Zen in a Post-Modern,
Post-Industrial, Multicultural
Society
The popularity of Buddhism of all forms, and
particularly of Zen, in America is a direct result of the rise of our
post-modern, post-industrial, increasingly multicultural society.
Buddhism first came to America with the Chinese
immigrants. However, the Chinese people tended not to assimilate into American
culture, and Chinese Buddhism remained relatively isolated, largely unavailable
to non-Chinese people. At the end of the Nineteenth Century, the
Transcendentalists became interested in Zen, but it was limited to a very small
group of intellectuals. In the 1950Õs Zen became popular among the Beat
Generation. (Unfortunately the version of Zen they popularized Ð Beat Zen Ð was
a distortion of real Zen practice. They publicized it as Òanything goes,Ó which
has had serious consequences for those who followed them.) In the late 1950Õs
and 60Õs the first real Zen teachers began coming from Japan to the United States.
With their arrival, Zen became more widely available, especially on the West
and East Coasts, but it still had a limited following.
Zen teaching authority is transmitted from teacher
to student in a process called Dharma succession. The first generation of
Dharma successors (or heirs) began coming into being in the 1980Õs. A second
generation is now well established, and there is a small, but growing, third
generation in existence. Thus, Zen in America is only two or three steps
removed from post-war Japan. With the first and second generations of teachers,
Zen has gradually been spreading throughout the Americas. There have been
groups in Canada for a number of years, and there are also now groups in
Central and South America.
In Missional Church Guder comments, ÒEvery church must know its own
unique ethnicity as well as the ethnicity of people around it.Ó (Guder, p9)
With Zen, the Americas are the mission field, if you will, although Buddhism is
not a missionary religion. That is, the Americans are accommodating and
adapting Japanese culture and tradition. We do some chanting in Japanese, we
use Japanese words for our centers. E.g. ÒZenÓ is simply Japanese for
concentration or focus. The liturgical objects are called by their Japanese
names. The form of sitting and of doing service is Japanese. The way we eat
meals at retreats is a Japanese ceremony.
The first generation of Zen teachers worked hard to
translate the Japanese texts into English. The second generation has begun to
gradually expand the translation. Texts are now available in Spanish and
Portuguese. With each generation of teachers, and with each expansion of
practice, Zen is becoming less and less Japanese, although much Japanese
influence and culture still remain.
Thus, Zen in America is at least a bi-cultural
experience.
The people who are attracted to Zen practice have
some definite attributes of the post-modern era. The people who come but do not
stay tend to be looking for some new experience, often some new high. They
often say they are looking for spiritual experience, but it is a rather vague
notion. Others say they are looking for relaxation or calm in their lives.
Although some of the people who come with these characteristics do stay, but
many are discouraged by the hard work that is Zen practice.
Those who stay with the practice generally have a
very strong spirituality which is not satisfied by the other religions they
have explored. Many have had some spiritual experience which they have been
unable to integrate into their lives or which they do not understand. All of
them have a deep desire to know for themselves, to penetrate the mystery of
life and death. There is indeed a hunger for meaning in most who come.
Another group of people who stay with the practice
are those who are desperate. Their lives are in shambles, and they are looking
to meditation as a way to heal themselves. Over the years, a number of our
members have been alcoholics who find that Zen works well with the Twelve Step
Program. Also, in the maximum security prison in New York, we had a small but
very strong and committed group of inmates who also saw Zen as an opportunity
to turn their lives around.
Some of the people who do come to Zen have another
religious affiliation Ð most often Roman Catholic or Jewish Ð in which they are
active. But this is relatively rare. Most are disaffected from the religion of
their upbringing.
Virtually everyone who has come to our non-prison
Zen group has been white middle class. There have been a few exceptions. Most
of them are college educated. A substantial proportion of them are
psychotherapists or social workers. A few working class people have come, and a
very few non-Caucasians. My impression is that the majority of people who come
to Zen are not much caught up in the consumer culture. They have tended to be a
little more counter-cultural in their lives. They often have an interest in
environmental concerns. I am not sure why the appeal is more to the middle
class than the working class or poor. It may be a function of how new it is in
America, and how skeptically it is often viewed by some of the more
conservative religions. It also does require some leisure time to have a
regular meditation practice. Several families with small children, in which
both parents worked, have tried out Zen but found it difficult or impossible to
come regularly.
There are several things about Zen that donÕt fit
the Christian concerns. The first is the quest for experience, which tends to
be used somewhat pejoratively in the Christian context. That is, in fact, one
of the things that is at the heart of Zen. Direct experience. One of the
functions of Zen practice is to strip away the fixed ideas that we have in
order to be able to experience reality directly, as it is, without filters. It
is not about experiences, but experience.
This usually is expressed by beginners as a desire to know or
understand, rather than to experience.
In the Buddhist world view, there is no such thing
as an autonomous self. Or an autonomous anything, for that matter. There is a
conventional self, but it is empty. All that is is One Body, one vast intricate
organism extending throughout all time and all space. All creation arises
interdependently and every created thing is connected to and dependent on the
whole. Unfortunately, modernityÕs concept of the autonomous, independent self
has so deeply rooted itself in the Western psyche that it is extremely
difficult to dislodge. When this concept begins to unravel, it can be a
shattering experience for the practitioner. Not only does Zen not foster a
constructed identity, it actively encourages the deconstruction of the belief
in a personal identity.
ModernityÕs search for change is also sometimes
treated pejoratively in the Christian world. The Buddhist view Ð which is
empirically evident to anyone who looks Ð is that life is constant change.
Everything is always changing. Nothing is permanent. In fact, Shakyamuni taught
that our desire to prevent change, to hold onto what is at any given moment, is
the very source of human suffering. A major part of Zen teaching is recognition
of impermanence, and learning to rejoice in the impermanence of our existence.
The concept of an objective Truth out there which
can be grasped and understood is foreign to Buddhism. There is indeed the True,
but it is found within ourselves, not outside. Human knowing is seen as
partial, as flawed. But one can experience the True. There is a distinction
between knowing and experiencing. Experiencing is knowing with the heart, if
you will, rather than through logic or any other thought process. But that is
not to say that it is equivalent with intuition or emotion or feeling. And this
is not to say that all truth is relative. Truth that is understood as the
opposite of Falsehood is indeed relative, but the True is another way of
speaking of the Absolute, of God, in Buddhism.
And, of course, the Buddhist understanding of time
is different from the Western linear concept. There is no past or future. The
past is gone and the future is not yet. In fact, there isnÕt even a now. As
soon as you try to grasp the Ònow,Ó it is gone. But this is not to say that
Buddhists ignore the consequences of their actions. The law of cause and effect
is universal, and we are all responsible for what we have done. This is the
concept of karma Ð that our actions have karmic consequences. Everything we do
affects the entire universe, the One Body, for good or for ill. Any evil karma that we have created
must be worked out Ð in this lifetime or in some future lifetime.
In summary, the post-modern, post-industrial,
multicultural society has directly led to the widespread interest in Buddhism
in the Americas. In many ways, the post-modern mentality has turned eastward, to a new appreciation of the
more ancient wisdom of the East. Many of the things that are seen as
problematic within the Western world are seen as opportune in the Eastern
world. The people who have most frequently turned to the Eastern traditions are
those who have most clearly seen the bankruptcy of many of the concepts of the
modern world. Or people who have felt the bankruptcy of their own lives.
At the moment, it is the coming together of two
quite different cultures. It will be interesting to observe how these two will
inform each other as time goes on.