The Confucian side of Zen

That the Western Dharma center or Zen center structure still contain somewhat of a Confucian underpinning in which the family model is central is not hard to see for anyone who have been involved with a Dharma center.  

Important in Confucianism are the Five Relationships.  Not quite five, nevertheless, Confucian style relationships are important in the Dharma or Zen center.  There is the teacher or Roshi's relationship with the members of the Dharma center.  In addition, there is a relationship with his or her most senior students as well as a relationship of senior students with beginners, and a beginner's relationship with other beginners.  Each relationship is hierarchical and yet reciprocal.  Each side has certain obligations and responsibilities to the other.

In Confucianism, rituals or observances constitute the mechanism by which these relationships are maintained.  Jiyu Kennett’s book, Selling Water by the River, is a good example of this mechanism as it is found, more or less, in Western Zen centers.  It is also a compendium of Zen rituals which even includes a funeral ceremony for a Zen priest including the proper layout such as where flowers are to be placed, including the memorial tablet, the candle, etc.  None of this, by the way, is found in the Buddhist canon—it is Confucianist in orientation.

The second part of Kennett’s book opens up with “How Junior Priests Must Behave in the Presence of Senior Priests.”  One observance (number five) instructs the junior Priest as follows:  “Do not laugh loudly, suddenly or with disrespect in the presence of a senior.”  In all, Kennett lists sixty-two observances.  

Turning abruptly to the subject of the realization of Buddha Mind and how Zen's underlying Confucian structure handles this most important part of Buddhism, this quote from Weiming Tu's book, Confucian Thought, might be helpful.

"The emphasis is on the concrete path by which one learns to be human rather than on the final goal of self-realization.  The idea of the Analects that filiality and brotherliness are the bases of humanity, properly interpreted, means that being filial and brotherly is the initial step towards realizing one's humanity" (p. 123).

In other words, so-called ‘enlightened conduct’ seems to be pivotal here—not the genuine realization of Buddha Mind, itself, which can happen outside of the Zen Confucian-like family.  When it comes to the Zen transmission it is really the transmission of the father's legacy to the son in a Confucian sense.  This transmission is supposed to help enlarge the influence of the particular Zen family.

Western Zennists, for the most part, are not following real Buddhism but unknowingly have entered into the Confucian matrix.  If Westerners are looking for Zen sans Confucianism they have to look at the life of the Indian anchorite (P., ishi; S., rishi) who purposely withdraws from the human world to focus, instead, on discovering its substance (tathata) which is transcendent.

 

Comments

[Sansiddhah]

" It is a realtively new developement that a student is responsible first to one and only one teacher, and only then (if at all) to the sangha as a whole. In the past, and even today in old-school Theravada Buddhism, a monk is admitted into the sangha by all of the members of that specific sangha. When he is expelled, the decision is not made by one teacher, but by the sangha as a whole. In Buddhist history, the horizontal structure came first, and after the death of Shakyamuni, I could imagine that the vertical structure and vertical integration into the sangha was very weak at first. But that led to problems, like the one that is mentioned in the Broken Buddha: "In India today all sorts of disreputable types turn up at the few Thai and Burmese temples in the country and are given ordination as long as they go somewhere else afterwards. They amble off, without training, knowing nothing about the Dhamma, using their robes to make a living and usually giving Buddhism a bad reputation in the process."

(Taken from the Japanese Antaiji Soto-shu temple's homepage)

[Bryan]

Here's a link to English Translations of the Ariyapariyesana Sutta:

http://dharmastudy.org/suttas-2/mn-26-ariyapariyesana-sutta/

[dummy]

Easier said than done?

[Sansiddhah]

Everyone will learn a lot from reading the Ariyapariyesana Sutta, the earliest autobiographical account of Gotama's self-awakening path. That's the only way to enlightenment. There is no other way.

In this account we don't read about shikantaza or sitting or anything like that.

There is nothing Eastern about enlightenment or what the Zennist calls "awakening to the pure substance of mind", and we had many self-awakened people in Europe (although the degrees of awakening, of course, vary).

Take the first European philosopher, Heraclitus. He spoke about the "Logos":

"Most mortals lack understanding of the logos. They are like sleepwalkers unaware of the reality around them. The wise, having heard the logos, agree that all things are one."

So if one hears the Logos, one knows that all is one. A sleepwalker (worldling) perceives many things through name-and-form.

Heraclitus used the word "hear" - it is not uninteresting to note that the Shurangama Sutra prefers the organ of hearing as the quickest way to realize the pure Mind-essence.

Now how can this be found? Where should it be sought? In teachers? in books? in philosophy? in sitting shikantaza? in temples, monasteries, sutras, Buddha statues?

Heraclitus gave us all the guidance we need. He said:

"I searched within myself."

He simply followed the god's commandment - Gnothi Seauton, Know Thyself.

Why don't we do it, then? What are we waiting for?

[Kojizen]

Gregory Wonderwheel, The authors of the Vinayapitaka were born long after the Buddha’s death. As for the transmission from teacher to disciple where in the Nikayas does the Buddha speak of such a transmission?