What Is Zen?: Plain Talk for a Beginner's Mind by Norman Fischer & Susan Moon

Author:Norman Fischer & Susan Moon [Fischer, Norman]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Shambhala
Published: 2016-02-09T05:00:00+00:00

Yes. In the widest sense, as I’ve just been saying, “Zen” is an attitude and a feeling about life that you can “practice” in any way you want. In the strictest and most exact sense, Zen Buddhism is a religion with specific practices and observances. Going to a Zen place, studying teachings, going on retreats, experiencing Zen as it has been handed down from the past and is practiced in the present by initiated adherents will deepen and broaden its possibilities for your life.

If you take up the religious practice of Zen Buddhism, at some point you will meet a Zen teacher and be inspired to establish a practice relationship with her or him. I wouldn’t say you must do this in order to practice Zen. In fact, although there are more and more qualified Zen teachers all the time, Zen teachers are still not as common as, say, physicians, psychotherapists, or rabbis. Many people who are serious about their Zen practice live in places where there are no Zen teachers. And certainly these people are practicing Zen without a teacher. But if you can find a teacher you have affinity with and practice regularly with that teacher, it will make a difference.

The idea of a “Zen teacher” may be misleading. A Zen teacher isn’t a person; a “Zen teacher” inevitably involves a world, a context. Zen teachers exist in the context of Zen teaching, Zen communities, a Zen practice environment, so finding a teacher means finding a community, a sangha, a teaching, a context. To have support, guidance, and friendship for your practice, to have people you can communicate with who reflect your life back to you, makes a big difference. It makes a big difference not to feel alone, not to rely only on yourself, not to feel that you are somehow making up your spiritual life out of your own head. So to study with a Zen teacher is to expand the context of your practice beyond yourself and your own ideas. Ideally the teacher is someone who can express the practice not only through her or his words, but also through presence, conduct, and feeling.

All of this is a Zen teacher—a context, a community, a living example of the teaching, and a relationship based on mutual trust and respect. I think it is pretty clear that if all this were part of your Zen practice, it would make a difference.

The classical model is living together with your teacher in a Zen monastic community. There are a few places in the West where you can do this, and it is an invaluable and moving experience. But probably for most people this isn’t possible. In the United States now there are many lay Zen communities that meet weekly or daily. Many of them have teachers guiding the practice. So finding a Zen teacher within an hour or less from where you live is becoming increasingly possible in this country. The Internet opens the possibility of listening to dharma talks online and developing a sense of a particular teacher’s style and approach to the teachings.

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