Facebook one of my friends posted about an event that opened a wound between her and the residential Zen center with which she has been affiliated for much of her adult life. It has caused a bit of a stir. Some saying it shared too much, others that it pointed to a deep shadow at that Zen center, and others, well, it has become something of a rorschach allowing all of us with concerns for and about Zen in the West to rehearse those concerns.

And, me, too…

I have been involved in the Zen world for all of my adult life. I just turned sixty-nine. We are talking about fifty years.

Some twenty years ago as I began to formally teach Zen, I found collaborators who pushed and dragged me, and together we’ve created something we call Boundless Way Zen. And now returned in my dotage to my native California we are trying to put something together here in Long Beach and Orange County that holds the dynamic spirit that Boundless Way fosters while working with new collaborators on bringing the West coast version more closely into alignment with our emerging Western Soto Zen. All along I’ve maintain close connections to the Unitarian Universalist world, for a quarter of a century as a parish minister, now mostly these days preaching here and there.

Background. But, important. It is from this place I read those words from my friend about her sadness and with that the uncertainties of life those of us who gave the principal focus of our lives to the Zen project, and now as we age have inadequate resources to support ourselves. Me, well, Jan and I, we’re among the lucky subset of that crowd who found a way to have a professional life, and to save enough to only have the normal North American financial anxieties.

Now the Zen world here in the West has been caught up in a whirlwind of shifts and changes. In addition to a foundation of immigrant based communities there have been emergent convert communities, seeking to integrate the wisdom received into contemporary Western cultures. When I first began if one hoped to study Zen without going to East Asia one had to go to a handful of missionaries, mostly from Japan, or an equally small number of Westerners who had studied in East Asia, again, mostly Japan.

Since then among the convert communities there has been a proliferation of Zen teachers and emergent schools here in North America. Japanese derived Rinzai remains a small subset. Chinese Zen has had a small footprint among converts, but does exist. Korean Zen has had one major representative and an organization that spreads across the continent. The Harada Yasutani koan school, sometimes as stand alone lay oriented communities, and sometimes within Japanese Soto has become the principal way to engage koan introspection. And it has been Japanese derived Soto has been the dominant form of convert style Zen. I think for several reasons. But those reflections fall outside my concerns for this reflection.

Before going there, I want to acknowledge there are disturbing aspects to our emerging Western Zen. For a surprising number of people, and it seems increasing, the mythic qualities of “dharma transmission” have become a major seducer, with people seeking and obtaining titles without either significant training, nor, even more sadly, insight. Add in those who just make up titles and, well, there is a jumble of thorns for people to navigate if they’re hoping to practice Zen.

Again, background.

Among those that I would consider authentic, and they remain the vastly larger part of the project, a proliferation of styles have emerged. With three models driving the majority of communities. Residential training centers have matured and deepened, and have created communities that surround them. Others have smaller centers where people come and sit and as they can join in for intensive retreats, but have moved away from the old standard training periods of ninety or a hundred days in residence. And, still others sometimes within the other two and sometimes not, have settled the heart of their practice in koan introspection. These are the three forms of practice that I consider the heart of Zen in the West.

Well, them, and a small but fascinating number of people who have gone to Japan for some significant part of their training and have returned and are confused by these styles of practice here and in some cases not really sure they’re authentic. I find them something of a wild card as we go forward. Interesting, even exciting, but also, to my view courting the same real problems down the line that drive this small reflection.

Background.

Me, as I just said, the part I’m concerned with in this small reflection are those among us who have given ourselves to the Zen project, have devoted a considerable part of our lives to it, often in ways that have compromised our ability to save for old age. This has been most true for those who’ve embraced the residential training patterns, but it absolutely includes those in the smaller center or temple based practice communities, as well.

I think what we did was important. We have laid the foundations for something important. The great way of Zen Buddhist awakening is, to my heart and mind, the amazing gift of the universe to our time and place. And, I am fascinated at how these models will continue to grow deep and pass on to the next generations. (For some years I thought this was going to be a thing for Boomers and end. But now I see while there does appear to be a great shrinkage – I call it the great die off – but, something real and substantial is continuing…

And the cost has been high. I think of my friend and her estrangement from that residential training center. I think of the last stage in the life of Boomer Zen practitioners, and the smaller number of critical of Gen X practitioners, and what the Millennial generation of practitioners are inheriting.

And I wonder what we might do.

There are a couple of co-housing projects emerging, one in Oregon, the other in California. But, they can only address a handful of people.

And, here’s the thought I want to share here. My sense there may be something we can do:

Me, today, I find myself thinking about a fascinating movement that started here in the United States on Beacon Hill in Boston. A bunch of elders were facing increasing difficulties staying in their homes but were unwilling to enter assisted living. Out of that came a meta assisted living model called Elder Villages.

I think about this and I think about our limited resource Zen practitioners. And, I wonder if the time might not be right for centers of pretty much any size to encourage, to devote resources, even if only of time and energy, to the creation of Zen villages. (By some other name, that specific set of two words in that order seems to be owned by a business) These can take shape a number of ways. They could include people who are able to own their own homes, houses or condos, and others who rent – those perhaps pooling resources to rent larger houses with several bed rooms, but all linked by covenants of mutual support.

They could and I think need to be centered with a practice community. Although there would have to be some sort of geographic boundaries to any given village. And I believe these need to be receptive to people beyond the specific lineages out of which they start. And that’s critical, they need to have a larger sense of autonomy for the aging participants. More democratic than Zen usually allows. But accountable. Those covenants are critical.

This could be something that might appeal beyond among our aging cohort. It could easily include younger members and people with children. The flexibility of the actual living situation makes it possible to include the full range of our lives.

Bread on the waters.

May this idea spark some conversations, and who knows? Who knows where it might go?

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