A Lament For Graveyards

I augur this the right moment to mention my regret at the passing of graveyards, which ironic development has left my society impoverished to a few woeful degrees.

Many of these are practical. For starters, a cemetery contains a wealth of historical data not easily acquired else. Just the demographics are a treasure. Where did past inhabitants come from? What religions did they practice? What organisations did they belong to, and what was their mission? What light does this shed on the present community? What have we lost? What gained?

In a cemetery you're surrounded by the final statements of multiple generations, reflecting successive changes in values and perspectives. Whenever I move house, one of my first outings is the nearest graveyard. An hour or so and I've got an earthier, more visceral understanding of where I am, more tactile, if not easily quantified, than the one I'll get from the local history books I'll study next.

Burial grounds encode a lot of culture, and if you're paying attention, the whole site, properly examined, amounts to a book in itself.

Then there's the simple peace of the place – the leafy green, the tranquil refuge from the fretting living. I've often botanised and foraged in cemeteries, as being mostly uncrushed by the pounding fist of development, and am especially fond of them as a mushrooming venue.

And of course, there's the sacredness of remains, an instinctive, non-religious kind of consecration we've never fully replicated. (Some cultures – First Nations, Catholic-majority societies, traditionally Buddhist peoples, Celtic homelands – find similar awe in sites that don't contain reliquaries, but industrial values have undermined even their ability to transmit such reverence to recent generations.)

Institutional Zen, in its Confucian attachment to human authority, practices a heretical adulation of the dead – disturbingly, even of pieces there-of – and while I'm reflexively uneasy with this, I do wholeheartedly embrace the sangha of the past as an indispensible source of companionship and insight. Their presence is felt strongly in cemeteries.

Still – speaking of irony – no-one on either side of my family has been interred for 70 years, making us yet another cause of death to the dead. The usual suspects are afield: the extreme expense of burial, for the most part, but also a callow, pseudo-logical insistence that we've no need of graves to honour and remember our loved ones.

Which is, of course, tripe. I would in fact greatly cherish a grave where I could visit my parents and grandparents, and the dear regretted friends now leaving this world at ever-greater rate despite my pleading insistence they reconsider.

No, the nondescript region where we will scatter my mother's ashes will not replace her grave: that specific plot of ground where what's left of her articulated body would drift toward new and different existences under a solid square of stone that I can see and touch.

Not even almost.

And as I myself will also receive no such treatment, I must eventually commit the same sin of cenotaphery, and drive yet another nail into the coffin of, well, coffins.

Not that I'd impose a traditional burial on my survivors, of course. I get it; things have changed. And although I accept that as a Zenner, I do much regret my headstone. Because I've got the most awesome epitaph ever:

"Nothing is carved in stone."

How happy I'd lie below such a koan.

Good hunting to all of us on this, the annual Druid crusade to keep the dead dead.

(Photo of Tomnahurich, my favourite graveyard to date, courtesy of Derek Brown and Wikimedia Commons.)

Good Video: In the Footsteps of Wonhyo

Three weeks ago I wrote about the tendency in Western Zen to downplay the ongoing role of Korea in the development and direction of our religion. In that indictment I cited particularly the seminal importance, and extra-goryeonic obscurity, of Zen Ancestor Wonhyo – a Korean national hero who is only now receiving sustained Western attention.

And now I discover this video. Documenting a Wonhyo-themed pilgrimage through rural Korea by Tony MacGregor - Canadian writer for Seoul's English-language Korea Times - it's saturated with the kind of breathtaking imagery we often see in connexion with Japanese topics, but rarely Korean ones. Just the celebration of that nation's own spiritually-imbued landscape is worth the click, and makes for a very meditative visit.

The commentary is a little unfocused, and can get a bit precious in that way we Westerners have when we talk about Buddhism. But in some ways, that very wandering – mirroring Macgregor's literal ramble – is another reward, offering a wider vista on the subject. Particularly welcome is a brief account of tae guk kwon, that muscular Korean take on tai chi chuan that figured so highly in a memorable scene from Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring.

Toward the film's end, another meander takes us to an impromptu teisho by Sudoksa Bangjang Seol Jong Sunim, which is simultaneously predictably conservative (his topic is finding a teacher) and, from a Confucian perspective, revolutionary. Since the same could be said of Wonhyo, MacGregor seems to be underscoring his hero's continuing influence on Sôn, or Korean Zen.

In any event, I greatly enjoyed this documentary and suspect others will as well. As a lesson on an important Ancestor; an exposition of Korea's too-long ignored Zen heritage; and a tranquil tour of its compelling countryside, it's time well-spent.

The Cul-de-Sac of Science

This week a Zen droogie slipped me The Philosophy Force Five vs the Scientismists, a terrific graphic essay by Existential Comics. In this gripping tale of superhero¹ derring-do, five ferocious female filosophers confront three uniformly male [c.f. “unsupported hypotheses”] cavaliers of positivist complacency.

They’re annoying, those guys. Furthermore, their boorish self-congratulation gains no evidentiary weight by their peremptory tone. (Incidentally, one of them does not bear a striking resemblance to Neil DeGrasse Tyson. So stop saying he does.)

All of which fired my interest, because Scientism is the third wheel, alongside Taoism and Buddhism, of an up-and-coming Western school of Zen that is highly influential here. It’s called “Secular Buddhism” and/or “Atheist Zen”. In it, Scientism replaces the traditional Confucianism, an equally ad hoc, if older and Asian, retrofit I’ve already lambasted elsewhere.

I’ll leave a full workup for another time, but for now I’d like to suggest that evidence-based religion makes as much sense as revealed science. Which we tried for centuries, and some – such as creationists – are still trying to make happen.

To borrow an argument The Philosophy Force Five literally kick down their adversaries' throats: “Science can only tell us how to effectively [sic] pursue a goal, but no experiment has ever told us what we should value.”

What they do not point out is that the latter is also much harder to discover, and requires a great deal more intellect, to say nothing of perseverance, self-control, and courage. Science is in fact not the most difficult brainwork we do, and our compulsion for herding our best and brightest into it may yet prove maladaptive. (Which is Scientismist for "suicidal".)

By my reckoning, intellect, perseverance, self-control, and courage are also the foundation blocks of Zen. Aren't they prerequisite to our much-ballyhooed "don't know mind"? This is one reason I’m suspicious of the anti-religious zealotry of many Western Zenners. Atheist Zen seems about as doable to me as Atheist Christianity.

Please note that I wish my Secular Buddhist brothers and sisters health and success, have no intention of obstructing their teachings or practice, and learn a great deal from the insight they share. My argument is purely theoretical. And theory has no objective existence. See? I told you I was listening.

But as I grow older I’m learning that the market value of the scientific method is greatly diminished by the moral and intellectual laziness of many who claim it – particularly the sarcasm they’ve made a tribal language. In clinical terms, science seems to have died the same death as religion: strangled by the undisciplined ego of its adherents.

I believe we’re now suffering the consequences of this global catastrophe – the simultaneous extinction of insight and inquiry. In the end, it may well lead to our own.

But while you're waiting, be sure to read The Philosophy Force Five vs the Scientismists. It's either brilliantly hilarious, or hilariously brilliant.

Discuss.

¹"Superhero" is a registered trademark of Marvel Comics and DC Comics. God I wish I were joking.

(Graphic from the linked web comic by Existential Comics.)

Facing the Wall

My brother Fletcher – formerly an ordained Zen monk, now an ongoing seeker after insight on another path – recently described to me his initiation as a novice at Tassajara. (That would be the largest Soto monastery in the States – possibly largest in the whole West – and a dependent house of San Francisco Zen Center.)

His story was typical: the ranking monks shut him in a room with other boots and made them meditate for five days straight. Is that OK? Maybe. Maybe not. Feel free to undertake the koan.

But the part of Fletcher's tale that most seized me was his coping strategy: he began chanting "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" in his head, and continued doing so throughout the ordeal. In fact, he says, "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" remained a go-to mantra through the course of his considerable monastic career.

I like this on several levels. First, as juvenile as its lyrics may sound, "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" is basically what the Ancestors instructed us to do when we sit. My technique is theirs: I count my breaths from 1 to 10, then start again, until I'm done. All Fletcher changed was the number of reps.

His approach is also refreshingly free of twee chinoiserie. You know what else is free of twee chinoiserie? Zen. Or it was, until it acquired "Ancestors". Once upon a time we were famous – scorned, actually – for our coarse working-class pragmatism, and also our impatience with Confucian obsequium. "Get it done," Bodhidharma said (more or less).

And Fletcher did. By his account, the old summer camp ditty (was this ever a real drinking song? don't drinking songs end every so often so the singers can drink?) got the job done: it kept his discursive mind occupied so it couldn't stuff every silence with worry, regret, and drama, and it afforded the rest of his consciousness an opening to engage the Great Matter.

Sounds like enlightenment practice to me.


(Photograph of Tassajara Zen Mountain Center courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous photographer.)

Shut Up and Drink Your Potential

I was born on the crest of a tsunami of late-century self-help that's had a geological effect on our ability to think clearly.

The good news is that the worst is past. That was the period from the 70s to the Millennium, when such messianic gimmicks as Positive Mental Attitude (authentic 70s tip: the capital letters signal dippy fad ahead) laid waste to Western civilisation. But thirty years stoned on trademarked morality have taken their toll, and we're still dealing with the fallout from our protracted no-substance abuse.

I'm often given to reflect on this in Zen company. Western Zen draws heavily on what the 80s called "bobos" (bourgeois bohemians), a fetish of whom is rejection of consumerism, jingoism, xenophobia, homogeneity, and other questionable Western values.

All of which is fine by me. However, they may also indulge in baby-trashing, as when they spurn logic, empiricism, individualism, and circumspection. As a Wikipedia editor writes on the Positive Mental Attitude talk page:

More pernicious is the prescribed PMA [Positive Mental Attitude] in business and public governance, with consequences from a philosophy of over-confidence bordering on self-delusion along with lack of due diligence and just plain common sense.

Given that Zen circles are wont to tolerate such traps, and that they're negatively correlated with sanity (and therefore Zen), I rate it good sangha to lay down a few definitions. So-armed, the sincere meditator can navigate his or her way out of the maze.

Essentially, three terms are in play:

Strength is a synonym for resilience. Meeting a setback, strong people redouble effort; find a way around it; transform it into something useful; or decide, after sober reflection, to abandon that goal in favour of another.

Optimism is a character trait typified by strength. Faced with failure, an optimist says, "We can fix this, or do without it, or succeed at something else instead. One way or another, we'll press on." To correct a trite aphorism, an optimist sees the glass as half potential.

(By contrast, the pessimist sees the glass as all useless. "We can't fix this, and if we could it would only break again, so let's just wait for death.")

Denial is a negative character trait often confused with optimism. Denialists reject truth that annoys or frightens them, or simply doesn't serve their interests. A hallmark of denial is misdirection, i.e., defining things according to one's wishes rather than empirical data.

Presented inconvenient facts, deniers resort to censorship, intimidation, name-calling, and appeals to dogma to enforce or restore silence. These actions may be marketed as "strength", but they are logically its opposite.

Most of the PMA Moonies I worked with in the school system back in the 80s and 90s were more properly chronic denialists, unwilling or unable to address the daunting work at hand. Tellingly, they also couldn't sort a pessimist ("Don't attempt to solve this; we'll only make things worse") from an optimist ("Let's flush our problems into the sunlight and slay the crap out of them!").

In Zen we endeavour to look deeply. Any prejudice that obstructs our vision we engage to clear away. So let's first recognise that attitude isn't an objective phenomenon. The elephant tramples positive and negative monk alike, and any insistence that a cheery outlook can change that is magical thinking. (Which is a therapy term for delusion.)

What attitude does influence is our choices. An optimist might devise a response to the charging elephant ("I know! I'll use my feet to get out of its way! Because I'm awesome like that!"), whereas a pessimist might declare the trampling inevitable, thereby guaranteeing it. But in both cases, reality is influenced by a course of action (practice), not an attitude (perception).

In Zen practice, the two perspectives manifest like this:

P: "Do not criticise the teacher, the sangha, or the Zen community. It causes people to lose faith in the practice."

O: "The Buddha and the Ancestors have provided the tools we need to correct the errors of the teacher, the sangha, and the Zen community."

P: "I'll never practice properly because there is no teacher or Zen centre nearby, and the experts all say you have to have those." (Or: "… because my teacher or Zen centre isn't doing it right." Or: "… because institutional Zen doesn't do it for me, and everybody says you can't practice alone.")

O: "I can order my practice to conform to circumstances, among which are my situation and my nature. Or I can take a page from the Ancestors and continue as-is, seeking enlightenment in things as they are."

P: "Zen is grown lazy, sensual, namby-pamby, narcissistic, Confucian, political, hippy, poser, intellectual, bourgeois, institutional, Western, something. You can't truly do it in this time and/or place. The only genuine Zen is in the past and/or Asia."

O: "Zen is the best shot I've got. Ima do it."


That last one has saved my butt more times than I can count.


(Photo of cat realising her potential courtesy of Steve Jurvetson and Wikimedia Commons.)

Christmas Koan

Pictured: not the Buddha.

Ask a random Westerner to describe the Buddha, and you're likely to hear something about a "big fat laughing guy." I once heard a radio preacher sneer down my entire religion as "people who think you kin git ta heaven bah prayin' to a big, fat Byoo-dah."

(By the way, if he happens to read this, may I suggest you refrain from commenting on others' beliefs until you know, at minimum, whether they pray, and if so, to whom.)


We Zenners find this nonsense especially grating since we barely even acknowledge the figure they're referring to.

For the record, the dude in the above photo is Hotei (Budai, Pu-Tai, 布袋, Bố Đại...). Not the Buddha. Not a buddha. Not even a significant legendary figure, like Fudo or Kanzeon. Just a rankless Chán monk of the Liang Dynasty.

Not that my brother Hotei didn't have his noteworthy points. First off, unlike most Buddhist monks, he was fat. (Note that the actual Buddha once starved himself nearly to death, and then adjusted his practice to embrace, shall we say, non-stupid asceticism. That's why he's usually depicted as sensibly slim, and occasionally as terrifyingly emaciated, in admiration of his earlier, if misguided, conviction.)

Hotei's girth was all the more miraculous because he was a begging hermit. (High five to the Homeless Brothers!) How you maintain such a waistline on handouts is one of the mysteries of his practice.

Especially since he gave away everything he got. Hotei carried this dimly-sourced loot in a bag over his shoulder, which, upon deposition, turned out to be mostly filled with sugary treats that he handed out to children like… (Sorry. Even I can't go there.)

You see this coming, right?

Not yet?

OK, dig this: the central practice of Hotei's monastic rule was laughter. He was always cutting loose with a big, jolly laugh that announced joy and peace to the world, as he humped a bottomless bag through town on his fat back, doling out presents to every child...

Anybody?

Oh, come on! Now you're just trying to piss me off.

The reason you see more statues of Hotei than Gautama in Asia is the same reason you see more Santas than Jesuses at Christmastime: he's more fun, less threatening, and doesn't remind people of suffering.

And it's that last bit I like to meditate on.

Hotei is unpopular among modern Zenners because he's embarrassingly emotional, dangerously untamed – wandering around teacherless, eschewing all acts of devotion save his self-authored laughter practice – and worst of all, he does that annoying Bodhidharma thing of preaching no-key enlightenment.

Don't waste time bowing and chanting and folding things just so and being obedient to this and that, says Hotei. Especially, don't confuse misery with discipline.

Bodhidharma said "just sit." Hotei says "just laugh."

And that's what offends us. Because if Bodhidharma crapped on social ambition and Confucianism and gracious deference to hierarchies, at least he wasn't ho-ho-ho-ing it up in the town square, rubbing our pious faces in it.

"You're in pain?" says the fat old hobo. "I hate it when that happens. But don't sweat it, because sooner or later, one way or another, your problems are doomed. Hey, they can't survive without you, can they?"

And then he laughs. Because that's freakin' hysterical.

Therefore, in honour of Christmas, and to bow in ironic deference to my unpretentious brother, I offer fellow seekers the Koan of Hotei. To my certain knowledge, it's the only nod to the Buddhist Santa Claus in our entire canon. It's also my favourite koan. (A distinction it shares with all of them.)

So:

A monk asked Hotei, "What is the meaning of Chán?"

Hotei put down his bag.

"How does one realise Chán?" the monk asked.

Hotei threw his bag on his back and walked on.

Happy holidays, brothers and sisters. See you on the road.

Jolly old Gautama.

(Photos courtesy of Helanhuaren [Hotei figurine], Akuppa John Wigham [emaciated Siddhartha statue], and Wikimedia Commons.)

Are Teachers Necessary?

This is a long post. It needs to be. If you're a Buddhist, or just a fan of the Buddha, please read patiently; the topic is of importance to the worldwide Sangha.

Regular readers know that "no need for teachers" is one of my refrains. That's a given; I'm a hermit. Some of my ilk want all ordination – all teachers – abolished. In the words of one brother: "Burn down the monasteries. Flush 'em into the sunlight. Make 'em walk The Path."

But I have nothing against teachers, as such, or cœnobite practice. Too many of my friends have pledged their lives to it, taken rakusu, and credit it with their salvation. A central tenet of my own Rule is that apostasy doesn't nullify practice; hypocrisy does. The Buddha said that our paths are all our own. Earned over ten thousand lifetimes; bespoke to each of us; necessary to our enlightenment. Criticising the gait of others is a waste of Sangha, at best; at worst it's a kind of murder.

That said, I regularly run into monastery rats who are entirely comfortable telling me, with blunt satisfaction, that my hermit path is a conceit; that I'm not a "real" monk; that the word "Zen" necessarily means submission to a (living, human) master.

Then they smile indulgently, slap up a gassho, and bow deeply, murmuring something about "the Buddha".

Yeah, about that…

To take a page from my Christian brothers and sisters, "What would Gautama do?" Well, we can't know. We can know what he did, but even that we'll have to know in the koanic sense, because the answer is mu. Fact is, teachers were so important to the Buddha's enlightenment regimen that he never mentioned them, according to my unscientific, non-exhaustive survey of the sutras. (Note: I'm aware that some sutras aren't the authentic words of the Buddha. I'm also aware that the Buddha gave hundreds of sermons that haven't survived to our time. But if we insist on pitching legalities at each other, the sutras are all we've got. And you started it.)

So. Truth.

Almost all sutric occurrences of "master" or "teacher" refer to Gautama himself. (And Ananda, in at least one case.) In parables, "master" usually refers to an employer or householder. In any case, there are very few references to "Buddhist masters", and essentially none to what monks might "owe" them.

But the Buddha himself did have masters – two that he was willing to own – in his seeking days. One was Uddaka Ramaputta, a Brahmanic meditation teacher; the other was Alara Kalama, a hermit monk (oh, snap!). And in his first-ever teaching, he dismissed both as unnecessary.

Moving forward, in the Pratimoksha – regulations for Buddhist monks – he says:

All of you Bhikkhus [monks]! After my Nirvana, you should revere and honor the Pratimoksha. […]You should know that it is your great teacher, and is not different from my actual presence in the world.

Human teachers are not mentioned, even though he's literally laying down the law.

In a even more poignant moment, the sutras have this to say:

1. Now the Blessed One spoke to the Venerable Ananda, saying: "It may be, Ananda, that to some among you the thought will come: 'Ended is the word of the Master; we have a Master no longer.’ But it should not, Ananda, be so considered. For that which I have proclaimed and made known as the Dhamma and the Discipline, that shall be your Master when I am gone. [Emphasis mine.]

Oddly, the sutra then claims that he said:

2. "And, Ananda, whereas now the Bhikkhus address one another as 'friend,' let it not be so when I am gone. The senior Bhikkhus, Ananda, may address the junior ones by their name […] but the junior Bhikkhus should address the senior ones as 'venerable sir' or 'your reverence.’

Let me get this straight: this bizarre command ("after I die, stop following my lifelong example") was important enough for the Buddha to deliver on his death bed, in his final words to his sangha? Yeah. Bullshit. Just as the Gospels were trafficked to serve worldly interests, this document has been hacked. And not even skilfully; check out the very next line:

3. "If it is desired, Ananda, the Sangha may, when I am gone, abolish the lesser and minor rules.

So let's sum up these three paragraphs: "We have too many rules. My teachings are all you need. Oh, and some dictators, too." I'll say it again: Bullshit.

In fact, just in case somebody wants to set himself up as a dictator, the Buddha goes on in the fourth paragraph to make a very pointed last request, entirely consistent with his lived teaching:

4. "Ananda, when I am gone, let the higher penalty be imposed upon the Bhikkhu Channa."

"But what, Lord, is the higher penalty?"

"The Bhikkhu Channa, Ananda, may say what he will, but the Bhikkhus should neither converse with him, nor exhort him, nor admonish him."

Ouch! Why all the hate on this dude Channa? Well, Channa (Chandaka in Sanskrit) was charioteer to the young Gautama. It was he who took the adolescent outside the family compound, against his father's orders, to witness human suffering and ultimately abdicate his aristocratic position in favour of monastic practice.

According to tradition, Chandaka later became a disciple of the Buddha, whereupon, because of his personal relationship with him, he began to lord it over the other monks. As the Buddha's health failed, Chandaka let it be known that he intended to assume authority over the sangha after the Master's death. The Mahaparinibbana Sutta records the Buddha's reply: "As if." (Note also that the worst punishment the Buddha can conceive is simply not responding. Far cry from the shunning and vituperation some contemporary teachers call down on their critics.)

Another version of the same scene omits specific commentary on the Chandaka matter and cuts straight to the chase:

The Buddha further explained: "If there is anyone who thinks [after my death], 'It is I who will lead the brotherhood', or 'The Order is dependent on me, it is I who should give instructions', the Buddha does not think that He should lead the order or that the Order is dependent on Him."

Alright. But seriously, could there really be no sutra passages (besides the suspect Paragraph 2, above) that recognise the master-disciple relationship?

Well, here it says that those who tread the path of Enlightenment should support Dharma masters materially (the modern Buddhist notion of dana), "making sure they lack nothing". So such masters apparently exist. Yet they aren't owed obedience; that's a Confucian notion, foreign to the Buddha in every sense. It's also worth pointing out that of 36 instances of the word "master" in this translation, the other 35 refer to the Buddha himself.

In yet another sutra, the Buddha praises a Master Sunetto – who died long before his lifetime – in the Sermon of the Seven Suns. But again, he draws no parallels with his own programme.

In the Suda Sutta he compares the monk to a cook, who

…takes note of his master, thinking, "Today my master likes this curry, or he reaches out for that curry, or he takes a lot of this curry or he praises that curry. Today my master likes mainly sour curry... Today my master likes mainly bitter curry... mainly peppery curry... mainly sweet curry... alkaline curry... non-alkaline curry... salty curry... Today my master likes non-salty curry, or he reaches out for non-salty curry, or he takes a lot of non-salty curry, or he praises non-salty curry." As a result, he is rewarded with clothing, wages, and gifts. Why is that? Because the wise, experienced, skilful cook picks up on the theme of his own master.

This sounds thunderously similar to exhortations in Zen literature on the deference and service a monk owes his teacher. Ah, but there's more:

In the same way, there are cases where a wise, experienced, skilful monk remains focused on the body in and of itself... feelings in and of themselves... the mind in and of itself... mental qualities in and of themselves -- ardent, alert, and mindful -- putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. As he remains thus focussed on mental qualities in and of themselves, his mind becomes concentrated, his defilements are abandoned. He takes note of that fact. As a result, he is rewarded with a pleasant abiding here and now, together with mindfulness and alertness. Why is that? Because the wise, experienced, skilful monk picks up on the theme of his own mind.

So the master here is not a person at all. It's a metaphor for the relationship we should have with our own nature. That is, it's the same theme of personal autonomy that runs through the Buddha's entire teaching.

It's true that I didn't search every sutra in existence, and I'm certain a competent zendo lawyer could find one somewhere to build a case on. But after several hours of research, I found not a single Buddhic statement directing seekers to submit to teachers, masters, or abbots. According to my man Gautama, there are exactly three treasures:

1. Buddha – sole, one-time-only human teacher
2. Dharma – the universal Truth and master, accessible to all through meditation
3. Sangha – the community of seekers

Still holding out for categorical?

Yourself depending on the Dhamma, honouring it, revering it, cherishing it, doing homage to it and venerating it, having the Dhamma as your badge and banner, acknowledging the Dhamma as your master, you should establish guard, ward and protection according to Dhamma. (My emphasis.)

I've now dumped a whole truckful of electrons on this subject. Few readers will have made it this far; the Internet rule is "short and punchy". But this issue needs old-fashioned, grown-up attention. And the conclusion is cogent and irrefutable:

1. Teachers are not Buddhic.
2. Buddhists are not required to have teachers.
3. Those who do have teachers, are not required to marry them.

None of which means that teachers are "bad", in my opinion. I read copiously from the written thoughts of contemporary teachers, and listen to their podcasted teishos. Their wisdom and direction are a pillar of my practice. Further, the innovated master-student relationship that currently passes for mainstream Buddhism is rich and productive for many people. It's not in the sutras. But a thing doesn't have to be in the sutras to be valid; scripture never gets around to mentioning most of life. Finally, I find much in the monastery – itself almost entirely exsutric – that's powerful and effective. More that is, than isn't.

But external direction and ordination aren't necessary. Period.

(Photo of the Buddha in vitarka ["giving instruction"] mudra -- "talk to the hand!" -- courtesy of Aaron Logan and Wikimedia Commons.)

Good Book: Zen at War (Second Edition)

Once upon a time a mighty nation considered itself the holiest, most righteous in history. The ruling class especially leaned heavily on religious rhetoric, invoking the name of a great prophet to defend its every worldly whim.

Then the nation began committing colossal atrocities against other peoples, and viciously repressing its own. And how did all of those pious believers react?

(Spoiler alert: not well.)

In Zen at War, Brian Daizen Victoria scrapes the stickers off many a smug Zen bumper. Taking Japanese Buddhism by the root he shakes it hard, and a lot of bitter fruit falls out. In the political history of our religion, once considered a seditious foreign cult in Japan, he finds pivotal concessions early teachers made to buy safety and comfort. Spooling forward, we watch these dubious innovations draw in all denominations, until the distinction between the Buddha Dharma and Japan's organic (and congenitally nationalistic) Shinto becomes academic at best.

Arriving at the fascist period and world war, we find virtually no Japanese Buddhists, Zen or otherwise, living the Buddha's teaching. Exceptions are either obscure or excommunicated. Meanwhile, Buddhist teachers kink like contortionists to make patriotism, emperor worship, and wholesale killing intrinsic to the Dharma.

Parallels with America scream in the reader's face. Reading Zen at War, I realised that the American mishmash of messianic nationalism and Christianity is nothing less than State Shinto. Where nation and culture are declared 'scripture made flesh', authentic religion is impossible. And just as a society that muddles God and Mammon castrates Christianity, so one that equates selflessness with service mutilates Buddhism.

The first edition of Zen at War concluded with an illuminating review of the ways that Zen is used to gain obedience in postwar corporate Japan, but the most powerful chapter is only available in the second. In "Was It Buddhism?", the author brings Buddhism forward from India, where it had already become a policy tool for the powerful, through China, where it acquired the relativism of Taoism and the paternal piety of Confucianism. (Deviations any honest Zenner must admit are now fundamental to Zen, pagan origin notwithstanding.) These he compares to the Buddha's actual teachings. For example, investigating sangha, a concept much cited in defence of priestly authority, Daizen notes:

The [Buddhic] Sangha was based on noncoercive, nonauthoritarian principles by which leadership was acquired through superior moral character and spiritual insight, and monastic affairs were managed by a general meeting of the monks (or nuns) […] All decisions required the unanimous consent of those assembled. When differences could not be settled, a committee of elders was charged with finding satisfactory solutions.

Daizen is a Sōtō priest trained at Eiheiji. He holds a master's degree in Buddhist Studies from Komazawa (Buddhist) University in Tokyo, and a doctorate in same from Temple. His andragogical résumé is extensive and tedious. In short, this is not the man to mess with.

But the work does suffer from a lack of editing (or maybe intrusive editing), and a tendency to beat certain points to death. Prominent Western Zenners, including Gary Snyder and Brad Warner, have challenged Daizen's indictment of some iconic figures, charging lazy scholarship and wilful misreading. I'm not qualified to have a side, but in the end, the fact remains that no ordained Zen teacher in Japan actively opposed the war until it was lost.

Aside from that, the book's greatest flaw is its title. Zen at War is actually about all Japanese Buddhist denominations; it takes Daizen half the book just to get around to Zen. All of it is relevant and readable, but I found the Zen monk in me saying, "C'mon, Brian, get to the Zen already!"

But such objections pale before the historical significance of this groundbreaking work. The Japanese edition has already inspired unheard-of public acts of contrition in several influential Zen lineages; this, in a culture even less inclined to apology than Western ones. Zen at War has changed the way Japanese Zenners see themselves. Whether it will change their behaviour as well, only time will tell.

Meanwhile, Western Zenners remain arrogant as ever. Perhaps if more of us read Victoria, we too will be inspired to confront some of the dubious assumptions we've imported whole-cloth from Asia, and so attain greater understanding of the Dharma.