The Shamanic Bones of Zen: Revealing the Ancestral Spirit and Mystical Heart of a Sacred Tradition by Zenju Earthlyn Manuel

Author:Zenju Earthlyn Manuel [Manuel, Zenju Earthlyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781611809190
Publisher: Shambhala
Published: 2022-02-08T00:00:00+00:00

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Zen master Kodo Sawaki (1880–1965) said, “Zazen is good for nothing.” It is a famous quote of which I understood nothing until after my first sesshin (a traditional seven-day Zen sitting retreat). If you are waiting for something to happen in zazen, then you are looking for the results of the practice. You want something out of it for the time and money spent. If you go to a shaman, you may look for an immediate result of their work with your illnesses. But just as there are no guarantees of results in zazen, there are no guarantees of results from a shaman’s assistance because there are so many other things of the body and mind, history, culture, and more affecting the experience. In the meantime, zazen and shamanic assistance give you space and time to discover life in a way that the busy world does not allow. Coming to take a seat in the zendo or at the shaman’s feet is in itself the beginning and end of liberation.

The idea of just sitting without gaining is the core teaching of Zen master Dogen Zenji, the thirteenth-century founder of the Soto Zen school in Japan (an extension of the Caodong school in China). It is called shikan-taza, and I discuss it further below. First, however, I will briefly introduce various kinds of Zen meditation other than zazen. These earlier forms of Zen as meditation clearly have shamanic elements. I thought it would be interesting to include them to see how non-Buddhist Zen evolved toward Zen Buddhist zazen through various transmissions by the Japanese Zen masters. The source of the information is from The Three Pillars of Zen by Philip Kapleau.[10]

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