Tradition versus innovation

[Seishin the Elder]

Re: Tradition versus innovation

Stephanie, thanks for your straightforward response, I appreciate it and it helps me to somewhat understand.

Gassho,

Seishin Kyrill

[Jundo]

Re: Tradition versus innovation

What I'm having a hard time with, and not getting answers for, is the idea that "Zazen apart from Kesa is not the Buddha's Zazen," a statement which in both at surface and in depth appears to run quite counter to everything I've been taught by Jundo here since 2007. ... I was simply asking for clarity on a point at which you are differing vastly from what I've been taught thus far IN THIS ZENDO. ... . Has Treeleaf changed this much?

Zazen is the be all and end all of Practice (a "be all and end all" without being or end). Zazen is only seated Zazen, and so is sat on the Zafu each day ... nothing more to attain, nothing more necessary.

"Zazen" in its wider meaning is all of this lifeworldself ... not a drop left out. But, as Taigu said in his talk, how we fan manifests and brings it forth (fan the flames of anger, and anger comes forth ... fan awakened life, and awakening comes forth).

"Zazen" is to sew and wear the Kesa ... to wear and sew the Kesa is Zazen. Thus, "Zazen apart from Kesa is not the Buddha's Zazen" Zazen can never be separated from the whole cloth of the Kesa.

I feel that devotion should be a vital aspect of this path. Many traditional practices can be objects of our devotion (beyond subject and object) when we throw our "self" into the practice ... when we come to see it with fresh eyes. Thus, Taigu writes ...

The study of tradition gives me an insight: kolomo and stuff are not essential to Zen, many of the countless chants can be dropped, ceremonies can be simplified: what cannot be changed is Zazen and kesa, at least in my lineage. And sorry guys, but this is not debatable. Sit with jeans, shorts, whatever. Sing in English or French or Italian. You can even not shave your head. Buddha's sitting and Buddha's kesa cannot be disposed of.

And this is right. As well, Taigu has other aspects of this practice to which he is devoted ... to the Compassion of Kannon Bodhisattva, for instance.

http://www.shambhalasun.com/sunspace/?p=14889

Other practitioners are devoted to a particular chant, to shaving the head (Dogen also wrote long passages on how we must do so ... although ... ) ...

http://www.treeleaf.org/sit-a-long/with ... -monk.html

... to bowing, to a particular Sutra's teachings ... to Jesus and Mary (for some of our Christian Zen folks). All Zazen, when perceived as such.

To the outsider, these respective practices may lack all relevance and meaning. To the insider (or "no insider/outside"-r) they are right at the heart.

I have read Taigu's posts several times, and I believe they are beautiful and crystal clear. I think, Karl ... maybe Martin and Stephanie ... you should reread them with a different tone and "voice" in your own heads. He treats the topic of wearing the Kesa with great subtlety and beauty. He says [emphasis added] ...

We usually make the distinction between lay practice and priest practice.
If you go in the direction of priest practice, then a kesa is needed. If you don't, you are already living in the whole kesa of the universe, as Sawaki Kodo says: there is no world outside the kesa. He means by that that everything as it is is already the kesa, and sentient and non sentient beings do all wear it.
So you are already wearing the kesa, and you feel-think you don't need it. That is perfectly ok. I just would like to reflect that for some people here, there is a different story, another commitment and the light of that commitment, this sewn fabric is Buddha's body
...
If the rakusu is troubling you ... just forget about it and focus on sitting. Put your jeans on, even your hat and sit American style. No problem.
...
I don't think that Treeleaf have changed that much ( mind you, bear in mind that everything changes). Zazen is the core. The kesa as a clothing is the choice of some people that want to commit further to the path. There is room for lay practice without a rakusu or kesa. And there is room for people to discover by themselves that the kesa is also much more than fabric sewn.

Perfectly clear, not an ounce of aggression in his words (despite the tiredness of a man working three jobs on a Friday night who still comes here to put his efforts into this place nonetheless ). Read them again, closely.

Taigu taught me the sacredness and practice of the Kesa (and Kannon too) in ways I had not encountered before encountering Taigu. Thank you, T.

Yes, pour your "self" into the sewing ... spill your blood (literally) on the fabric ... move forward and there is no place to go ... no mistakes, yet care and diligence to avoid mistakes ... no mistakes, yet we stop to fix what we can ... all this lifeworldself folded in each fold and panel ... covering all time and space ... dyed with laughter and tears ... Robe of Liberation boundless ... field of benefaction ... wearing the Buddhas Teachings ... saving all sentient beings ... All Zazen ...

Come to see the Robe this way ... and it is precisely this way (do not see it as so, and it is just rags and thread). Up to you.

Now, with that in mind ... I may still be of the school that the Robe is always worn in such way, whether seen or not. As Taigu said, "there is no world outside the kesa ... So you are already wearing the kesa." So, tonight at our Zazenkai, I will not wear a "Kesa" Kesa (and only a t-shirt). However, if you see me standing there in my t-shirt and cannot see the Kesa, I say ... open your eyes. If, other days, you see me standing in a Kesa, I say ... open your eyes more! There is the visible/invisible Kesa ... there is the invisible/visible Kesa.

Taigu is devoted to sewing and wearing the visible/invisible Kesa. I am a little more into the invisible/visible Kesa. Wonderful thing is that it is all the Kesa. The Zen way is like painting ... with different teachers who teach the same painting with somewhat different strokes and perspectives. How boring if we all taught painting the very same painting in the very same way.

Which leads to our next topic ...

If you wish to undermine and destroy anything that has been established, especially religion, all you need to do is eliminate it's traditions.

I have to leave in a few minutes, so I do not have time to do this justice. I will just say that the reason Judaism, Christianity and Buddhism may have each survived and thrived for thousands of years is because you need all these folks ... the rigid "traditionalists" and the "adapters and changers with the times" ... TOGETHER. Judaism is an example ... with some folks, very literalist and closed to change ... who keep the light of the old ways burning. Other Jews, out in the world, who turn it all upside down and invent new ways. If it were only for the former, the religion would be wooden, rigid, dead. If it were only for the latter, the religion might fall into chaos and meaninglessness. Only with both, feeding and supporting each other ... with people in one camp learning from the other (and from all manner of folks somewhere in between ... and folks moving from one to the other, learning from each ... ) ... have the gardens of these paths bloomed.

Anyway, no chance to go into this more ... I will write again later.

And one note on "authority" ... a Kesa or a doctor's scalpel can be used or abused. The "proof" is in the pudding about whether the particular practitioner is one or the other. Just because a bad doctor has sometimes misused his tools does not mean that the "authority" of all doctors is to be mistrusted.

Anyway ...

Gassho, Jundo

[Ankai]

Re: Tradition versus innovation

I may have mis-read, and I admit that at present my own emotions and sensibilities are very raw. It is not and never has been my intent to be a problem child. I apologize to Taigu and the Sangha at large, I will take a deep breath, (breathing in, I calm my body, breathing out, I smile...) and try again.
With humility,

[Stephanie]

Re: Tradition versus innovation

Thank you, Jundo. Gassho

[Jundo]

Re: Tradition versus innovation

Hi,

Well, I sat with the invisible-visible Kesa.

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/9810670

viewtopic.php?p=41555#p41555

I think next week I will sit with the visible-invisible Kesa. Anyway, both are divisible-indivisible.

One thing about the invisible Kesa is that it is too easy to wear it inside out. Fortunately, there is no inside or out! :wink:

I may have mis-read, and I admit that at present my own emotions and sensibilities are very raw. It is not and never has been my intent to be a problem child. I apologize to Taigu and the Sangha at large, I will take a deep breath, (breathing in, I calm my body, breathing out, I smile...) and try again.
With humility,

It may be that we can grow attached to outer forms while not seeing the formless. However, we can also fail to see the Truth which is right before our eyes. I think one good medicine for raw emotions and sensibilities, and sad tears and torn tears in life ... is a little sewing! Please give it a try. I bet, Karl, you may even end up a Kesa fellow like Taigu!

Gassho, Jundo

[willjohndover]

Re: Tradition versus innovation

I have been following this discussion the last couple of days now, and would simply like to say thank you to everyone. Through everything that has been brought up I feel I have a better understanding of the kesa(invisible/visible) and its importance.

Much appreciated,

Will

[Nenka]

Re: Tradition versus innovation

The job of a student is to question his body-mind, not to beg a rational explanation that convice him to proceed.

I like you, Taigu. You cut right to it.

Gassho,

Jennifer

[Jinyu]

Re: Tradition versus innovation

Hi everyone!
Wow! Things have been very interesting around here! But there is so much tension in all this!
So much of our limitations being dropped when polishing each other,vast practice!

Thank you everyone!
gassho,
Jinyu
ps: Lets return to kesa sewing :wink:

[Keishin]

Re: Tradition versus innovation

Hellos to all posting here

I appreciate the various thoughts offered in this thread and it's cousin: The Will to Study and Listen

Teachers do have a time of it: what to keep hold of, what to let fall away: this dharma to transmit, the baby sitting in the bath water of 'tradition',
what is the amount to be kept without drowning baby, how much can be tossed out without tossing out the baby too?

It is interesting to follow the development of a teacher--(Toni Packer comes to mind--so different from her teacher, Philip Kapleau Roshi).
A wonderful book about a teacher's personal development--Novice to Master (I forget the name of the zen master who wrote it), small book, and each chapter beautiful touching points of his early-student arrogance and his teacher's teachings.

I remember one zen story of a woman who lived below a monastary. One day she heard the big gong of the monastary ringing and she knew the abbot had died: because he had not allowed the ringing of the big gong during his lifetime.

Another zen story of the people who came to see the zen master famous for his 'finger pointing' teaching. The master was out and the visitors wanted to know what the teaching was, so a young monk showed them his master's teaching by raising his finger and pointing. When the master returned and heard about this he called the young monk to him and asked the young monk to show what he had done. When the young monk raised his finger, the master cut it off. The story goes that the young monk became enlightened in that same instant.

(folks if I am not remembering these zen stories well, please correct me)

Imitating a teacher's method of conveying that teacher's understanding is not one's own understanding.
This is not an intellectual kind of understanding. No amount of intellectual discussion will 'get it.' Intellectual discussion gets something, for sure, but not 'it'.

humility also figures into this zen practice, 'not knowing' is one aspect of it.

Korean Zen Master Seung Sahn Soen-sa-nim has a koan:
Somebody comes into the Zen Center with a lighted cigarete, walks up to the Buddha-statue, blows smoke in its face and drops ashes on its lap.
You are standing there. what can you do?
This person has understood that nothing is holy or unholy. All things in the universe are one, and that one is himself. So everything is permitted. Ashes are Buddha; Buddha is ashes. the cigarette flicks. The ashes drop.
But his understanding is only partial. He has not yet understood that all things are just as they are. Holy is holy; unholy is unholy. Ashes are ashes; Buddha is Buddha. He is very attached to emptiness and to his own understanding, and he thinks that all words are useless. So whatever you say to him, however you try to teach him, he will hit you. If you try to teach by hitting him back, he will hit you even harder. (He is very strong.)
How can you cure his delusion?
Since you are a Zen student, you are also a Zen teacher. You are walking on the path of the Bodhisattva, whose vow is to save all beings from their suffering. This person s suffering from a mistaken view. You must help him understand the truth: that all things in the universe are just as they are.

How can you do this?
If you find the answer to this problem, you will find the true way. *

*from the preface of the book Dropping Ashes on the Buddha

I certainly consider myself to be a zen student; so when I first read 'since you are a Zen student, you are also a Zen teacher,' I balked...I don't want to be a zen teacher!...then I understood just how serious this opening of my mouth can be. Others may think I know something: I have to be clear about what I don't know.

So I don't know about the 'right amount of tradition' to keep or the 'correct innovation' to adopt when it comes to teachers and their teaching. Each teacher comes to their own method of keeping the dharma baby.
To question the teacher's method of teaching is not the question.
The question is: how to find my own way through.
Through and through.

With gratitude to all teachers; past, present and future.
To Treeleaf teachers Taigu and Jundo
To the Treeleaf teachers-in-training

[Shutoku]

Re: Tradition versus innovation

This is only my second or third post here, and in some ways perhaps I should remain silent, but since the comparison to Catholicism was made, maybe my contribution can hold some relevance.

I am actually a Jodo Shinshu Buddhist in Canada.
In Canada and the US, Jodo Shinshu Temples have been around for just over 100 years. Today it is still primarily those of Japanese origins who are attending the Temples, or their spouses, and with less immigration from Japan, and changing feelings about religion in general with the last couple generations, most Temples are experiencing declining, and aging membership.

Over the last 100 years, some things in Shin have been changed to suit North American culture. Many Temples are called "churches", and often services are held on Sunday morning. Services themselves hold a strong resemblance to Protestant Christian services with members dressed literally in their Sunday best, Buddhist hymns being sung, and a social tea after. our Sensei's are often called "reverend" and dharma talks are sometimes called "sermons".
Some of this was simply a practical approach in a Christian dominated country. Some of it was to consciously integrate into western culture, and try to combat racism by not seeming to be too different.(being Japanese in North America during and immediately after the second world war was not easy)
Some of it is just because Shin is similar to Christianity in some superficial ways.

Today many Shin temples are trying to re-invent themselves and become relevant to modern western culture, and so we are sort of going through our second round of trying to decide what traditions should be kept, and which should change, only this time, some of the things called into question are not the old traditions, but the changes that were made to cope with the reality of America in the 40's, 50's and 60's.

There is of course always debate in this process. Most Temples still chant exclusively in Sino-Japanese and in some cases there is a great deal of resistance to the idea of switching to English. Interestingly when we have non-Japanese visitors to the Temple for services, they tend to like the Sino-Japanese chanting. I think a mix is best.
As a music teacher and musician, I do think the Sino-Japanese "chants" better, and probably better induces a more meditative mind set, but there is also value in gaining an intellectual understanding of the sutras as well, and that generally requires them being in English for most North Americans.
In my own home practice, I probably am about 3 to 1, Sino-Japanese chanting to English. I always recite the Nembutsu in Sino-japanese, or Sanskrit. (I realize that is not a Soto practice though)

In Shin our Kesa is less elaborate (technically only Ordained Sensei's wear a "kesa" and lay followers wear a smaller version called a "Monto Shikisho"...I think in Soto you have these as well?) and in many Temples few lay followers wear it. In my Temple a few years ago our Sensei asked members to return to wearing it for services, and I'm glad they did. Now in Canada we have a "Canadian" montoshikisho with maple leafs and the Sagarifuji (Shinshu crest) and I think now it is widely worn in most Canadian Temples. So this was a nice compromise between tradition and integrating into western culture.

Traditionaly Shin followers are supposed to chant "Shoshinge" (a kind of summary of shin teachings, written by Shinran) every morning and night, but more and more we use shorter chants, and I strongly suspect most members do not chant at all except for Temple services. I think this relaxing of tradition is most regrettable!

When I first came to my Temple (after several years fo practicing Soto on my own without a Temple or teacher) I was an enthusiastic advocate of making changes. After 15 years practicing Shin at the Temple though, I am more of a traditionalist.
My feeling is that regardless of if it suits western sensibilities or not, teachers must lead, and students must follow. Students will simply not understand some things, and many of these things cannot be explained.
Traditions came about with a purpose behind them, but sometimes we only really "get" the purpose after significant practice, in which we simply trusted that there was a purpose even if we didn't understand it.

So my feeling is that it is best to only make a change if there is a practical need to change. Otherwise I think we have to trust our teachers, and our ancestral teachers...that they know/knew more than we as students.

Wearing a kesa, bowing, proper posture...all of these things help create a mood or mindset condusive to practice, and a reverence for the incredible good fortune we have to receive the teachings and have the opportunity to practice. If we remove too many of these things, we may start to take this opportunity for granted.

Anyway I apologize for a long winded post, and coming from an outside perspective, but for those who have less taste for tradition and ritual, my advice would be that those who went before you, knew what they were doing, and we do well to trust them, even if we don't quite understand the value of something for ourselves just yet.

[Jinyu]

Re: Tradition versus innovation

I am actually a Jodo Shinshu Buddhist in Canada.

Thank you for sharing!
I knew very little about Shin Buddhism! Perhaps a little about Nembutsu and the links between Zen and Nembutsu schools, but in a very intellectual way.
It is great to have a real practitioner's opinion on these subjects!

gassho,
Jinyu

[Shogen]

Re: Tradition versus innovation

Perry said,"the Bhodi Tree needs to take root before we start trimming it!"
Who knows, with a little patience and respect, we may like it just the way it is.
Gassho zak

[Jundo]

Re: Tradition versus innovation

Hey Chugai,

I will give a listen and perhaps comment in a day or so.

Not sure about next life, but very busy busy today in this one! 8)

Gassho, J

[Stephanie]

Re: Tradition versus innovation

My feeling is, who cares what someone else's assessment is of how good a Buddhist I am? I've known people who almost make a career out of contrasting their "correct" way with someone else's "incorrect" way, and it has nothing to do with wisdom. I'm more interested in the feedback of the person on the street as to the impact of what I just did than that of some person who has set himself (or herself) up as a judge of others.

As for this specific issue, it's one that many people get very passionate about. Both sides vehemently defend their view or way as right, and the only right way. But the Buddha never advocated for people to become Buddhists and adhere to the Buddhist party line, he advocated for people to find out what is true, and to do so by seeking wise counsel but always primarily relying on the verification of direct personal experience.

The human mind is tricky. How do I know I know what I think I know? I don't. I don't even know the extent to which what I see is an actual representation of the world. How do I arrive at the truth? Do I trust a mystical experience I had, that might just be the product of endogenous neurology? Do I trust the word of another due to authority or convincing argument? I don't personally see any clear way to actually answer the question of life after death with certainty. I experience it more as a koan, a question that informs the living of life and that is not meant to ever be answered in a definitive manner.

My personal opinion, which is worth as much as any other uninformed speculator's personal opinion, is that mind/body dualism is a misperception based on the way experience feels. I think it is especially attacked by the Buddha's line of inquiry, which reveals that the self, that so many have taken to be "more real" than even their bodies, is ephemeral and illusory. And without mind/body dualism, the most common conception of rebirth falls apart. There might be another way rebirth is "true," but it is not in that the self we experience is our "true soul" that migrates from one body to the next.

Also, the more I learn about and appreciate the majesty and epic scope of evolution, the more I come around to a view that is informed by and embraces science but does not lead to a view of "dead materialism." The best way I have found to put it is... whatever it is that we are was coded into the universe before the first life ever appeared on Earth. We are fully an expression of the Universe. Every piece of it that led up to us sitting here, typing to one another via our computers, is part of us. The elements in our bodies were generated by stars, one of the first forms to appear in the universe. We are shot through and through with our emergence from water, our cradle. Every step along the way toward us left its trace in us, from naked RNA to bacteria to simple multicellular life to the simplest fish, to tetrapods and reptiles and ultimately to mammals, the first mice with grasping hands that became monkeys and then apes and then hominids and then us. We contain everything that existed before us.

In this view of the universe, a "separate realm" inhabited by "the dead" does not make sense. A "spiritual" basis for life--in the sense of life being guided and driven primarily by "spirits" separate from material bodies--would mean that something could be separated out from the universe, removed from it, and placed elsewhere. In our modern understanding of the universe, where would we place the dead, or the migrating souls in the in-between realm? Do they go to another universe in a multiverse? Do they get zapped to another planet? Or is there immaterial "stuff" just floating all around us, waiting to get sucked into a new body? I find such views incoherent.

That is not to say, however, I am of the opinion that our subjective experience is "just" a byproduct of physical processes in the brain. We are "meat technology" wired perfectly to run on and read the innate "code" of the universe. Our consciousness is the expression of an underlying richness. That we exist and do what we do is because we are exactly the same thing as the universe that gave rise to us. I am not just "one" person, I am everything that flows through me, including all of the information transmitted via genes and culture. My life could never exist in isolation, because human culture only exists through the fact that so many channels of information can pass through us, across space and time. The dead are not dead, and whatever in me can pass away is not the self I think of myself as being.

[Jundo]

Re: Tradition versus innovation

Has anyone seen this?
http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/2010/10/a- ... ionalists/

Hi Chugai,

I have written on the subject of "life after death" and "rebirth" before ...

viewtopic.php?f=24&t=1429

viewtopic.php?f=24&t=1281

... but let me address the cited article quickly.

Let me first state that I happen to believe that we, sentient beings, did not happen to pop up alive and aware, in the middle of time and space, by sheer outrageous luck and a blind role of the dice. Personally, I feel our lives are no more unexpected than it is unexpected that an apple tree will grow from an apple seed, and give fruit to apples!

Also, Buddhist teachings allow us the very real knowledge that, in a vital sense, we never die ... not so long as the amazing vital dance which is our source keeps dancing ... for we are just that, and that us, in the most intimate sense (in fact, we were never "born" from that very same perspective). We no more die than the sea "dies" or is "born" as its waves come and go ... for the waves, which we are, are/were just the sea all along. We are "reborn" with every new wave, and live in every drop of sea water ... the life of the sea, ever just the moving sea itself.

But, truly, whether there is "life after death" or not is not so important to Zen Practice, which is primarily focused on this moment ... and our actions ... here and now. I style myself an "open minded agnostic, but a skeptic" on some subjects such as overly detailed, mechanical, imaginative views of Karma and rebirth. My attitude, and that of many other Buddhist teachers, is that ...

If there are future lives, rebirth, heavens and hells ... live this life here and now, seek not to do harm, seek not to build "heavens" and "hells" in this world ... let what happens after "death" take care of itself. Heck, if one is a good person "here and now", I suppose one is making possible that good "rebirth" or "entrance into heaven" if they exist!

And if there are no future lives, no rebirth, no heavens or hells ... live this life here and now, seek not to do harm, seek not to build "heavens" and "hells" in this world ... let what happens after "death" take care of itself. Doing so will make for a better life and world in any case.

I disagree with the statements in the article cited ...

Karma is a difficult pill to swallow for many Western students of Buddhism. So, too, is rebirth. And, practically speaking, these two pills are inseparable. It’s hard to see how you can take one without taking the other—at least not without getting undesirable side effects.

That is not true. Buddhism, as described above, functions quite well without an overly literal, mechanical view of Karma, or a detailed, mechanical view of rebirth. Morality does not fall apart either, and can be supported with a "this worldly" humanist basis.

I have looked at some of the "scientific" evidence for cases of literal "rebirth" (virtually indistinquishable in such cases from "reincarnation, although some Buddhists like to make a technical distinction), and I find the evidence anecdotal, speculative, unimpressive (things like children who seem to share a birthmark resembling someone who died, or who may have a memory not unlike some past event ... both usually very vague and unspecific resemblances that are highly interpretive. I am not convinced). The "Dr. Tart" who provides evidence for these things claims that he is being reasonable and scientific, and he is being anything but.

And if the Buddha taught such doctrines, well, he was a man of his times. I am more than content to be a "Buddhist" based on the other 90% of his teachings which reveal Truths about this life and world ... and I don't need to buy into every claim of an Indian man living 2500 years ago.

Much of the article is based on "might be" and "could be" trues, and "how do you know its not" trues ... and that is just not a convincing basis for argument. How do we know that there is no Loch Ness monster, and it "could be" true!

Again, it is not that I am convinced of the falsity of literal rebirth ... It is just that I doubt it, don't need it, can get on without it ... it is not central to my Practice.

Now, on the Kevatta Sutta you mentioned ... Oh, I don't doubt in the least such "Psychic Powers"! (Does that surprise you, since I just said what a "skeptic" I am?) However, folks in the Zen world, including ol' Dogen, always had an interesting way to see and express such "Psychic Powers" ... The Sutta says:

There is the case where a monk wields manifold psychic powers. Having been one he becomes many; having been many he becomes one. He appears. He vanishes. He goes unimpeded through walls, ramparts, and mountains as if through space. He dives in and out of the earth as if it were water. {etc.]

Oh, well, we "Zen folks" have no trouble being "one" or "many" ... just like that wave, the sea, and all the drops of the sea I mentioned. Yes, our "self" appears and vanishes, and goes unimpeded right through mountains! Piece of cake!

Yes, I believe in miracles too! (Does that surprise you too?). I believe in the miracle of a child's smile, of the sea and mountains. I believe in the "miracle" of the whole universe spinning round and round in such a way that ... you and I popped out, alive and aware, here in the middle of time and space!

Gassho, Jundo