Is Zen dead?

The underlying spiritual message of Zen is not dead because what it has to teach is unborn—what’s unborn doesn’t die.  As for the Western institution of Zen—well, yeah—it’s dying.  But it’s been dying for a long time, beginning back in the 1950s.  The death of an institution is usually a slow death.  In the case of Western Zen, it is not yet in the intensive care unit (ICU) on life support, but it’s getting there.  There is nothing much anyone can do to change the fact that the institution of Zen is going to be dead in a generation or two.  The institution is quite adept at destroying itself.

 Wrongly, in the West, the focus of Zen has been on building up an institution of formalists.  These pious formalists work hard at preserving the rituals of Zen in which zazen, itself, has become nothing more than a ritual.  Nothing is really achieved by doing zazen.  If anything, it produces a placebo effect.  Again, what the West has preserved is the form of Zen—not its content. 

It is not all of Zen’s fault that it is failing, either.  The Japanese form of Zen can be adapted to the West but there has to be a spiritual content added to it which, regrettably, the Japanese form of Zen has too little of because it, also, is dying.

What is astonishing in an ironic way, is that the literature of Zen, which includes the Zen literature of China and Korea, has one continuous, underlying message: realize absolute Mind which goes by many different names.  Zen, in fact, is founded on the Lankavatara Sutra which is all about pure Mind (cittamatra).  But why isn’t this taken up in a major way in Western Zen? which should have the realization of Mind at its center—not zazen.

I have had to conclude over these many years that Western Zennists, the bulk of them, are spiritually retarded when it comes to really and truly understanding what Buddhism and Zen Buddhism are about.  Perhaps it shall ever remain a mystery as to why Western Zennists and Western Buddhists, in general, to this day fail to see Buddhism’s monism in which absolute spirit is the substance of the universe.  In addition, we can verify this  for ourselves.  The intrinsic spiritual substance, that we have never once ceased being can, in fact, awaken to itself.  But it cannot do it through an institution which prizes and rewards formalism to the exclusion of genuine spiritual gnosis.

Comments

[Jure Kralj]

(Actually, I take the words in my last comment back. Pure Land Buddhism has in Japan took the same road as Zen. It has become materialistic. Amitabha Buddha is seen as a "symbol" and "a myth", and so on. It seems that the materialist worldview will spread and swallow everything until the Dharma is completely forgotten, just like the Buddha anticipated. Thankfully we also know that after this happens, a new Buddha will appear in the world.)

[Jure Kralj]

Chan master Yongming Yanshou (Chinese: 永明延壽) once said:

"Having both the Chan and Pure Land practices is like adding horns to a tiger. In this life we will be a teacher to others; in the next, we will become Buddhas.

With Pure Land but no Chan, every single practitioner will be reborn [in the Land of Bliss]. When we see Amitabha Buddha, how can we not achieve enlightenment?

With Chan but no Pure Land, nine of ten will lose their way. When the netherworld beckons, we will go there in a flash.

With neither Chan nor Pure Land, iron beds and bronze pillars [of the hell realm] await us. Over countless eons and lifetimes, we will have nothing to depend on."

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It seems to me the master was right. In the West, Zen is very popular but we have no "Pure Land" basis to build upon, and so we're left in the situation where only 1 out of 10, talented spiritual geniuses can do it - while the "99%", to use the Occupy lingo, go astray.

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[MStrinado]

Great--fantastic assessment!