A Critique of the Current State of American Zen
by Stuart Lachs
Zen Buddhism became widely known in America through D. T. Suzuki's writings,
which promoted a non-traditional, modernist
interpretation of Zen. Suzuki was a Japanese writer and intellectual who
had experienced Zen training as a layman, and who,
writing in the nationalistic intellectual climate of early twentieth-century
Japan, emphasized a Zen freed from its Mahayana
Buddhist context, centered on a special kind of "pure" experience and without
the traditional Buddhist concern for morality 1.
This view, represented today by Abe Masao and the "Kyoto School" of religious
philosophy, accentuated those aspects of
Buddhism that are both most different from Western traditions and most
distinctively Japanese. This view has fostered in the
West a widespread conception of Zen Buddhism as a tradition of exclusively
cognitive import, inordinately preoccupied with
the ideas of Sunyata, non-duality, and absolute nothingness but with little
talk of karma, Marga (the path), compassion or even
the "marvelous qualities" of Buddhahood. Such a view fails to give adequate
attention to the positive disciplines, including
morality, that comprised the actual lives of Buddhists, and easily leads
one to think that Buddhists are unable to treat the
ordinary world of human activity seriously.2 This view has also placed
extreme emphasis on the suddenness of enlightenment
with the accompanying idea that to cultivate "correct views" is considered
as self-improvement, i.e. gradualism.
Zen Buddhism was received in the West by a largely university-trained community
who accepted, by and large uncritically, the
modernist view presented by Suzuki. Perhaps the greatest attraction of
Zen for Americans of this period (post-WWII) was to
the notion of pure, enlightened experience with its promise of epistemological
certainty, attainable through systematic
meditation training.3 Unlike psychologically-based movements for personal
transformation whose leaders appeared as seekers
themselves, Zen Buddhism promised, in the person of the teacher, a master
who had actually realized the Buddhist goal of
Enlightenment and manifested its qualities continuously in his daily life.
American Zen students have tended to hold these teachers in awe, to the
point of regarding their every action as pure and
selfless. This tendency to idealize the teacher comes in part from the
students' inexperience, but is strongly encouraged by the
Zen organization and the teacher himself. Recently I heard an American
roshi on the radio promoting his book. He emphasized
the uniqueness in zen of the lineage of "mind to mind transmission" from
Shakyamuni to the present and how the roshi speaks
for or stands in place of the Buddha. Having been attracted to Zen Buddhism
by the presence of an "enlightened person," the
students came to regard the teacher's behavior as beyond criticism, an
unrealistic attitude that had unfortunate consequences.
Beginning in 1975 and continuing to this day, a series of scandals has
erupted at one Zen center after another revealing that
many Zen teachers have exploited students sexually and financially. This
list has included, at various times, the head teachers at
The Zen Studies Society in New York City, the San Francisco Zen Center,
the Zen Center of Los Angeles, the Cimarron Zen
Center in Los Angeles, the now-defunct Kanzeon Zen center in Bar Harbor,
Maine, the Morgan Bay Zendo in Surry, Maine,
the Providence Zen Center and the Toronto Zen center. These are some of
the largest and most influential centers. In most
cases the scandals have persisted continually for years, or seemed to end
only to arise again. At one center, for example, sex
scandals have recurred for approximately twenty-five years with the same
teacher involving many women. These scandals
have been pervasive as well as persistent, affecting almost all major American
Zen Centers.
It should be emphasized that the source of the problem lies not in sexual
activity per se, but in the teachers' abuse of authority
and the deceptive (and exploitative) nature of these affairs. These affairs
were carried on in secret and even publicly denied.
The students involved were often lied to by the teachers about the nature
of the liaison. In some cases the teacher claimed the
sexual experience would advance the student ' s spiritual development.
One teacher justified his multiple sexual affairs after
their discovery as necessary for strengthening the Zen center. Presumably,
this was because the women involved were running
satellite centers of his and having a secret affair with the "master" would
deepen their understanding and practice.
The abuse of power that these men practiced has had far reaching effects
in almost every case. The students involved were
often devastated by the knowledge that they had been used by the very person
they trusted most. Some required
psychotherapy for years afterward. There were mental breakdowns and broken
marriages. Zen centers were torn into factions
of those who deplored the teacher's behavior and those who denied or excused
it. The apologists, when they did not flatly
deny what had occurred, would explain it away as the teacher's "crazy wisdom"
or more commonly, they would blame the
victim or dismiss it by commenting that the teacher isn't perfect. Another
explanation was that the student did not yet truly
understand the teaching. Disciplining of Zen teachers in America has been
rare. Usually, those who objected to the goings-on
either left voluntarily or were pushed out of the center by those loyal
to the teacher or by the teacher himself. Some of the
students who left eventually resumed their practice while others were so
disillusioned and embittered that they abandoned
Buddhism altogether.
American Zen teachers who have been exposed in their abuse of power have
seldom been publicly criticized for their behavior
by other Zen teachers, either here or in Japan. In one case, members of
the Japanese Zen hierarchy threatened to cut off the
training of one student who had wanted an abusive Japanese monk deported.
The complaining student did in fact keep quiet,
finished his training, and is today a well-known roshi. The monk in question
is the roshi already described who has been
exploiting his position for twenty-five years.
Reflecting on these problems has led me to investigate Zen history more
closely, especially certain key terms that have come to
characterize Zen Buddhism. What, for instance, do the terms "dharma transmission"
and "roshi" mean which so pepper the
conversations of American Zen students and bestow so much authority on
the teacher? Is dharma transmission infallible? What
does the tradition itself say about regulating the behavior of monastics?
Is Zen alone among religions, in having no moral or
ethical dimension as many practitioners believe? Are these matters unique
to permissive American culture? Do we have an
overly idealized view of Ch'an/Zen history? Is there something in our practice
that is "lacking" if the supposed exemplars of the
training cannot deal responsibly with the people and situations around
them? We should keep in mind that from the Zen view
truth cannot be expressed in words but rather alluded to only in the spontaneous
and natural activities of daily life.4 Is koan
training in particular being done in a way that does not carry over to
how one lives one's life in the real world? Or, more
fundamentally, is koan training mistakenly regarded as fulfilling the Buddha's
path in itself? Has it become an end in itself? Is
zen training and koan study in particular not about liberation, but more
a unique training in spontaneity and learning to perform
in certain stylized manners? Are there some aspects of the teacher/student
relationship that need to be changed? What weight,
if any, should be accorded the subsequent dharma transmissions of a disreputable
teacher? What meaning does the term
"monk" itself have? How much of Zen, as practiced in the West, is really
East Asian but mostly Japanese culture with its
special authoritarian and ritualized character?
A full treatment of these questions goes beyond the scope of this paper,
but I believe these topics call for examination and
thoughtful discussion. The crux of the matter comes to this: how does the
institution of Zen Buddhism actually operate in the
world as opposed to how we expect it to function based on the mostly idealized
view that we have accepted uncritically.
What, then, is the content of this idealized view? First, let us consider
the meaning of the term "dharma transmission."
According to the widely held view, dharma transmission is the recognition
by the teacher that the student has attained the
"mind of the Buddha" and that his understanding is equal to that of the
teacher. It is the continuity of this chain of enlightened
minds supposedly unique to Zen and going back to the historical Buddha
that is the conceptual basis for the present teacher's
considerable authority. From the point of the Zen tradition it is dharma
transmission that justifies regarding the teacher as the
Buddha, which is what the Ch'an tradition has done since the Tang dynasty.5
It is this use of a spiritual lineage as the basis for
authenticity ("a separate transmission outside of the scriptures" )6 rather
than a particular text that distinguishes the Ch'an
school from other Chinese Buddhist sects of the period. This interpretation
would imply that dharma transmission is given
solely on the basis of the spiritual attainment of the student. On investigation,
the term "dharma transmission" turns out to be a
much more flexible and ambiguous term than we in the West suppose. To be
sure, it is given in recognition that the student has
attained as deep a realization of mind as the teacher himself. This view,
and correctly only this one, is sometimes called
"mind-to-mind transmission." Mind-to-mind transmission logically implies
the enlightenment of the disciple. However, Dharma
transmission has been given for other reasons. According to some scholars,
dharma transmission has actually been construed
as membership in a teaching lineage, awarded for any of the following,
presumed legitimate, reasons: to establish proper
political contacts vital to the well-being of the monastery, to cement
a personal connection with a student, to enhance the
authority of missionaries7 spreading the dharma in foreign countries, or
to provide salvation (posthumously, in medieval Japan)
by allowing the deceased recipient to join the "blood line" of the Buddha.
In the later Sung Dynasty (AD 960-1280), at least,
dharma transmission was routinely given to senior monastic officers, presumably
so that their way to an abbacy would not be
blocked.8 Clearly, enlightenment was not always regarded as essential for
dharma transmission. Manzan Dohaku
(1636-1714), a Soto reformer, supported this last view citing as authority
the towering figure of Japanese Zen, Dogen
(1200-1253).9 This became and continues to this day to be the official
Soto Zen view.
Philip Kapleau relates the story that Nakagawa Soen Roshi, of the Rinzai
sect, had told him that he (Soen Roshi) did not have
kensho when Gempo Roshi appointed him his successor.10 According to one
scholar's interpretation, formal transmission
actually constituted no more than the ritual investiture of a student in
an institutionally certified genealogy.11
As a lesson in the significance of institutional history, let us look at
the present-day Soto sect in Japan. This sect strives to
match the institutional structures of Dogen's time when every Soto temple
had to have an abbot and every abbot had to have
dharma transmission. In 1984 there were 14,718 Soto Zen temples in Japan
and 15,528 Soto priests. Since every abbot has
to be a priest, it follows that almost every Soto priest (95%) has dharma
transmission. It should be noted that a majority of
these priests will spend less than three years in a monastery. Most interestingly,
while there is much written in Soto texts on the
ritual of dharma transmission, there is almost nothing on the qualifications
for it.12
The term "roshi" has also been used in a variety of ways. Once again, a
rather idealized interpretation prevails among Zen
students who take "roshi" to mean "master," i.e. someone who is fully enlightened
to the point that his every gesture manifests
the Absolute. Historically in Japan, "roshi" has indeed sometimes been
understood to indicate rank based on spiritual
development while at other times it is used as a term of address connoting
no more than respect. There seem to be occasions
in Japanese (especially Soto) usage when it merely denotes an administrative
rank. There is no central authority in China or
Japan or anywhere else that certifies anyone's official passage into roshihood
based on any criteria and certainly not on
spiritual attainment. It is not a misstatement to say, as Soko Morinaga
Roshi, the former President of [Rinzai] Hanazono
College, once remarked, "A roshi is anyone who calls himself by the term
and can get other people do the same."
An interesting example can be seen in the person of Philip Kapleau. Mr.
Kapleau uses the title " roshi " and his students, as do
most Zen students, address him as such. Mr. Kapleau has been extremely
influential, both through his personal teaching and
his writing of books and articles, in spreading Zen in America and abroad.
If nothing else, he has taught for many years and
remained free of scandal, something that a number of others with officially
sanctioned dharma transmission and titles cannot
say. However Mr. Kapleau himself has explicitly stated that he is not a
dharma heir of his teacher, Yasutani Roshi, and did not
receive the title roshi from him or anyone else.13 Essentially, he took
the title himself. This is not to say he is or is not any more
or less qualified than anyone else. Interestingly, Mr. Kapleau has " transmitted
" to some of his disciples. This is essentially a
line beginning with himself, contrary to all other Zen lines, which at
least rhetorically maintain the myth of an unbroken lineage
dating back to Shakyamuni Buddha.14
"In Korean Zen, the equivalent of roshi/Zen master, the pangjang, is surprisingly
an elected position and carries an initial
ten-year term... If the master does not perform adequately, a petition
by fifty monks would be enough to have a recall vote...
A monk's affinities are more with his fellow meditation monks than with
a specific master".15 This is extremely different from
the Japanese model which is commonly assumed by Americans to be the only
authentic form.
The term "monk" is another word that calls for some scrutiny. The Chinese
term means "left home person" and is applied
exclusively to individuals who have left their families and follow the
rules for monks, which include celibacy among other
requirements. The Japanese use the same word (obosan) for both "monk" and
"priest, " and permit marriage as do some
Korean sects.16 In America when used by Zen people who are part of lines
originating in Japan, the term "monk" has no
well-defined meaning. Celibacy is seldom implied in the American usage
of the term. A man who calls himself a monk may be
married, may live with someone, or may be dating. A similar situation prevails
for nuns. It may even be the case that a "monk"
may date a "nun." Some people who refer to themselves as a monk or a nun
may in fact be celibate, but they would be a
minority in the American Zen world. Nor do American Zen monks appear to
follow the other requirements of rules for monks,
such as avoiding entertainment, liquor, and socializing with members of
the opposite sex. One American Zen group has gone
so far as to institute a new ritual, "spiritual union," to recognize and
legitimize a sexual relationship between members who
otherwise view themselves as a celibate monk and a nun.17
The idealization inherent in the terms "dharma transmission," "roshi" and
"monk," has contributed to the problems we have
experienced in American Zen. By the very nature of the roles the student
ascribes to the titles, he routinely gives trust to the
teacher that he would not give to anyone else. This trust is often quite
complete and natural, because the wearing of the robes
traditionally signifies the turning away from selfish motivations, the
vow to save all sentient beings and not to inflict harm. To an
observer not familiar with this type of religious practice, the extent
to which a student surrenders can appear astonishing. Many
people accept this kind of trust in spiritual practice, but it leads to
problems when the teacher is not emotionally mature or
disciplined enough to assume the responsibility for guiding students. Though
the teacher may have some level of attainment, it is
too often far from the idealized view of the student or from that promoted
by the Zen institutions. "In the Ch'an tradition, the
rhetoric maintains that each transmission is perfect, each successor is
the spiritual equivalent of his predecessor... the primary
feature is its participatory nature; to receive certification of enlightenment
from a Ch'an/Zen master is to join the succession of
patriarchs and enter into dynamic communion with the sages of ancient times.
One either belonged within the lineage of
enlightened masters or not; there is no in-between category i.e. 'almost
enlightened' or 'rather like a master'".18
In Zen, one can identify a two-fold process, looking-in and looking-out.
Looking-in includes the process of meditation;
looking-out includes taking the teacher as a model for living and as an
inspiration for practice. As is common in Gnostic-type
religious practice, the teacher in Zen is the final arbiter of reality.
Not only does the teacher judge the student's level of
insight/wisdom, but, for closer students at the least, will often comment
and judge on every aspect of the disciple's daily life.
However, as we have seen, there is often a serious disparity between the
student ' s view of the teacher and the teacher's
actual life. The students don't hold the teacher to any standard of conduct
not merely because they feel they themselves lack
the authority to make such judgments about the teacher. They also fear
that criticisms which undermine the teacher's authority
would cast doubts on the value of their years of practice under that teacher.
Some have also come to feel protective of
immature Zen institutions in the United States, and hesitate to contribute
to the damage that public scandal could cause. Others
fear their own rise to a position of teacher would be jeopardized.
As noted earlier, while D. T. Suzuki and others have led people to believe
that there was no prescribed Zen morality, a
different picture emerges if we look at the historical beginnings of Zen.
In China, where Zen began, Zen monasteries became
distinct from other Buddhist monasteries with the famous rules of P'ai-chang
(749-814) who supposedly prescribed a strict
code of behavior for members of the monastic community and severe penalties
for improper behavior. All of the classical
accounts of Pai-chang's founding of an independent system of Ch'an monastic
training, it turns out, may be traced back to a
single source, "Regulations of the Ch'an Approach" (Ch'an-men Kuei-shih)
written in approximately 960 A.D.19 According to
this text, "If the offender had committed a serious offense he was beaten
with his own staff. His robe and bowl and other
monkish implements were burned in front of the assembled community, and
he was [thereby] expelled [from the order of
Buddhist monks]. He was then thrown out [of the monastery] through a side
gate as a sign of his disgrace. The rules applied to
everyone. P'ai-chang further recommended that "a spiritually perceptive
and morally praiseworthy person was to be named as
abbot." This definitely implies a moral and social aspect to Ch'an life.
This is the logic of Zen from its earliest formulation as a
distinct Buddhist sect.
If students have offered excessive power to teachers, that does not tell
us why so many Zen teachers have taken advantage of
the opportunity to abuse their power. Not all of them have, after all.
The question arises, which does not often get asked in
America Zen circles, what is the connection between attainment and behavior?
What are we to make of the evident disparity
in someone with institutional sanction, i.e. dharma transmission, supposedly
having deep insight but behaving irresponsibly? It is
difficult to understand why teachers with exalted titles and long years
of meditation practice behave in such selfish, self-serving,
dishonest and destructive ways? The Platform Sutra itself states that,
"If we do not put it (wisdom) into practice, it amounts
to an illusion and a phantom."20 One partial explanation could be that
of Chih-i (531-597) the founder of T'ien-t'ai Buddhism
and author of the most comprehensive guide to Chinese meditation, who was
aware that the very effort of intense
concentration may agitate the klesas (afflictions and illusions) generating
various feelings and desires that would not occur
during normal consciousness, tempting the practitioner away from practice.21
In any case, rarely does one question the
teacher's level of attainment.
Could the problem have something to do with the description and view of
enlightenment as static, in the sense of seeing only
what is, rather than a more dynamic view which also involves that which
functions? A view of Buddhist attainment that also
focuses on function, rather than objectifying an experience, would also
place primary emphasis on context and connections,
i.e. relationships with other people and society as a whole.22
The question of the relationship between enlightenment and cultivation
has persisted in the Zen tradition from the end of the
eighth century onward. Enlightenment in this context refers to the experience
of deep insight into the true nature of reality.
Cultivation may be taken as living one's day to day life from the enlightened
point of view which includes an awareness of other
people's full humanity and our connectedness with them.23 Ma-tsu (709-788),
a major and influential Ch'an teacher, claimed
that the sudden enlightenment experience was inherently so thorough that
the whole of the Buddha's path was realized and
completed in that experience. This view came to be known as "sudden enlightenment/sudden
cultivation." Other major Zen
teachers, such as Tsung-mi24 (780-841), Yen-shou (901-975), and the Korean,
Chinul (1158-1210) took the view that
sudden enlightenment might bring full attainment, but perhaps only for
exceptionally endowed individuals such as the Sixth
Patriarch Hui-neng and Ma-tsu. For the more ordinary run of mankind, who
are less spiritually talented, the enlightenment
experience indeed offers a true view of one's self-nature, but without
exhausting selfishness. Some delusions, such as existential
bewilderment, may be overcome by a deep experience. Other more deep-seated
delusions such as craving, hatred and
conceitedness can only be overcome by making "that which we have seen a
living experience and molding our life
accordingly."25 The Buddhist injunction to live an ethical life is comprised
of not only exercising restraint and self-control, but
also of positively manifesting compassion in our dealings with other people.
Ch'an master Yen-shou put the matter in this way:
If the manifesting formations are not yet severed and the defilements and
habit energies persist, or whatever you see leads to
passion and whatever you encounter produces impediments, then although
you have understood the meaning of the non-arising
state, your power is still insufficient. You should not grasp at that understanding
and say, "I have already awakened to the fact
that the nature of the defilements is void," for later when you decide
to cultivate, your practice will, on the contrary, become
inverted. ... Hence it should be clear that if words and actions are contradictory,
the correctness or incorrectness of one's
practice can be verified. Measure the strength of your faculties; you cannot
afford to deceive yourself.26
As a matter of historical fact Ma-tsu's line survived and has dominated
the Zen tradition from the Sung dynasty (960-1280) to
this day while Tsung-mi's line, for instance, died out. The result is that
the view that sudden enlightenment entailed sudden
cultivation became the official rhetoric of Zen Buddhism. The opposing,
but still orthodox, Zen view that sudden enlightenment
had to be followed by gradual cultivation, has largely been de-emphasized.
In Tsung-mi's words, "Awakening from delusion is
sudden; transforming an ordinary man into a saint is gradual."27 Most teachers
are hardly fully enlightened Buddhas, but are
people who need to cultivate themselves further. We need to keep this in
mind when we interact with them. Though in Zen
practice we must focus on our own shortcomings, there remains a place for
common sense in viewing the actions of others,
even those of our teachers. The Dalai Lama has written concerning the student's
view of the teacher, ". . . too much faith and
imputed purity of perception can quite easily turn things rotten."28
Endnotes
1. According to Suzuki, Zen is "extremely flexible in adapting itself to
almost any philosophy and moral doctrine as long as its
intuitive teaching is not interfered with. It may be found wedded to anarchism
or fascism, communism or democracy, atheism
or idealism, or any political or economic dogmatism." Zen and Japanese
Culture, Princeton University Press, 1959, p. 63.
For a fuller discussion of the sources and nationalistic motivations of
D.T. Suzuki's presentation of Zen Buddhism see the
article by Robert H. Sharf, "The Zen of Japanese Nationalism, " History
of Religions, August, 1993. Bernard Faure also
analyzes critically some of Suzuki ' s thought in Ch'an Insights and Oversights,
Princeton Press, 1993, pp. 52-74
2. Paths To Liberation; the Marga and Its Transformations in Buddhist Thought
ed. by Robert E. Buswell, Jr. and
Robert Gimello 1992, U. of Hawaii Press, p27.
3. see "Buddhism and the Rhetoric of Religious Experience." delivered at
the annual meeting of the American Academy of
Religion, 1992, p. 37, Sharf.
4. "Encounter Dialogue and Transformation in Ch'an" by John R. McRae in
Paths to Liberation, ed. by Robert Buswell and
Robert Gimello, U. of Hawaii Press, 1992, p. 354.
5. p 195 "On the Ritual Use of Ch'an Portraiture in Medieval China, " T.
Griffith Foulk and Robert H. Sharf, Cahiers
D'Extrême Asie 7
6. For an interesting discussion of the rather late and even controversial
acceptance of this self-defining idea in Ch ' an see "
Ch ' an Slogans and the Creation of Ch ' an Ideology: ' A Special Transmission
Outside the Scriptures, " a paper presented at
the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion by Albert Welter,
November, 1995.
7. Holmes Welch, Buddhism in China: 1900 to 1950, Harvard University Press,
1967, p. 315. Welch gives the interesting
case of one Chinese monk in the twentieth century who gave dharma transmission
to another Chinese monk then in Burma,
"without ever having met him, and indeed, without even finding out whether
he would accept the dharma."
8. "Myth, Ritual, and Monastic Practice," by T. Griffith Foulk in Religion
and Society in Tang and Sung China, ed. by
Patricia Buckley Ebrey and Peter N. Gregory, U. of Hawaii Press, 1993,
p. 160.
9. Soto Zen in Mediaeval Japan, William M. Bodiford, U. of Hawaii Press,
1993, p. 215. "Zen dharma transmission
between master and disciple could occur whether or not the disciple had
realized enlightenment, just so long as the ritual of
personal initiation had been performed." For a further discussion of the
surprising usages of dharma transmission see: Welch
previously cited, The Rhetoric of Immediacy, Bernard Faure, Princeton University
Press, 1991, and Foulk. See also "On the
Ritual Use of Ch'an Portraiture in Medieval China, " T. Griffith Foulk
and Robert H. Sharf, Cahiers d'Extrême Asie, 7, 1993
pp. 149-219
10. Letter from Philip Kapleau to Koun Yamada, Feb. 17, 1986.
11. See Sharf[2], footnote 20, p. 44
12. The Zen Institute in Modern Japan" by T. Griffith Foulk, P. 157-177
in Zen:Tradition and Transition, Kenneth Kraft
ed., NY: Grove Press, 1988.
13. Public letter from Yamada Roshi 1/16/86. Koun Yamada Roshi was Yasutani
Roshi's heir. He became the leader of the
Sanbokyodan school of Zen started by Yasutani Roshi and also gave dharma
transmission to Robert Aitken. Also , letter from
Mr. Kapleau to Koun Yamada 2/17/86
14. It is also true that almost no modern scholar of Zen, Eastern or Western,
takes seriously the idea of an unbroken Zen
lineage going back to Shakyamuni Buddha.
15. The Zen Monastic Experience, " Robert E. Buswell, Princeton University Press, 1992, pp. 204-208
16. From 1910-1945 Korea was under the military occupation of Japan. Under
the pressure and influence of married
Japanese Zen priests, some Korean monks took wives and started families.
This caused a split with the traditional, celibate
monks in the Korean Sangha that became so severe that in 1954 President
Syngman Rhee was called in to resolve the
dispute. see pp. 30-31, The Way of Korean Zen by Kusan Sunim, Weatherhill,
1985.
17. Mountain Record Magazine, vol. XII, number 1, Fall, 1993, p. 59, a
publication of Zen Mountain Monastery,
Woodstock, NY.
18. "Encounter Dialogue and Transformation in Ch'an" by John R. McRae in
Paths to Liberation, ed. by Robert Buswell and
Robert Gimello, U. of Hawaii Press, 1992, p. 353,354.
19. The Ch'an "School" and its Place in the Buddhist Monastic Tradition,
Ph.D. dissertation of Theodore Griffith Foulk,
University of Michigan, 1987, available from UMI Dissertation Information
Service, U.S. telephone number: (800) 521-0600,
p. 348
20. The Platform Scripture, trans. by W. T. Chan (New York, 1963), p. 69.
21. Paths to Liberation, "Encounter Dialogue and the Transformation of
the Spiritual Path in Chinese Ch'an, " McRae, p.
347
22. In relation to the famous verse of Bodhidharma: A separate transmission
outside of scripture
Not founded on words or letters,
Point directly to one ' s mind
See one ' s nature and become Buddha. (Jpn. kensho jobutsu)
In the Rinzai koan curriculum, " ...kensho is something that one does [a
verb, not a noun], it is not primarily something that
one has. " from " Koan and Kensho in the Rinzai Zen Curriculum, " an unpublished
paper presented at the Annual Meeting of
the American Academy of Religion by G. Victor Sogen Hori, Nov. 21, 1994.
Permission to quote granted by the author.
23. For an interesting discussion of essence/function and " integral practice,
" the idea that the degree of integration into one ' s
behavior was the criterion for achievement of the teachings of the sages
see A. Charles Muller, The Composition of
Self-Transformation Thought in Classical East Asian Philosophy and Religion.
" Toyo Gakuen Kiyo, March, 1993.(Also
available on the World Wide Web at http://www2.gol.com/users/acmuller/index.html)
24. Tsung-mi was a patriarch in both a Ch'an line and the Hua-yen sect
of Buddhism. He wrote the most complete analysis of
Ch'an Buddhist sects in ninth century China. For a full treatment of this
important Ch'an personality see Tsung-mi and the
Sinification of Buddhism, Peter N. Gregory, Princeton University Press,
1991.
25. see The Jewel Ornament of Liberation by SGam.Po.Pa, trans. by Herbert
Guenther, Shambala Publications, 1959,
footnote 1, p. 252.
26. The Collected Works of Chinul, Robert Buswell, U. of Hawaii Press,
1983, p. 305. This entire book is a treasure for
Zen students. Of special interest is the chapter entitled, "Excerpts from
the Dharma Collection and Special Practice Record
with Personal Notes," written one year before Chinul's death in which he
comments on varieties of enlightenment experience
and how careful one must be in one's practice. Modern Korean Zen still
bears the strong imprint of Chinul.
27. The Collected Works of Chinul, Buswell, p. 278
28. Snow Lion Magazine, Winter Supplement 1995, p. 1.