Coming Down from the Zen Clouds
A Critique of the Current State of American Zen
by Stuart Lachs
slachs@postoffice.worldnet.att.net
[Copyright (c) 1994 Stuart Lachs from a work in progress. No part of
this article may be reproduced in any form without the written permission
of the author.]
Web Address: http://www.acmuller.net/articles/USZEN3.htm
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 śūnyatā, 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 Hawai`i 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 Hawai`i 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 Hawai`i Press,
1993, p. 160.
9. Soto Zen in Mediaeval Japan, William M. Bodiford,
U. of Hawai`i 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 Hawai`i 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://www.hm.tyg.jp/~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 Hawai`i 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.