• Study the assigned curriculum — both Parts 1 and 2.
• Submit your essay (or your contracted alternative), which must include thoughts on both parts of each module.
• Your peer exchanges are due two days after your essay is due.

The essays are designed to be meaningful exercises of self-exploration (reflections) rather than busy work (summaries).

The practice of philosophy is a major goal of your essays and exchanges. This practice promotes and supports independent, creative and original thinking.

Essays Due by 11:00 PM on Mondays and Thursdays.

• Your essays need to be a thoughtful “journal-like” reflections.
• Essays must address both part 1 and part 2 of each module’s curriculum.
• A good reflection is one that I could not have read before. This is because it is the essay that only you could have written — due to your unique set of life experiences.

Minimum Requirements

• Essays are not summaries. That is busy work.
• Summaries do not receive credit because they do not require serious thought — simply the ability to record information.
• Your essays must be more than 700 words to receive credit and be eligible for a C, more than 800 words to be eligible for a B, and more than 900 words to be eligible for an A.
• Your assignments are not eligible for A’s if they require proofreading.
• Assignments that are partial (not meeting minimum requirements) do not receive partial credit.
• Late assignments are not eligible for credit.

Essay Prompts

You are not required to use the following prompts, but they may help you think about what you are studying:

• What did you learn? What surprised you and/or caused enough doubt that you were inspired to do a little research and fact checking?
• Did you find any specific ideas confusing or difficult?
• Did you have an emotional response, negative or positive? Do you know why?
• Have you had any experiences you are willing to share with our class that help you relate to and understand any of the material in this module?
• Did this assignment contain any “awakening” ideas, those that inspire you rather than depress you?
• Did you find any of the ideas surprising? Why?

Final Assessment Prompts

You do not need to use these final assessment prompts either, but they may help you put what you are studying this semester into a larger perspective.

• Can you give an example or two in your essay that demonstrates you were engaging with, and thinking about, our curriculum in a serious way?
• Did you study everything required or did you rush and skim?
• Did you find yourself thinking about class content when you did not have to, such as finding yourself discussing ideas with friends or family?
• Did you seek clarification about class material that confused you? If not, why not?
• Have your studies contributed to any increase in self-knowledge (how you understand the world and your place in it) or a deeper understanding of one’s current world view?

PART 1

Japan

Shinto

Introduction

Shinto is the indigenous tradition of Japan. It is a very Japanese phenomenon, in that almost all people who practice Shinto are Japanese and almost all Japanese (90%) identify themselves as being Shinto. There are many ways to approach Shinto, from a historical overview to a modern understanding of how it developed.

Shinto goes back to prehistoric times, and in this sense, it is an animistic nature religion that has some things in common with the other religions of the preliterate world. Nevertheless, Shinto has merged in modern times into a nationalistic and imperialistic philosophy that was known to the world as State Shinto. Under this guise, it had much influence on the generations that led up to the period of over fifty years when Japan was involved in a series of foreign wars. This version of Shinto took on some fearsome aspects that we will also look at and see if we can understand how this happened. But first let us get a feel for what it means to be Shinto.

For the Japanese, “being Shinto is neither a set of beliefs formalized into a creed nor an identifiable act of faith” (Shinto, p. 1). As a result, religious scholars sometimes have a difficult time describing this way of life as a religion. Another thing to keep in mind is that much like we learned with the Chinese, religions in Asia are inclusive rather than exclusive, so Japanese people may identify with not only Shinto, but also with Buddhism and other traditions.

Shinto is a religion that stresses “sensitivity to nature, purification, and simplicity” (Shinto, p. 1). As such, it is a way of life more than a dogmatic system requiring faith. Some people see it as more cultural than religious. There is a truth to this, but it does not contain the whole truth, because there is a definite Shinto spirituality that goes beyond mere adherence to cultural traditions.

The problem with the word spirituality is that, for many people, it holds connotations of mystical experiences of a transcendent God. This is not the only way to understand this word. Just as we can be blinded by a sharp light or by staring at the sun, so we can also experience light as simply the medium through which we see.

“So, too, for spirituality. It may appear so intensely and abruptly that it obliterates everything else, or it may be reflected off or refracted through the most mundane events. As we will see, Shinto spirituality most often takes the latter form. To limit our sense of spirituality to the mystical would be to miss a major part of what it means to be Shinto” (Shinto, p. 3).

Is there a way for us to relate to being Shinto? Yes and no. On one hand, many Japanese people have a difficult time telling the difference between what makes them Shinto and what makes them Japanese because the two ways of being in the world are so similar. On the other hand, we don’t all have to have a favorite food to know what it is like to have a favorite food.

Someone may like sweets and someone else may like salty snacks. Sweets and salt do not have a lot in common, but the act of enjoying our favorite foods does give us something in common. So it is with Shinto. I think that many of us have experiences of feeling Shinto in a beautiful natural setting, but did not necessarily know that is what it is called.

Watching the sunset is a Shinto experience. Why? This is not easy to explain, and Shinto stresses that it cannot be explained. But in those moments, as we transition between day and night, we are aware, for the lack of a better word, of the great mystery of life in which we are bound. It is a moment of pause, of wonder, of amazement.

This mystery at the heart of life is what is celebrated in Shinto. The key word there is celebration. When moments of mystery cause you to open to wonder and you want to celebrate the moment, you are feeling Shinto!

“That is: when we spiritually encounter mystery, it is inseparably about something (the inexplicable) and about how we respond to that something (with wonder)” (Shinto, p. 10). Now that we have a sense of Shinto, let’s learn a little about its history before we return to this sense of wonder at its heart.

The History of Shinto

Early Shinto predates historical records. It seems to have been the indigenous tradition of the early people living on the Japanese islands. These people lived as hunters and gatherers in the mountains, but as populations grew and game became more difficult to find, people started forming small communities in the various valleys that focused on growing rice and vegetables and fishing.

This was a time of magic and taboo. The Japanese people sensed a great mystery surrounding them, especially in nature, and felt that it was their job to offer respect and appeasement in order to avoid natural disasters and insure good harvests. Sometimes scholars use the word animism to describe this sense that everything is alive somehow and in relationship with humans. This sense of mystery they described as “kami.”

It was a presence that was very real to them, but not actually considered divine in the traditional sense. Much later kami will become associated with gods and goddesses, but never exclusively, and never in the same way as with the Greek and Roman gods. For example, the gods of Japan were not another sort of being than humans are, but simply an extension of what it is that makes us human.

In this sense, people could become kami themselves. The thing to keep in mind with kami is that it is not located only in the gods and goddesses, but wherever one encounters this presence. “The way to and from this awesome mystery is ‘the kami path.’ The written characters [for this path] are usually pronounced ‘Shinto.’ Shinto springs forth from awe” (Shinto, p. 11).

We don’t know much else about these prehistoric people, but once literacy reached Japan in about the 6th century C.E., we enter the middle stage of Shinto, taking us right up to the 19th century.

The writing of the oral traditions of Japan marked this middle stage. When this happened, the local gods of nature took on more of a celestial significance and were seen as the creators of the world and of the Japanese people in particular. This is where the sun God rises to prominence and actually gives birth to the first emperors of Japan.

It is, in fact, claimed that same family has since ruled Japan, where there has only ever been one “dynasty.” Now this can easily lead to an exclusiveness and imperialism that we will see much later, but this did not happen for over a thousand years. We are not actually sure why this happened, but it seems that Confucianism and Buddhism had a lot to do with it.

Both movements entered Japan at a time when it had already been around for a thousand years and had developed elaborate and sophisticated philosophies to explain the world and spiritual experience. Shinto, while a way of life, did not have this intellectual background, and so it merged very nicely with these other traditions.

As a way of life, Shinto continued, but as an explanatory force, people used Buddhist and Chinese philosophical ideas. This marriage lasted for a millennium, which leads us to the last stage.

During the 19th century, there was a movement of people in Japan who were trying to get to the essence of what it meant to be Japanese. An intellectual movement called the Native Studies program fueled this. It is a long involved story, but the short of it is that Japanese leaders decided to get rid of all foreign influences, in an effort to get back to the heart of Japanese civilization.

In order to do this, they essentially persecuted and banned people of other faiths, including Buddhists, to a great extent. To go along with this, they developed an elaborate philosophy and theology around Shinto, which kept some of the practices, but turned the attention of the people to what has become known as State Shinto.

State Shinto was centered on the emperor and the nation-state as the ultimate manifestation of kami. Before long, the emperor was not only the father of the Japanese people, but he was the father of all people. This fed very nicely into Japan’s imperialistic agenda at that time.

All the horrors of fundamentalism, literalism, and dogmatism that Shinto had managed to avoid all of these years came into full force and changed the nature of Japanese self-perception. In other words, we now have two very different versions of Shinto.

It is easy to judge this Shinto as an abomination. In some ways it is, but we must also remember that almost all people have stories of their uniqueness and how they are more special than everyone else. At the same time the Japanese were going through their worse times of fascism, the Germans were using their own mythology of the master race to conduct their own affairs.

Closer to home, we have the whole problem of America’s sense of manifest destiny and the evils this has led to. So while we don’t have to like State Shinto and what it led to, we can take comfort in the fact that the other version of Shinto (the demythologized version) is alive and well in Japan today and wherever Japanese people migrate. As I opened this lecture with the thought that the essence of Shinto is something we can all experience at times in our lives. So let’s turn back to this essential Shinto.

Shinto as a Way of Life

“Shinto spirituality is about learning to feel at home with experiences that intrigue, startle, or frighten–feeling we belong with them and them with us–even if we do not fully understand why” (Shinto, p. 11).

This being at home with mystery is one of the things I really love about Shinto. There is no need to explain, only a need to appreciate and celebrate these mysteries. Shinto is also about connectedness and learning to feel and recognize that we are parts of a greater whole. In order to do this, Shinto has developed many practices.

These practices seem to draw on the fact that while it is believed that kami are everywhere present, just as salt is ever present in the ocean, there are special places where one can be more open to their presence and thus enter into communion with them.

“In general, Shinto maintains that humans are internally related to kami and without this relation people would not be what they are. The other side is just as important: it is in the inherent nature of kami to be interdependent and intimately connected with the world, including human beings” (Shinto, p. 17).

Awareness of this relationship is facilitated by torii, purification, and the Shinto shrines, so let’s look at these three “entrances” to the kami.

“The torii or Shinto gate is a sacred marker. The torii functions as a bookmark for connecting people to awe-inspiring power. It marks where one has left off and where one will want to return. It is a tangible gateway to an intimacy with the world, one’s people, and oneself. When people get lost in the details of everyday life, when they disconnect from their capacity for awe, they often feel homeless. The torii shows the way home” (Shinto, p. 18).

The torii are usually associated with the entrances to shrines, but they are actually found in other places, especially in places of natural wonder. For example, if you were to climb Mount Fuji in Japan, you would find torii on the way to the summit.

“Mount Fuji was not sacralized by a historical event. It is, and always has been, intrinsically awe-inspiring, a site filled with marvelous power. For Shinto, a tree or rock may be kami simply by virtue of its age or eerie shape. If people can feel its concentrated material energy, this is enough to associate it with kami. This makes it akin to some of the awesome American natural phenomena” such as our own beautiful coast (Shinto, p. 20).

One of the things you might associate with Shinto is the emphasis on purification. All shrines have a source of running water that one makes use of to wash hands and mouth before entering the shrine. This love of water goes back into prehistoric times. The earliest travelers to Japan remarked on the Japanese desire to bathe and be clean.

Today we think of hot baths, but the Shinto focus began with running water, especially waterfalls. One of the most important things you can do in Shinto practice is go through a special cleansing ceremony, where they take you outside to a waterfall and you stand right underneath it and let the water pour down on you like a powerful shower.

Cleanliness is not just a physical thing, but a process of being able to purify one’s mind so that you can recognize the ever-present kami. In other words, just as a dirty mirror cannot reflect the light, so a person with a clouded mind cannot be aware of the presence of mystery, wonder and awe.

While the running water at shrines does not serve to cleanse the whole body, it serves the symbolic purpose of asking people to clear their minds and hearts, so that when they enter the shrine they can be receptive to the mystery that is present, just as torii reminds us that as we walk through them we need to let go of our baggage and try to see anew.

The Shinto shrines serve a number of purposes, from simple markers of kami, to functioning as modern churches and temples. People often stop by for a quick visit, but they can also stay for more elaborate rituals at special times of the year and for special ceremonies like weddings.

What I find interesting is the contemplative nature of these places. They are often very simple and beautiful. If you asked many Japanese why they visit them, they might not be able to give you a quick answer. Many times we might think of praying, but it is not usually to make a specific request as much as it is to simply visit and pay attention to the presence there without thought and commentary.

An example of this is if you went for a stroll in your neighborhood and happened to see a friend in a window of a house and you drop in to say hello, have a cup of coffee, and then continue your walk. Why did you stop in? No particular reason. You happened to see your friend and you paid a visit. There was no specific purpose to it, and yet those moments are often what give our lives so much quality.

The Philosophy of the Samurai

The philosophy of the Samurai may be a bit of a grand title, as these Japanese people were not really philosophers or academics, but I like to use the term whenever we have a distinctive lifestyle, because I believe that that lifestyle is a demonstration of a worldview.

We will now look at the way of life of the Samurai and their code of conduct known as Bushido. It reveals a way of being in the world that we can learn from and even worry about a bit.

Japan’s history dates back many thousands of years. One of the main problems has been warfare. While war and violence are a universal phenomenon, it is good to know the causes of why it emerged in Japan. The real issue was land. Only about 20% of Japan is fit for farming, and as a result, it was the main resource that caused people to struggle with one another. Much of Japanese history is the history of warring clans. It took a long time before Japan was fully united.

“In many respects, whether at home or interacting with outsiders, one of the most powerful cumulative and lasting influences of history on the Japanese culture and mentality, even to the present day, has been the extraordinarily long duration of military rule in Japan. The entrenchment of the samurai as the dominant class had profound cultural and psychological effects on the Japanese people. These effects were brought about by the acute changes in society that martial rule effected by majestic force, and also by chronic indoctrination of society subsequently promulgated by the military governments to legitimize their rule ideologically” (Cleary, p. ix).

The Samurai are fundamentally soldiers. In the history we are about to study, they become a class of their own, with their own way of life and behavior that resembles the codes of chivalry that guided medieval knights in Europe.

What is interesting in terms of philosophy is that this way of life and code of behavior was deeply influenced by Buddhism, specifically Zen, and also by Shinto and Confucianism. As a result, when we study the Samurai, we gain insight into the Japanese people and their unique understanding of the world, especially the world of ideas. The first stories of the Samurai go so far back that we are in the realm of legend rather than recorded history, but it is an interesting story and so we will start there!

History

“One of the important dates in the history of the Japanese warring class is 660 B.C. That is when, according to legend, Jimmu Tenno became head of a confederation of warlike clans. Tenno was known as “The Divine Warrior.” He was bale to conquer much new territory and eventually settled in the area of Yamato. This eventually gave rise to the Yamato dynasty and state. The leaders of Yamato believed themselves to be of divine origin. The Yamato clans conducted many military campaigns on the Asian mainland. The targets included Korea and China. These campaigns led to the importation of Korean and Chinese culture, technology and martial arts” (Google, “A Brief History…”).

The mainland heavily influenced the Japanese people. Even the first Japanese writing was done with Chinese characters.

“Legend says that Emperor Keiko was the first person with the title of “Shogun.” The word meant “Barbarian-subduing General.” Legend continues that Keiko had a son named “Prince Yamato.” He was cunning, fearless, strong and a great martial artist. Many believe that Yamato was a role model for future Samurai” (Google).

As we start to enter the days of written history, we can see that these soldiers who gave their loyalty to clan leaders had developed armor and various weapons and skills at warfare. In fact, the word “Samurai” comes from the Japanese word for “attendant.”

In other words, the Samurai were servants off their overlords. A big change occurred (as with Native Americans) when the horse was introduced to Japan in the 5th century A.D. The introduction of guns in the 15th century brought about further changes.

“The Samurai rose out of the continuing battles for land among the different clans. In the process the Samurai eventually became a class unto themselves between the 9th and 12th centuries A.D. They were called by two names” (Google). As they became more powerful they stopped calling themselves Samurai because of its connotations of servanthood and began calling themselves Bushi, which means “warriors or knights.” “Some of them were related to the ruling class. Others were hired men. They gave complete loyalty to their feudal landowners and received land and position in return” (Google).

The precise expectations on either side of this relationship have much do with the Confucian philosophy that social harmony is built on people understanding their place in society and then meeting the expectations of their role with as much excellence as possible.

If you remember from our unit on China, Confucianism is often compared to a beautiful symphony, where every musician plays their instrument as well as they possibly can, they only play their own parts, and they play their own parts at the right time. Without that precise order you would lose the beauty of the music and have instead chaos.

In this way, “each feudal landlord used his Samurai to protect his land and to expand his power and rights to more land” (Google). As the years passed, smaller clans merged into larger clans. For many years, three main clans ruled Japan, until eventually one was able to dominate the others.

The ascendancy of the samurai class in Japan took many generations. At first, they were closely allied with the aristocracy, but eventually “the warrior class and the aristocracy grew further apart in occupational outlook, as the aristocracy focused on cultural development while the warriors handled military and administrative affairs” (Cleary, p. xi).

Part of the issue was that the aristocracy became somewhat enfeebled by their excesses, while the warrior class demanded more of a share of the wealth as their participation in battles and administrative work took up more of their time. This eventually made possible “the establishment of a national military government, operating in parallel with the civil government, which still administered imperial and aristocratic holdings, but more powerful and able to domineer over the latter” (Cleary, p. xi-xii).

We have a parallel in Western history: As the Roman Empire fell apart, no one appointed the Pope to take over and, in fact, it would take centuries for the full power of the papacy to assert itself. Nevertheless, as the Church assumed more and more of the responsibilities of the ruling class, they just naturally took over.This seems to be the pattern followed in Japan. The samurai could not kill the emperor, as he was considered a god, but they could circumscribe his power and influence on the temple while they ruled everything else.

The first military government was established in 1186, and a series of such governments would rule until 1868. “It was the Tokugawa regime that would eventually shut Japan off from the outside world and maintained its own system of samurai rule for 250 years, from 1617 until 1867” (Cleary, p. xiii).

One way this rule differed from previous rules was that they turned the class system, already very hierarchical and Confucian, into a caste system where people remained in the class into which they were born, with the warrior class being at the top.

Another major innovation was to remove the samurai from the land and have them live in the castles of their leaders, where they were paid in rice rather than in property. This policy was instituted in order to avoid the samurai becoming too powerful and so that leaders could keep their eyes on them.

“This organizational device provided for greater control of the warrior caste as a whole by the central military government, and also transformed the samurai more extensively than ever into an administrative class. To compensate psychologically for the urbanization and bureaucratization of the warrior class, martial arts were developed into highly theatrical, philosophically elaborated systems of mental and moral training” (Cleary, p. xiv-xv).

Another major change was that this period of being cut off from the world, while at the same time living in a united Japan, meant that the warrior caste no longer had any real battles to fight. Due to this, we begin to see a serious code of ethics formed and even a philosophy emerging that will allow for the training of samurai and their continued adherence to a warrior mentality when there was a period of prolonged peace.

Again, we see a similarity in Europe, when the knights would gather for tournaments and such things when they were not actively engaged in warfare. Part of martial arts training includes training the mind. As a result, samurai became interested in Buddhism, especially Zen, because Zen put the emphasis on meditation and a direct seeing that did not require elaborate scholarship and mastery of the Buddhist scriptures.

Even with the interest in Zen, samurai who were busy with administrative affairs rather than battles quietly became scholars and teachers as well as samurai. Some of this scholarship led to the Native Studies movement and thus led to the revisioning of Shinto that would eventually lead to State Shinto.

Not surprisingly, State Shinto would emerge as a philosophy from the class of scholars who were also samurai. You can see the connection with military rule and nationalistic and imperialistic ambitions.

“The samurai warrior caste therefore exerted great influence on the whole of Japanese society, not only through its role as ruler and law giver, but also through its patterns of patronage, such as cultural and educational activities of its noncombatants and clients. As a process of many hundreds of years’ duration, this element of Japanese civilization acquired extraordinary momentum and force, both politically and psychologically” (Cleary, p. xv).

The modern Japanese reputation for discipline is one example of the lasting influence of these years. And it is to this influence understood philosophically that we will now turn.

Philosophy

“Bushido means “Way of the Warrior.” It was at the heart of the beliefs and conduct of the samurai. The philosophy of Bushido is “freedom from fear.” It meant that samurai transcended his fear of death. That gave him the peace and power to serve his master faithfully and loyally and die well if necessary. “Duty” is a primary philosophy of the samurai” (Google). We will approach Bushido in two ways; from the Zen Buddhist tradition and from the Confucian tradition.

Zen Buddhism is a form of Japanese Buddhism that works with the Chan tradition from China, which, if you remember, was a marriage of sorts between Indian Buddhism and Chinese Taoism. The fact that Zen is used to foster a warrior caste is just one of those ironies that is so interesting.

Just as we saw a beautiful version of Shinto turn for a while into State Shinto, so Buddhism, which teaches peace and nonviolence, forms a foundation to Bushido philosophy. How did this happen?

For one thing, they ignored Buddhist ethics and instead focused on Buddhist practices, especially those that emphasized calmness, concentration, and a penetration to the notion of no-self, which could eliminate fear of death. Another irony was that many samurai who took up this practice ended up wanting the ethics as well, and became monks and gave up fighting. Sometimes they were persecuted for this betrayal of their caste. But for those who stayed, it will be important to look at these three Buddhist insights.

A warrior is often in frightening situations where it is important to remain calm. Buddhist practice leads to this calmness because it allows one to dis-identify from ordinary thoughts and fears, and take a larger perspective on things. Some of its exercises are as simple as learning to breathe and using the breath to come into the present moment.

In turn, coming into the present moment promotes concentration, which is also essential to a warrior. When you study distraction, you see that one of the main things that distracts us is our thoughts, what Zen calls our “monkey mind.” Our thoughts tend to jump from branch to branch and take us into the past or future, rather than the present moment, where the warrior needs to be.

Finally, if a warrior can overcome his fear of death, he will be much freer to fight without fear. If, for some reason, a warrior is shamed, he can regain his honor by committing ritual suicide, something that also requires an acceptance of death.

Buddhism facilitates this lack of fear in at least two ways. By teaching reincarnation, Buddhists are able to relax, knowing that as one life ends, another one begins, and that the other life is bound to be better if one dies honorably. We saw this in the Gita as well.

By asking people to find the self that is afraid of dying, people are able to discover that there is no such self to be found. If this mystery of the self is deeply penetrated, one will be able to approach the subject of death in a much lighter fashion. As mentioned earlier, the Zen tradition was also less academic and more practice-oriented than other forms of Buddhism, which was attractive to a warrior caste.

The mindfulness practices of Buddhism in general, and Zen specifically, foster many attributes that work well for those, even today, who are involved in the martial arts. Zen became very important to Bushido. Equally important were the virtues stressed by Confucian philosophy.

If you were to read Code of the Samurai, you would see that it reads like a manual of proverbs about how to succeed in life and how to cultivate the virtues that lead one to excellence. It teaches, among other things, the virtues of loyalty, frugality, self-discipline, honor, courtesy and respect, and even education.

One of the teachings I found most interesting is the problem of distractions. The Code does not want warriors to get lost in distractions and waste time. Every minute should be accounted for and productive. If you are not actively working, then you should be practicing the martial arts, reading and studying, or helping others.

A true samurai does not have any down time. While meditation is relaxing, it is not considered a waste of time, but rather good training. So it is not that you have to be super busy, but you need to use your time productively.

Shinto is a beautiful way of life, and although it is very Japanese, I have tried to show that it is also something all of us can be aware of. Our terminology may not include kami, but the experience of awe and mystery in special moments with people, and especially in nature, is something we all share.

Shinto is a way of life, the way of kami. It is a contemplative path. It has been said that the quality of a life is not so much measured by how many breaths you take, but how many times you have your breath taken away. Shinto is a path that asks us to live in such a way that we are aware of the awesomeness of our existence, and thus live in a perpetual state of wonder, with our breath taken away.

The great Sufi poet Rumi said that if we could only see with the eyes of love we would weep with wonder. I have discovered that that is a perfect Shinto statement as well. It is “a spirituality without an agenda” (Shinto, p. 36).

Zen Buddhism

Huston Smith wrote: “We understand the specific attraction of Zen Buddhism when we realize the extent to which the contemporary West is animated by “prophetic faith,” the sense of the holiness of the ought, the pull of the way things could be and should be but as yet are not. Such faith has obvious virtues, but unless it is balanced by a companion sense of the holiness of the is, it becomes top-heavy. If one’s eyes are always on tomorrows, todays slip by unperceived. To a West which in its concern to refashion heaven and earth is in danger of letting the presentness of life–the only life we really have–slip through its fingers, Zen comes as a reminder that if we do not learn to perceive the mystery and beauty of our present life, our present hour, we shall not perceive the worth of any life, of any hour” (Kapleau, p. xiii).

In the last module, we learned about Chan Buddhism, which is the Buddhism of India merging with Chinese religion, especially Taoism. Now we want to study how this Buddhism developed when it became known in Japan as Zen. It is important to know about Zen, not only to learn about the Japanese people, but also because it has become very popular here in America.

“Zen is a school of Mahayana Buddhism notable for its emphasis on practice and experiential wisdom–particularly as realized in the form of meditation known as zazen–in the attainment of awakening. As such, it de-emphasizes both theoretical knowledge and the study of religious texts in favor of direct individual experience of one’s own true nature” (Wikipedia).

As mentioned about Chan, the tradition says that Zen goes all the way back to the historical Buddha and his famous “flower sermon.” The only monk to smile when the Buddha held up the flower (symbolizing the direct transmission of enlightened consciousness beyond words and symbols) was considered the first patriarch.

“This a way within Buddhism developed which concentrated on direct experience rather than on rational creeds or revealed scriptures” (Wikipedia). It is believed the 28th patriarch, Bodhidharma, traveled to China, bringing with him this Zen tradition from India in the 6th century C.E., when he became known as the first patriarch.

Chan Buddhism would eventually become the dominant form of Buddhism in China. “Although the Japanese had known Zen-like practices for centuries due to the influence of both Shinto and Taoism, it was not introduced as a separate school until the 12th century” (Wikipedia).

Zen Teachings and Practices

“The fundamental Zen practice of zazen, or seated meditation, recalls both the posture in which the Buddha is said to have achieved enlightenment under the Bodhi tree, and the elements of mindfulness and concentration which are part of the Eightfold Path as taught by the Buddha” (Wikipedia).

While Zen does not emphasize scriptural study, neither does it neglect it. All of the basic Buddhist teachings on no-self, impermanence, the Four Noble truths, the five precepts, etc., are important aspects of Zen Buddhism.

When we studied Mahayana Buddhism, I mentioned the ideal figure of the Bodhisattva. This Buddha-like person on the brink of Nirvana chooses to delay his personal gratification in order to help others achieve liberation. This is often referred to as the movement of Buddhism from an emphasis on wisdom to one that emphasizes compassion instead.

Zen is very loyal to the Bodhisattva ideal, and many Zen Buddhists take the Bodhisattva vow. Zen is specifically interested in certain scriptures such as the Lotus Sutra and the Heart of Perfect Wisdom Sutra, as well as in some of its own special writings, such as the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch and the various collections of koans.

In modern literature, some of the previously private conversations between disciples and their Zen master are being published. These writings give us a very special look at the insides, so to speak, of the Zen relationship and practice as discovered in contemporary life.

“Zen training emphasizes daily life practice, along with intensive periods of meditation. Practicing with others is an integral part of Zen practice. In explaining Zen Buddhism, Japanese Zen teachers have made the point that Zen is a “way of life.” D.T. Suzuki, perhaps the man who did the most to bring Zen to the Western world, wrote that aspects of a life dedicated to Zen include a life of humility; a life of labor; a life of service; a life of prayer and gratitude; a life of meditation” (Wikipedia).

Because Zen stems from Mahayana Buddhism, it fully includes lay people, and does not emphasize monasticism. However, there are Zen monks and nuns. Some of them take only temporary vows, while there are some who remain monks for life. The majority of people practicing Zen are lay people who are married with children and work normal jobs.

Because Zen does focus on daily life, married life is a perfect place to practice mindfulness. Probably the most difficult part of lay life is the difficulty of making long retreats, which are encouraged.

Manual labor is considered an important part of monastic life in the West as well as in the East, so it became important in lay practice as well. The idea behind it is that mindfulness practice is facilitated by not only meditation, which we will soon discuss, but also by simple repetitive behavior that allows one to remain focused on the practice rather, than getting lost in the work itself.

It is also well known that when we do routine things, like brush our teeth, our mind can wander. In Zen, the goal is to bring the mind back into the present moment, so as not to waste precious opportunities to practice. It is an interesting phenomenon that normal everyday tasks, consisting of what most of us would call drudgery, are transformed when undertaken with an effort to be fully present. We stop resisting what is happening by wishing we were somewhere else and/or by using that time to engage in negative emotions.

Zen is very focused on how we use our energy, which is limited. If we are not careful, we squander our daily quotient and live lives that are exhausting, negative and boring. But if we are alive to what we are doing, those activities that can drain us actually have the opposite effect and bring us new sources of strength and motivation.

It is one of those ironies we find in traditions that everything changes when we change, not the conditions of our outer lives, but our inner attitudes. The goal is to move from resistance to acceptance, from fighting reality to embracing reality.

Zazen

There is probably nothing more important to Zen than the practice of zazen. Zazen is normally understood to be seated meditation, the primary practice, but this is too limited a way of seeing it. Zazen includes meditation, but it also includes those daily life practices that we just discussed.

Zazen is the practice of mindfulness. What is mindfulness? It is to work with one’s attention so as to facilitate presence. There are many ways to facilitate the growth of presence and attention, but the core way is through seated meditation. At first, one works to train the attention not to wander, but to stay focused on one’s breathing and posture. Often sitting practice starts with the simple enough task of staying present for the count of ten breaths.

Amazingly enough, this is a very difficult feat and it helps us to see this to understand what we are up against. Our inability to do this on a regular and continuous basis promotes both humility and the wish to practice, so that we can stay in the present moment.

The wandering mind becomes not just an abstract reality, but a very present realization of the human condition and a recognition of how little we can live in the moment, which Zen teaches is all we ever have. In other words, we see how we are missing our own lives.

Sometimes we just practice starting over whenever we notice that we have gone off into thought. In becoming aware of how lost we get, it is interesting, and sometimes a little discouraging and frightening, to see how many of these thoughts are negative. When we see how this does no good and actually prevents what most of us are looking for, that is, a sense of peace and happiness, then the wish develops to learn to let go of all the distractions and stay in the moment.

Within Zen, two schools have put a different emphasis on what you should be occupied with while sitting. Rinzai Zen teaches that the meditator should be occupied with attention on the breath and then eventually koan meditation, which I will explain in a moment.

Soto Zen says the meditator should “just sit.” That is, rather than focus the concentration on the breath, one just tries to watch the thoughts like you would watch the water pass in a river, or as you would watch a movie. The effort is to not be identified with one’s thoughts, and eventually emotions and sensations, but just witness them, watching them arising and disappearing.

Koan meditation is one of the ways a Zen meditator can practice zazen. A koan is a mental puzzle in the form of “a story or dialogue, generally related to Zen or other Buddhist history; the most typical form is an anecdote involving early Chinese Zen masters. These anecdotes involving famous Zen teachers are a practical demonstration of their wisdom, and can be used to test a student’s progress in Zen practice. Koans often appear as paradoxical or linguistically meaningless dialogues or questions. Answering a koan requires a student to let go of conceptual thinking and of the logical way we order the world. The Zen student’s mastery of a given koan is presented to the teacher in a private interview. Zen teachers advise that the problem posed by a koan is to be taken quite seriously, and to be approached as literally a matter of life and death. While there is no unique answer to a koan, practitioners are expected to demonstrate their understanding of a koan and of Zen through their responses. The teacher may approve or disapprove of the answer and guide the student in the right direction” (Wikipedia).

The idea is that the struggle with a koan can propel the mind out of its habitual ways of thinking and approaching problems, and in the process, lead to a breakthrough into a direct seeing into the nature of reality.

Philosophy is usually seen as the process of trying to understand the nature of reality. To some extent, this is true. When philosophy is also a path in life, as it was for someone such as Socrates, then philosophy is not about finding answers but about good questions. These questions are not just intellectual puzzles to entertain and educate, like doing a crossword puzzle.

Working with the big questions is a process of allowing the question to deepen within oneself. The koan meditation is supposed to facilitate this same deepening and opening.

This would also explain why there is no single correct answer to a question, there is simply a breakthrough. When one has that breakthrough, it is obvious to the Zen master and they are allowed to move on.

There is one koan I know the answer to, and so I can give it as an example: “If the one goes into the many, where does the many go?” Now the “answer” would be that the many returns to the one! But here is the catch: If you tried to give this as your answer then the Zen master would send you back to your cushion because it would be obvious that you had simply looked up the answer and were quoting a formula rather than speaking from your own experience of breakthrough.

“The amount of time spent daily in zazen by practitioners varies. The famous Zen master Dogen recommends that five minutes or more daily is beneficial for householders. The key is daily regularity, as Zen teaches the ego will naturally resist, and the discipline of regularity is essential. Practicing Zen monks may perform four to six periods of zazen during a normal day, with each period lasting 30 to 40 minutes. Normally, a monastery will hold a monthly retreat period, lasting between one and seven days. During this time, zazen is practiced more intensely: monks may spend four to eight hours in meditation each day, sometimes supplemented by further rounds of zazen late at night” (Wikipedia).

It is said that for anyone wishing to gain the benefits of meditation, they must commit to doing it regularly, and that doing it twice a day for at least 20 minutes is considered optimal, with longer and more frequent periods when possible.

The lack of results people often feel is due to this lack of discipline, which is why it helps to have both a teacher and a group to which one is accountable and from which one receives support. It is to the role of the teacher in Zen that we will turn next.

The Teacher

“Because the Zen tradition emphasizes direct communication over scriptural study, the Zen teacher has traditionally played a central role. Generally speaking, a Zen teacher is a person ordained in any tradition of Zen to teach the dharma, guide students of meditation, and perform rituals” (Wikipedia).

Part of the concern, and for good reason, is that the teacher has what is called the lineage, which means he or she has been recognized by the current master to have received the dharma transmission that goes beyond words and concepts. You can’t set out to be a Zen master, go to seminary, get your doctorate, graduate and then be ordained.

It is not that your journey won’t involve a great deal of practice and learning, but it is a recognition rather than an earned degree. A master may have hundreds of disciples, but he or she may only recognize a handful to continue the lineage, that is, to teach with the recognized authority bestowed by tradition.

The teacher is important, because he or she will work with you very closely over a number of years and therefore get to know you very well. This personal knowledge of you as well as their knowledge and experience of Zen allows them to guide you and help you avoid many dead ends and false leads.

The real advantage is that they have already covered the territory that you want to travel. Rather than get lost or make a wrong turn, you can ask for directions from someone who already knows the territory. The inner journey can be perilous for some people. People open up the depths of their consciousness; a consciousness that western and eastern understandings have failed to explain. People can be overwhelmed and discouraged, so it helps to work with a teacher.

Almost as important is working with a community, what the Buddhists call the sangha. The spiritual journey can be long and burdensome, and it helps to have others to share the journey with, exchange notes, and give and receive support.

For example, many people find it easier to sink into the silence of meditation in a group than on their own. There is a force that seems to be available when you sit with a group of people who are all intending the same purpose. Even the work in a monastery goes better with others. For example, it you are assigned to the kitchen crew, it will help to maintain a state of mindfulness if you know everyone else is also striving for the same state.

Most importantly, in working with others, you have opportunities to practice compassion which is really important. It is all too easy for people to focus on their own spiritual advancement, what Buddhists call spiritual materialism, if they don’t have others to keep them in check and help stay humble!

Chanting and Liturgy

Zen is not just about formal zazen. There are other practices more in line with other religious practices you may already be familiar with. “A practice in many Zen monasteries is a daily liturgy service. Practitioners chant major sutras such as the Heart Sutra and other mantras. Reciting liturgy in Zen can be seen as a means to connect with the Bodhisattvas of the past. Bodhisattvas, if you remember, have taken extraordinary vows to liberate all beings from Samsara (the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth), while remaining in Samsara themselves. Since the Zen practitioner’s aim is to walk the Bodhisattva path, chanting can be used as a means to connect with these beings and realize this ideal within oneself. Through the realization of the Emptiness of oneself, and the Mahayanist ideal of the Buddha-nature in all things, one understands that there is no difference between the cosmic bodhisattva and oneself. The wisdom and compassion of the Bodhisattva one is chanting to is seen to equal the inner wisdom and compassion of the practitioner. Thus, the duality between subject and object, practitioner and Bodhisattva, chanter and sutra is ended” (Wikipedia).

“To understand this non-dual relationship experientially, one is told to practice liturgy Intimately. In distinguishing between ceremony and liturgy, Dogen states, “In ceremony there are forms and there are sounds, there is understanding and there is believing. In liturgy there is only intimacy.” The practitioner is instructed to listen and speak liturgy not just with one sense, but with one’s whole body-and-mind. By listening with one’s entire being, one eliminates the space between the self and the liturgy. By focusing all of one’s being on one specific practice, duality is transcended. Chanting intimately thus allows one to experience a no-dual reality. The liturgy used is a tool to allow the practitioner to transcend the old conceptions of self and other. In this way, intimate liturgy practice allows one to realize emptiness, which is at the heart of all Buddhist teachings” (Wikipedia).

Summary

Shinto is a beautiful way of life, and although it is very Japanese, I have tried to show that it is also something all of us can be aware of. Our terminology may not include kami, but the experience of awe and mystery in special moments with people and especially in nature is something we all share.

Buddhist and Confucian philosophy come together to inform the samurai way of life. To cultivate the Bushido virtues you are supposed to keep an awareness of death with you at all times. This is important because if you keep in mind that you may die soon, you tend to be more mindful and make different choices. The practice of awareness of death is important to just about all of the sacred traditions because it changes the quality of life.

This was brought home when there was news coverage of the anniversary of 9-11. One thing that was brought out was that whether it was people in the buildings before they fell or on the airplane before it crashed into the ground, the main thing that concerned people was to call home and leave messages of love.

Suddenly, all of the other things that can drive us nuts fall away and the main focus becomes really clear. This practice, while essential to a warrior caste, is actually really important for all interested in changing the quality of the experience of life. Awareness of our death and the death of those around us makes us naturally more mindful.

This has been a quick survey of a rich and deep tradition. D.T. Suzuki, who almost single-handedly brought Zen to the west, said that the one person who understood him and Zen the best was Thomas Merton. Knowing this and having great respect for this spiritual master, I find it interesting that when Thomas Merton was asked if he practiced Zen his reply was: “Who said Zen? Wash out your mouth if you said Zen!”

What could he have meant? Very simply, that Zen is not a theory to be discussed as much as it is a practice to be realized. So if you are interested in seeking this experience then I have succeeded, but if you think you understand Zen, then I have probably done you a disservice. So I leave to go wash out my mouth!

PART 2