A Brief Rant on Getting Zen Ordination (in the Japanese Inheritance) Wrong and Getting it Right

A couple of things have come together causing me to brood…

One was a link to an article called “The Problem With Zen Boyfriends” that a Facebook friend posted. It described a common enough type in my Zen experience, the person for whom the teachings and practice are all about disassociation. Another was a reflection at a blog I like on the word love in Buddhism and Zen and how relatively rarely it is used, and how it need not be the case. And the third was an exchange in another Facebook listing regarding the nature of emptiness, and what it means. That exchange sparked by a Nichiren priest I really admire, was a consideration of Nagarjuna’s exposition on the identity of form and emptiness and a comparison with the Taoist K’ung, void, as the womb of the world. For me pointing to the differences between a more philosophical or academic engagement and what we encounter on the street in our real lives.

It comes to a head for me in a common statement I’ve heard from people about ordination in Zen in our non-celibate Japanese inheritance. And that is one’s ordination must be more important than one’s marriage. Otherwise, goes the argument it wouldn’t be “home leaving.” And that home leaving be what ordination is about is very important to those who like to use the word “monk” for their ordained state.

This has always creeped me out.

There’s a Zen community here in the States that follows this to a logical conclusion, which is that it is okay to marry, but no kids.

That creeps me out.

The disciplines of Zen are supposed to be about liberation, about awakening, about manifestation of the Buddha’s wisdom.

And none of this seems to me to be what that’s about.

I have no problem with those who chose to become monks or nuns, meaning celibates living under rule. An ancient and venerable way.

But, not the only way to practice.

Throughout much of the Buddhist world the alternative is lay life.

But we who have inherited the Japanese Bodhisattva ordination model offer a third way, neither monk nor lay.

Best English word I’ve found to describe this is priest.

The extra, as it were, that separates this state out from lay practice is service, is ministry.

Here we are committed to our eyeballs to the Dharma. And should we marry we are committed to our eyeballs to our spouse. And should it happen, we are committed to our eyeballs to our children.

Our ordination in this context should be just as precious to us as if it were one of our children.

Nothing less.

Nothing more.

We do this and we discover how form and emptiness are nothing other than our lived lives.

One thing.

Nothing more.

Nothing less…