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A North American Zen Priest Confesses a Faith

A North American Zen Priest Confesses a Faith

Last updated on: September 24, 2018 at 1:14 pm by James Ford

A North American Zen Priest Confesses a Faith 2018-09-24T13:14:35-07:00 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.

This past weekend we were deep in sesshin, an intensive Zen meditation retreat. As we practice with koans as part of our project we have frequent opportunities for spiritual direction, a practice called dokusan.

So, I was meeting with the sesshin participants when someone came into the interview who is a long-time Zen practitioner. She had never sat with our community or with me. And she said she came with a couple of questions. The first was how I was able to be both a Christian and a Buddhist.

I was confused by the question. For maybe ten or twenty seconds. And, then had enough common sense to inquire, “Do you mean because I’m also a Unitarian Universalist minister? And she said yes.

Now these interviews are meant to be brief. In traditional Japanese koan Zen, both in the Rinzai schools and in those Soto communities that use Daiun Sogaku Harada‘s reformed koan curriculum, these meetings are usually counted in minutes. Two. Three. Rarely much longer. One presents their practice, usually a koan, a pointed question is asked, a response is given, the response is accepted or more likely not, a bell is rung, and the interview is over. For a variety of reasons in the West the interview is usually longer. But, if the interview runs to ten minutes it would be considered extremely long. The meeting is meant to be focused.

And this was important. In the moment I said there is no creedal requirement within Unitarian Universalism, a tradition that has its roots and much of its style in Protestant Christianity, but today might best be described as a liberal religion with Christians. However, I am a Zen Buddhist. The conversation then moved in other directions.

We rent the space for our retreat. Our hosts are a Buddhist monastery about a forty-minute drive from Ojai in the Ventura mountains. They are a community within the Order of Buddhist Contemplatives, which was founded by the late Zen teacher Houn Jiyu Kennett. Some years before the Order was founded I’d studied with Kennett Roshi (as I knew her) and had been ordained and received dharma transmission from her. After I left I would spend more than twenty years studying with the lay koan Zen master Roshi John Tarrant. In fact I would only begin teaching after I received his authorization.

I left Kennett Roshi long before the Order was formed and am not intimate with their style or emphasis, beyond being aware they have a unique liturgy adapted from Anglican chant. I’d never heard it before inviting them to do their vespers service at our last retreat. I found it both unsettling and hauntingly beautiful. We have now held two of our retreats at the monastery and I feel I am only just beginning to get a feel for who they are. I very much admire their sincerity and authentic monastic discipline.

Within that context, and related to my briefest of confessions that I am a Zen Buddhist, we had invited one of the monastic residents, the Reverend Seikai Lubeke to give the Saturday evening dharma talk. In that talk he offered that he was first and foremost a Buddhist. And, that the Zen thing was important, but only as an expression of Buddhism. He confessed he was a Buddhist.

Out of this several questions arose within my heart. What is my confession? What is my faith? One of the questions that underly that is, well, what about Christianity? To use a felicitous phrase coined by one of my teachers Joanna Macy, I consider Christianity my natal lineage. I literally learned to read at my grandmother’s knee with a large illustrated King James Bible on her lap. My seminary experience further introduced me to Christian history and at least at the survey level Scriptural analysis. My metaphorical reference is deeply informed by Christian tradition and scripture. I am and probably can never not be at the very least a cultural Christian. It definitely informs who I am.

However, my spirituality, the teachings of the heart that I find most resonance with, which inform my life and practice are clearly situated, first in China and the mess of the Sino Buddhist encounter. Specifically my living religion forms in the Ming period of systematizing the glorious chaos of Tang Zen (or more properly Chan) Buddhism. For me the Heart and Diamond Sutras as well as the Platform Sutra together with the great koan anthologies, especially those compiled in the thirteenth century are my texts, my scriptures if you will. Further refined and explicated, and I guess, therefore only second to those foundational documents, by the subtle teachings of the Japanese master Eihei Dogen, the ecstatic vision of Hakuin Ekaku, as well as the Soto master Daiun Sogaku Harada’s reform of the Hakuin Takujo koan curriculum.

Okay, and, all of it washed through a Western enlightenment rationalism that is so deeply engrained in my being as to axiomatic to my world view.

And, all of that, I hope, I pray, held within the mysteries of not knowing.

But, as I thought about it, and now, as I write it down, I notice my faith is “Zen Buddhism.” Not Buddhism of a Zen flavor. Definitely not Buddhism that is incidentally Zen. Thinking about what that means, I note several people I’ve found terribly important in my spiritual life are Christian Zen teachers. These are confessed Christians, usually clerics, mostly Catholic although including Anglicans and an odd Protestant or two. They have mostly trained in disciplines derived from the Sanbo Zen tradition, the principal line offering Harada Roshi’s reformed koan curriculum. And, many of them have not only completed that rigorous training, they have been tied to the Zen line through dharma transmission.

They teach that Zen is a discipline and a way of seeing that can be disentangled from its Buddhist origins. What that means is a mystery yet to be unveiled. But, for me, it speaks to what might be a deeper place than any particular religion. It is caught up with a mystical tradition that looks to rise within all religions but is not bound by any of them.

Although in my experience this universal mystical expression needs to be rooted in a specific tradition. Without that, if you will, exoteric, the esoteric drifts into the mists. So, while I think there can be and we are seeing it manifest a Christian Zen as well as a Zen Buddhism, I do not think there can simply be Zen.

And with all those modifiers, I confess my faith.

I am a Zen Buddhist. I practice within the Soto school enhanced by the modern Soto reformed koan curriculum. I am profoundly influenced by the Christian tradition, its scriptures, and more its nondual practitioners. There are other odds and ends that have creeped into my life, especially the teachings of the Sufis. And I tie it all together through a profoundly rationalist and this-worldly disposition.

My faith. At least at this moment. You can ask me again, next week. I wouldn’t presume to say what that me would think. Not knowing brings that quality to all enterprises.

But for now. For here. My faith…

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