What It Takes

Long ago, in the first years of my Zen practice, I encountered a teaching that's remained in my mind through the intervening years. Unfortunately, despite my obsession for note-taking and record-keeping, an hour of combing through my files hasn't produced line or author.

So I'll have to report both from memory as best I can.

I recall that the source was a modern Chinese Chàn teacher, born in the 19th century. This makes him almost certainly Xuyun; the more since in the course of my digging I discovered in an early practice folder a text file of his teachings. Sadly, this wasn't one of them.

Whoever it was, the Chàn master in question had this to say:

"You ask why there are so many schools of Chàn. [This was possibly translated as 'Zen'.] It is because people have different natures. They require different practices. That is why there are so many schools of Chàn. It takes that many."

At the time, having just taken the Zen path following a lifetime of convicted Christianity, I was impressed by the wisdom and generosity of this pronouncement.

As my practice grew deeper and broader, I would come to see the very soul of Zen in it.

Such freedom from jealousy and turf-warring is rare; nowhere more so than in religion.

In the course of my subsequent Zen vocation, I've been a bit disappointed, if not surprised, to find that this is not in fact our party line. The truth is, though Zenners score higher on the many-paths test than Christians (low bar that they are), our reflex too is to malign teachers in other schools; even other teachers in our own.

The error in this goes beyond fundamental insecurity and egotism. At the end of the day, like all we purchase with that two-sided coin, it deprives us of wealth.

Because other schools, lineages, denominations, even faiths (that's right, I said it) encode centuries of enlightenment instruction. Buddhism isn't like other religions; our founder said enlightenment comes of action (meditation), not faith. The clear implication is that the world is full of people very unlike us who must nevertheless be enlightened.

And that means an honest seeker won't simply tolerate superficial differences in doctrine and dogma, he or she will welcome them as a blessing, delving into them to profit from the insight they embody.

In the end, I'd suggest we go Xuyun one better:

Given that our species is still stumbling around in the dark, 2500 years beyond the Buddha, screaming war and weeping bitter tears, it's obvious we don't have enough schools yet.