LOOKING OVER THE HORIZON
A Talk at the 2014 Soto Zen Buddhist Association Meeting
James Myoun Ford
Boundless Way Zen
I was devastated to learn of Kyogen Carlson’s death in the days running up to the beginning of this gathering. An old and dear friend for me. And, of course, Gyokuko’s long beloved husband. Such a loss. And, truthfully, a loss for all of us here. There’s a reason Kyogen’s portrait has been placed here near the podium where we are conducting most of the business of this gathering. Kyogen was a vital thread whose heart has run right through the last near twenty years of this organization’s existence. He was a hard and diligent worker on behalf of all of us, as well as a friend and often mentor for so many in this room. And well beyond.
His death is a great loss. And, I find my small continuing jokes about what happens with the passing of the boomer generation, what I’ve liked to call the Great Die Off is really not so funny. In fact it is suddenly a bit more pressing and visceral. And I realize with this the memorial aspect of our gathering, the recollecting of those who have died in the past year is going to become a larger part of this gathering.
And with that, some sobering stats:
Only nine percent of the SZBA’s “full members” are under fifty. That’s a disturbing number. However, also, thirty-four percent of our associates are under fifty. One can take that number as daunting or hopeful. I see a bit of both in it.
Now there was a time when I feared Zen in the West was a project of the boomer generation, and it would end with us. Today I believe a sober look tells us that after a fifty year period of steady expansion of the numbers of Westerners with Zen Dharma transmission here on Turtle Island. there is going to be in the next twenty years a significant shrinking of people qualified to lead North American Zen.
I think it reasonable to assume in the next two decades there will be fewer than half as many Zen teachers in the West than there are now. Possibly only a third. This is considerably better than I had feared not many years ago, but, still, we’re talking a major contraction.
Guessing who the winners and losers out of this shakedown are going to be is problematic. What schools? What lineages? This is not a particularly fruitful speculation. Rather, I have a few observations about what does appear to be coming down the line, that I believe helpful for us to attend to.
As many here know, I’m dually credentialed, both as a Soto Zen priest and as a Unitarian Universalist minister. I have served as a Unitarian Universalist parish minister for just shy of twenty-five years, for the last six at the First Unitarian Church of Providence. In a region where religion is in fairly steep decline, including the historic UU congregations, ours is one of the few to see modest but real growth.
And, most significantly, a very large part of that growth has been out of the millennial generation. I’ve been asking why. I start by pointing out the obvious. Our building is a national registry landmark, what I like to call a New England meeting house on steroids. While our musical programming is very classical featuring mostly dead white European guy music, we do it to the nines. A large choir led by a brilliant musician runs a strong current through the worship program. And, from the high pulpit a rationalist and Buddhist sermon. With that, I say, “Why are you here?” To which one replied in summary for most all of these millennials, “Could you put robes on the choir?”
I have discerned that a certain subset, and a fairly substantial subset of the millennial generation is spiritual. The large number of younger monks and students here at Great Vow is witness to this reality. And a quick look at the younger teachers among us, not millennials, but I feel in some ways they are more characteristic of millennials than their native Xers.
This is what I see among our younger teachers that they seem to share with those millennials who are coming to the First Unitarian Church. They look a bit more conservative, at least in some ways, than Boomers. But actually not in the way that conservative/liberal spectrum has looked through out most of my life. They are more like those young Roman Catholics who want a Latin mass but don’t understand why anyone would be opposed to same gender marriage.
I see three characteristics marking some significant portion of this upcoming generation that appears on first blush to be contradictory.
1) Respect for traditions.
2) An inbuilt resistance to being told what’s what.
3) Seeking a degree of autonomy in their search. What exactly that means is still an open question, but…
There is a bottom line here. This new generation wants to be respected as who they are, that they have brains and a degree of autonomy that’s acknowledged by those in leadership.
I believe this generation could be ripe for our Soto tradition steeped in history, respectful of the mind in ways these seekers only intuit, but do intuit. We are the spiritual path many of them do not yet know they are seeking.
And, there is another trend line that we ignore at our peril: the emergence of sanghas that are led by lay boards and that hire, and therefore, of course, fire their priests. This is particularly true within our Soto communities. Off the top of my head I can think of five or so. I bet there are more.
What I’m getting at is how we live in a period of a hundred flowers. No doubt there will be enclaves across the continent dedicated to nearly every facet of organization for convert Buddhists. But my concern here is for Soto Zen in North America. And I think about those emerging sanghas that want to hire priests, as well as this upcoming generation that blends respect for traditions with a fierce autonomy.
And I find it all an open field for priests who are inspired by these phenomena and can adapt to the specific needs of these communities and the individuals who make the communities. Can adapt being the relevant term.
I have a few suggestions on how to do this. And thinking of mortality, and all the grey hair in this room, I say this with some urgency. We need to clarify who we are as priests. To what degree are we noncelibate monastics focused on our own practices and the continuation of those practices? And at the same time to what degree are we ministers in the generally understood Western sense of that word?
Each of us will come up with different responses to those questions. And that’s fine. There really is room for many paths. But, if we do not find in our hearts and in our formation of our priests ways to meet the rising need for Buddhist clerics who will help to cultivate Buddhist culture in ways appropriate for to our larger culture, we stand in danger of being irrelevant in the worst possible sense of that phrase.
I suggest we are talking about nothing less than the actualization of the bodhisattva vow for our time and place. This is something wonderful.
Let’s consider the SZBA. Our current documents and processes reflect a general conservativism on the part of the drafters, and I think genuinely representing what most of us feel important. Despite my public disagreements with aspects of the documents, I really think they are largely very good, honest representations of our communal vision. And I honor all those who have given so much time and effort to the project. And. And, we need to be willing to adapt, we must be able to change. It is a razor’s edge walk. And, dear ones, I believe we are up to it.
We need to understand ourselves, and we need to understand the community that might most respond to what we have to offer. This is at the core of our spiritual disciplines, so, we should be up for it.
Our people. We need to reach out to our people.
And lets start with an appreciation for reaching out beyond the obvious. Distinctions of race and class are terrible wounds in our hearts, both for us as individuals, and for our communities. And those wounds are part of what we are should include addressing those things. But, we need to notice the obvious, as well; the people who right now are looking to us.
Generally those who are going to be attracted to our message are well educated, and generally are going to be a little better off financially than the average. This is neither good nor bad, but it is a fact on the ground. And we, certainly I, and I believe we don’t want to end there, but we do need to start there. These are the people who need us right now. These are people who are not going to become monastics. They may have practices, they may not, what they will have are families. Mostly I’m seeing these among the communities of European descent. I’m confident they also exist among American communities derived from other parts of the globe, particularly Asia and Africa.
So…
How do we respect the needs of lay people as they are, while providing the direction that is part of the responsibility undertaken in our vows and our training?
And in what ways do we need to adapt the training for leadership in our Western Soto Zen so that this next generation can get what they need to serve their communities going forward, hopefully for long after all of us are dead?
I believe we need to focus on two tracks.
One is continuing the advancement of our specific practices, particularly zazen, and the unique adaptations of monastic training that have been the hallmarks of Soto Zen since the evolution of the temple system in Japan and the rise of the married cleric. There absolutely is a need for both monasteries and intensive training centers.
And we need to look hard at and find appropriate ways to incorporate some of the unique markers of our emergent western Soto for that larger community of people who have an intuition of Zen’s importance, and want to adapt to some reasonable form of our tradition.
Reasonable being the tricky term.
There are many things we need to look at.
I think of that photo from the Brooklyn Zen Center with the adults meditating and down the same line children playing. We need family friendly, children friendly Zen centers. Also, speaking of Brooklyn, a community led by an elected board who hires its teachers, I understand through careful out reach to the predominantly African American community where their center is located, they’ve been able to break the race barrier. At least to some degree. They are a center to watch.
I never thought I’d say this. But. You want to see the future? Look to Brooklyn.
And out of that looking, see.
We need to attend to the needs of that larger part of the next generation who are interested in the Buddha dharma and would be part of and supportive of a Soto school that was interested and supportive of their needs.
This means that ministerial thing, we’ve been addressing over the past few years. Among other things, I believe there are two characteristics of this ministerial vision of priesthood, or, perhaps five, depending on how you count them, that we need to attend to.
1) A willingness to be among a community as their spiritual leader, but not as an autocrat. This means a constant reframing of what it means to be a Zen priest.
2) This means a new reciprocity between ordained and priests that replaces the transference of merit as the “work” of Zen priests in Japan with ministerial service. It has three principle features. There is no hierarchy of these features, all three must be addressed for this to work.
A) Conducting regular and meaningful worship services that include the challenges and comforts of the western style sermon adapted out of our own traditions.
B) It means being present to people in their times of need and conducting rites of passage of all sorts.
C) And, it means developing and overseeing religious education programs for children and adults. In short it means creating full service temples.
I think it also includes a prophetic vision of not only what is, but, also, what can be. Again, that bodhisattva vow made concrete; brought into this world of hurt and longing.
In conclusion.
We are faced with many choices.
None are easy.
Some may contribute to the healing of many hearts and this planet. I’ve addressed one possible way in this talk. Just one.
Whatever way we pick, we have been invited into leadership for that great project of healing.
I hope we’re up to it.
And, you know, I believe we are.
Thank you.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In