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

Wild Fox Zen

Home
Buddhist
What Good is Zen for a Student?

What Good is Zen for a Student?

Last updated on: January 25, 2022 at 7:51 pm by Dosho Port

What Good is Zen for a Student? 2022-01-25T19:51:15-06:00 Dosho Port

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.

A few days ago, the prolific James Myoun Ford Rōshi (fyi, “Rōshi,”老師, or “old dog” – see photo) extraordinaire, offered up his considered opinion about “What Makes a Good Zen Student?” Because I have a few thoughts of my own (well, not really “my own” – mostly that I’ve borrowed from others – including from the likes of Tetsugan and Hakuin), I throw this to the wind.

Although, in this post, as you can tell from the title, “What Good is Zen for a Student?,” I’d like to reframe the question and include how Hakuin might have regarded the issue too, given this is the Wild Fox Zen Blog “Year of Hakuin.”

First and foremost, Zen is good for a student who has touched the tender heart of this swirling world of pain and is devoted to awakening for the benefit of others and the self. From this personal experience of intimacy and urgency, a student arouses the capacity to practice with uncommon diligence and intensity. Zen is good at supporting, encouraging, and fanning this flame of the Way Seeking Heart.

Second and equally important, Zen is good for a student who has a reflective orientation and is driven to see things differently, to turn the light of awareness toward the unwanted, unappreciated, unlikely, and unconventional. In other words, a good Zen student questions and challenges their own assumptions about this life and the answers offered by established thinking, including that of the Zen and Buddhist tradition.

Zen is good for other things too, like revealing how we’re snagged or trapped in arrogance, deprecation, and/or belief.

One of the best things about Zen is that it’s good for these things whoever you are. The many ways we vary don’t change how much good Zen can do you. A person’s gender identification, ethnicity, politics, religious beliefs, family of origin or other psychological issues, introversion, extroversion, sexual orientation, and perceived intelligence – don’t impact the basic goodness of Zen practice awakening.

Four Types of Students

In Complete Poison Blossoms in a Thicket of Thorn, “Gudo’s Lingering Radiance,” Hakuin identifies four types of students, starting with those who Zen is really good” for – “outstanding seeds and buds.” “Such students,” wrote Hakuin, “possess deep discernment and an innate ability that enables them to achieve liberation at a single blow from the iron hammer.”

This type is quite rare. I’ve heard of them but don’t think I’ve actually met any. Well, maybe Dōgen, but we haven’t met. Maybe Harada Tangen Rōshi was such a person. Katagiri Rōshi was not. I am not. James can still speak for himself. In any case, Zen in the West probably hasn’t developed the critical mass necessary to find many/any of this innately gifted type. And from Hakuin’s bio, it doesn’t even sound like he was primarily this type. So perhaps it isn’t necessary.

Next are the “initial penetrators.”

“Next there are students who move forward in their koan practice until they attain a strength that is almost mature. Thanks to a word or phrase of the Buddha-[ancestors] or perhaps some advice from a good friend, they suddenly break through into satori.”

Initial penetrators have some taste of awakening but in the hubbub of daily life, it slips away. And although initial penetrators can handle basic kōan, when meeting a hard-to-pass-through (nantō) kōan, they are dumbfounded. This type, however, are willing to dig in and do the work, only sometimes bitter and resentful about Zen and their teachers. Zen is really good for this type.

Hakuin’s third type is the “believers.” This type “understand[s] without any doubt whatsoever about principles such as the self-nature being apart from birth and death and the true body transcending past and present. But the great and essential matter of the Zen school is beyond them.”

“Believers” have studied the dharma sufficiently to have glimpsed the tracks of self-nature, but haven’t seen the ugly butt of the ox for themselves. Zen is only good for this type of student when they run into the dead end of intellectual understanding.

Finally, there are the “self-deceivers.” These students “… come to believe in a teaching they hear, accepting it as true even though it has no more substance than a shadow, and cling tightly to it until the day they die…. They have been bamboozled by words, yet continue to follow them scrupulously.”

This is the probably the most common type.

Whether Zen is good for you depends more on the teachers and community you work with, in my view, than any type – because type isn’t some static variable.

Last words

So what? Whether you think Zen is good for you or not, my advice is that you follow the advice of Nan-t’ang:

“You must see your self-nature as clearly as if you are looking at it in the palm of your hand, so that each and everything becomes perfectly and unmistakably your own wondrously profound field of Dharma truth.”

________________

Uncategorized

Previous Post

March 30, 2018

How Old Does a (Real) Zen Teacher Have To Be?

Next Post

April 14, 2018 Hakuin's Blistering Criticisms of Sōtō Zen: Who and What

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month 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 August 2021 June 2021 April 2021 February 2021 January 2021 November 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 August 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 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 December 2016 October 2016 June 2016 April 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 August 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

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

How many daughters did Job have after his restoration?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Two Three Seven Five