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<\/a><\/div>\nA couple of things have come together causing me to brood\u2026<\/p>\n
One was a link to an article called \u201cThe Problem With Zen Boyfriends<\/a>\u201d 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<\/a> 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\u2019s exposition on the identity of form and emptiness and a comparison with the Taoist K\u2019ung, 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.<\/p>\n It comes to a head for me in a common statement I\u2019ve heard from people about ordination in Zen in our non-celibate Japanese inheritance. And that is one\u2019s ordination must be more important than one\u2019s marriage. Otherwise, goes the argument it wouldn\u2019t be \u201chome leaving.\u201d And that home leaving be what ordination is about is very important to those who like to use the word \u201cmonk\u201d for their ordained state.<\/p>\n This has always creeped me out.<\/p>\n There\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n That creeps me out.<\/p>\n The disciplines of Zen are supposed to be about liberation, about awakening, about manifestation of the Buddha\u2019s wisdom.<\/p>\n And none of this seems to me to be what that\u2019s about.<\/p>\n I have no problem with those who chose to become monks or nuns, meaning celibates living under rule. An ancient and venerable way.<\/p>\n But, not the only way to practice.<\/p>\n Throughout much of the Buddhist<\/a> world the alternative is lay life. <\/p>\n But we who have inherited the Japanese Bodhisattva ordination model offer a third way, neither monk nor lay.<\/p>\n Best English word I\u2019ve found to describe this is priest.<\/p>\n The extra, as it were, that separates this state out from lay practice is service, is ministry. <\/p>\n