Reawakening Zen

I think it was Yamada Mumon Roshi (Rinzai) who said Zen is dead in Japan and should be re-imported from America. (I have used his book, The Ten Oxherding Pictures a few times).  I am sure that most American Zennists would agree although I am inclined to believe there are one or two Japanese Zennists who have the light; who understand that Mind (citta) is not sensory awareness.  It is far more subtle.  I should mention also that it is not much different in Vietnam either, the last of those who had the light was Thich Tri Dung.  There could be others.

While it is true that Zen is pretty much dead in Japan as far as the public’s interest in it is concerned, it is not actually dead.  In is not dead in Vietnam or Korea either, including China.  By the same token, it is not altogether thriving in North America or Europe as believed.  Zen in the West is not the same Zen of classical Zen literature or the Sutras in particular.  It is the Zen of sitting on your arse, being in the here and the now.

Zen Buddhism has the capacity to reawaken itself wherever Buddhist literature is.  It doesn't have to be re-imported.  It certainly has its own literature which act like maps that tell us where to look if we want to unravel Joshu’s mysterious “No” (J., mu) or learn about real zazen—not the “just sit” variety which I called, earlier “sitting on your arse.”

What keeps Zen from reawakening itself is our enthrallment with materialism, including Lama Trungpa’s notion of “spiritual materialism” which is about deceiving ourselves into believing the we are following a spiritual path (the Buddha’s) when we are not.  Not only this, we are still bound up with the bad habit of Western rationality which is based on forming concepts about something like Zen then intellectualizing these concepts into still more concepts all of which is a veiled form of ignorance (avidya).

Only with the exhaustion of materialism and Western rationality are we then ripe to reawaken Zen.  

 

Comments

[Gui Do]

Thich Tri Dung, like many others of Vietnamese origin (Thich Nhat Hanh etc.), is supposed to be sent to foreign countries as an agent of the KP. In the book "Innovative Buddhist Women" you'll find a hint, as in other protests of Vietnamese abroad against certain "monks" who sympathize with the government in Vietnam, though not always obvious. TNH for example once worked with Thich Tri Quang, who militantly opposed the government that the US supported (see the CIA document online).

[Not-very-bright fella]

Thank you all.

[minx]

My master told me;

"Where illusion is king, the throne of nirvana is empty."