North American Buddhism must return to the basics if it is to have real staying power as a religious option. All over the Americas there are Buddhist groups in trouble. Teachers are misbehaving terribly and sanghas (community of Buddhists) are squabbling and fractious. It's not just Zen which is in crisis, but Zen monastic communities seem to be especially vulnerable to the corrupting power of self-centred craving for fame and gain. The almost libertarian tolerance which Zen harbours for individual quirkiness also means that communities easily become heedless to suffering in their midst.
Each Buddhist teacher should strive to be someone worthy of emulation. Each Zen student should live life in a way that is worthy of emulation. But just imitating Japanese cultural accretions is not enough. Emulation implies a deep intimacy with the object of that emulation, be it a doctrine or an idea or a person. The idea of emulation versus imitation is expressed well by Gandhi's saying, “become the change you want to see”.
Meditation practice is prior to and essential to any kind of Zen spiritual practice. Being more than mere words and theories, spiritual practice requires access to that which is essential. There are thousands of words to express an array of religious tenets but they derive from one of two essential notions; permanence or transience. Buddhism comes down on the side of transience, but many, probably most, North American Buddhists are basically in the other camp.
Meditation is the only venue expansive enough to hold both permanence and transience at the same time. In Zen meditation we are asked to suspend all our beliefs for a few minutes. For those whose spiritual life has deeply penetrated their thoughts, this is very difficult. If we find we cannot actually suspend our beliefs, we are asked then to let them go, to not cling to them whenever they arise. The meditator sits or walks in a composed and slightly skewed configuration of body and cognitive functions, while remaining alert and present. The products of this composure are stillness and balance.
Meditation works because the composure we bring to the body we also bring to the mind.
Mind is that torrent of opinions, feelings, judgements, emotions and so on that arise continually within our experience. But the incessant workings of our mind require us to collaborate or they naturally run down. It turns out that whenever one is able to locate one's self in the present moment, the script, the personal drama that writes everything into it, ceases. When that mind ceases we bring into being the mind of Buddha.
Ordinary mind includes plenty of good things such as generosity and wisdom but can also, and simultaneously, include jealousy, harsh judgement, meanness and selfishness. By letting the internal narrative flow unimpeded into emptiness, we find ourselves in a very fundamental state of awareness. Ideally, the meditating being does not know whether eternity is permanent or whether eternity is temporary. It could be either way. Experientially, Being itself seems to track the movement of the breath, the only thing moving in the stillness of calm, seated meditation. Instead of such basic tenets as permanence and transience taking on the status of absolute Truths, they take on the aspects of bookends. They form what one might call 'extremes', with human life emerging somewhere within.
The avoidance of extremes is the very definition of the Middle Way. Zen is about living the Middle Way and the only real teacher of the way is yourself. In Zen we say that the worst kind of spiritual error, worse even than getting it wrong, is to be fooled, tricked by cause and effect. Imitating a tradition we cannot emulate is at the heart of what has often gone wrong in dedicated Buddhist communities.
Wayne is a lineage holder in the Soto Zen Buddhist lineage of Shunryu Suzuki-roshi. He teaches Zen meditation through several venues in Victoria including no-charge public sessions at the Vic West Community Centre every Sunday morning from 9-11 and every Wednesday evening from 8-9:30.
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