Farmer's Zen

[Kaitan]

Hi, dear Sangha

this topic has been mentioned in the past days and I find very helpful to discuss Soto Zen style as farmer's Zen. Jundo already mentioned in the last Dharma talk that it has different interpretations so I wonder if there are some resources that to talk about it more extensively.

Gasshō

stlah, Kaitan

[Bion]

Hi, Kaitan. You can definitely check out William Bodiford's "Soto Zen in Medieval Japan" to get a better image of why the Soto school was so successful in spreading throughout many rural Japanese areas. Also, Barbara O'Brien's "Circle of the Way" helps with a little history of Soto Zen in Japan. Soto monks in that time were quite serious practitioners, fairly traditional and quite uptight about ritual, monastic decorum and zazen. Local warlords admired the discipline and became patrons of monasteries. Of course they were motivated by desires of acquiring merit. And merit was tremendously important to "negotiate" with nature and fate so as to avoid natural disasters, pacify angry ancestral spirits, etc Soto monks on their part, catered to the villagers by performing funerals, holding mass ordinations giving out the Precepts, getting involved in local festivals, making prayers for rain, good crops etc.The parishioners saw the monks' devout practice as a source of "blessings" and merit, so it was good to support them and make the monasteries thrive. So, Soto Zen was popular with regular, simple folks who were not necessarily interested in zazen or enlightenment and the Soto monks did not turn their backs to that.

I am sure Jundo can give you some more book recommendations.

Gassho
sat lah

[Jundo]

Hi Kaitan,

Adding to what Bion wrote ...

Well, the actual origin of the description is not so spiritual, but about the realities of who sponsored the sects financially, and the building of monasteries, in old feudal Japan. The Rinzai folks were generally centered in the big city capitals of Kyoto and Kamakura, and received their support primarily from the samurai there such as the Shogun. The Rinzai folks also tend to a harder "samurai" mentality of toughness in their practice. Soto Zen was supported more in the local regions and countryside by the rulers there, and large land owners, so was called "farmer's zen." An example is Dogen, who received aid from the Hatano family, the local lord in Echizen Prefecture. That is the main reason that Eiheiji is located in the far countryside. However, Lord Hatano was also a samurai ... just on a local level. It is just the reality of life in old Asia, which was run by kings, emperors, generals and aristocrats who, by the way, were the wealthy land owners ... the "farmers."

This should not surprise anyone too because, since the time of the Buddha in India, in China and elsewhere, Buddhism needed support from the government and wealthy because they controlled society. The King or Shogun gave permission to build the temple, and the wealthy people paid for it. Zen was particularly connected with the "elites" in society ... the rulers and scholars ... more than the peasantry (who tended toward "Pure Land," Shinto and other local beliefs more. That changed somewhat when commoners were ordered to belong to local temples in the 17th century as a way of keeping out Christianity but, still, most of the commoners were not so interested in actual Zen teachings even if they were ordered to belong to a Zen temple. Mostly the people were interested in praying to Buddha for rain for the crops, good health and appeasing the spirits of the dead ancestors, not Zazen or actual Buddhist teachings. Even the "elite" and wealthy folks, as Bion points out, were really interested in Zen for the same reasons, with only a few interested in actual Buddhist doctrines and teachings.)

It was also sometimes used as an insulting term, something like saying that Rinzai was sophisticated ... in the arts, poetry, culture ... but Soto was for "los campesinos," the "country bumpkins." That was not really true either. Soto and Rinzai priests were very similar in education and social background.

At the same time, Soto Zen also tended to have a softer style than Rinzai Zen, more like that of a farmer or gardener than a soldier, samurai or hard martial artist. So, it has been called "farmer Zen" for that reason, while Rinzai Zen is called "samurai Zen." So, while the meaning may at first have been meant to insult Soto Zen, it is actually also a nice meaning. I do not find any books just on that topic, but a couple of small essays. This is from a Deshimaru Lineage teacher in New Orleans ...

We sometimes speak of warrior or samurai Zen versus farmer Zen — as though they were different. It’s part of the old debate going back at least as far as Huineng in the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch about the difference between sudden enlightenment and gradual enlightenment, the Northern School versus the Southern School. Later it will take shape as Rinzai versus Soto. And so on and so forth.

These comparisons have only to do with our delusions. Comparisons between social classes or sexes are useless when it comes to Zen practice. Nor is it a matter of personality types. And we certainly don’t want to validate any doctrinal differences between geographical centers of practice.

As the cheeky young Huineng tells his master, the Fifth Patriarch, “Buddha-nature originally knows no North or South.”

Here at the New Orleans Zen Temple, we practice Soto Zen. It is called “farmer Zen” because we have to be patient. We plant a seed or transplant a seedling and watch it grow. Yes, we nurture it by watering it when the rain won’t come, teaching it how to breathe, or propping it up when its posture sags, but basically we plant it on a zafu and watch it grow over time, to put down roots, allowing it to stretch and strengthen its stalk, head pressing the sky, to spread its leaves and blossom. We watch how the plant transpires in every meaning of that word.

Then we send it out into the world where it will be battered and nourished with rain and sun, trodden on by the world’s business where it suffers and thrives. And if the practice is consistent, by which I mean strong, and strong, by which I mean consistent, then the plant will grow. Unconsciously, automatically, spontaneously, naturally.

As Daichi Zenji says in the bodhisattva ordination of the samurai Kikushi, “With long experience, and thanks to the infinite grace of zazen, you will understand all this unconsciously. On a journey, it’s the long and dangerous road that reveals a horse’s strength and courage. And it isn’t overnight that we see and feel the goodness of the persons we live with.*

There is no sudden enlightenment; there is no gradual enlightenment. To make that distinction is not to understand the first thing about enlightenment. Rinzai or Soto. Samurai or Farmer. Male or Female. Buddha-nature knows no such distinctions.

LINK

Gassho, Jundo
stlah

[Matt Johnson]

僕は田舎っぺです

https://youtu.be/hjhY3oxclWI?si=rTilnOMioBg9TLiv

_/\_
sat/ah
matt