In the late eighties, when the American Zen master Daido Loori went to Japan to receive an important congratulatory ceremony performed at Eiheiji and Sojiji, he was acknowledging that American Zen (at least his brand of it) was now authoritatively and firmly grafted onto the ancient Japanese form of Zen Buddhism. For various reasons, we can assume that Loori believed that Japanese Zen has the final word; that its institution of Zen—particularly Soto—is the bearer of the flame of authentic enlightenment. Nothing, of course, can introduce an iota of doubt into his assumptions about Japanese Soto Zen—not even its present lackluster impact on the modern Japanese mind which sees it as something a bit antiquarian—in this sense, being good only to sacralize funerals!
Yet, all was not well with the Loori’s happy American Zen Lilliputians in the land of Japanese giants. Daido Loori’s entourage was surprised to observe that the so-called core teaching of Soto zazen (i.e., sitting meditation) had declined in Japan. They noticed, too, that some of the small Soto Zen temples in Japan provided no inspiration or program by which one might learn to practice zazen. Nor could an intensive meditation retreat, or "sesshin", be found. Moreover, they discovered there is little mention made of zazen in official Japanese Soto institutional literature. Many Soto abbots, they concluded, had abandoned zazen altogether. Nevertheless, they were sufficiently encouraged to realize that they were now part of an emerging Soto renaissance. Daido Loori’s lineage would, from now on, restore Soto Zen; teaching the Western multitudes the importance of doing an hour or less of zazen every day offering, in addition, week-long sesshins every month!
But somebody in Loori’s entourage had forgotten to look at the history of Japanese Soto Zen. As one scholar recently demonstrated, healing, rainmaking, protection from fire—not to mention funeral services—constituted the core of Soto Zen; all contributing to its popularity with the superstitious masses. By implication, the success of Soto Zen was neither due to zazen (which, according to this scholar, was practiced at fewer than one percent of all temples in the 18th-century) nor was it due to the teachings of Dogen Zenji, whose works were never a big time hit in Soto. In fact, one might get no challenge from a distinguished body of Soto scholars if they claimed that much of Soto’s history was not concerned with saving the hearts of its practitioners through zazen, but was more concerned with saving the Emperor from untold demonic forces.
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