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I’ve found it's important to call yourself something.

In the first years of my Zen practice I was still a Christian, simultaneously integrated into a Christian and a Zen Buddhist community. Both were visibly annoyed at my insistence that I was both. (There’s no reason you can’t be, and I’m far from the first person to do it; prominent founders of Western Zen were Christian clerics.)

I should add that it wasn’t just immediately-interested parties (i.e., Christians and Buddhists) who took exception to my labels, or lack thereof. Pretty much everyone did. You’d be surprised how fundamentalist the non-religious are about the religions of others.

So at length I chose a side to identify with. It’s interesting to note that in so-doing, I did in fact largely drop the other side. I still get tremendous value from my 40 years of Christian teaching — I never repudiated anything but the magic stuff, which I’d already deleted from my Christian practice long before — but I now walk a squarely Zen Buddhist path. So that’s a comment on the power of labels.

It’s also noteworthy that as a hermit monk, I still catch the same sort of blowback, but about my practice model this time. Some don’t like it; if you’re a monk, you better have a monastery address and a dictator bossing you around.

So if I’ve learned anything, it’s the importance of inviting others to mind their own karma.


(Photo courtesy of Unsplash.com and a generous photographer.)