Manifesting “Ahhh!” Japanese Style (Keep Me in Your Heart – Uncut)

A recent thread here has been about the Japanese Zen tradition – the main source of our practice here at Wild Fox. In my book (Plug! Plug!), in the “Gazing at the Moon” chapter, I wanted to deal some with the history of Zen in Japan. My editor at Wisdom didn’t think that it fit in this book and it is rather a lot for a blog post (there are even footnotes!), but what the heck. Somebody might find this helpful, especially if you’re in the “very crabby with self and other stage.” Then you’ll probably find it helpful like rocks are helpful for slingshots. But like I said, what the heck.

The section that follows was cut from the bottom of p. 67. I’ve been telling a story about visiting Japan with Katagiri Roshi and his wife. While at his home temple, Roshi visited the villagers and drank a lot of tea and maybe even more saki. Here’s what followed in the draft:

A married priest eating meat and drinking alcohol? In rule if not in actual behavior, Buddhist monks throughout Asia express “Ahhh!” through not eating meat, marrying, or drinking alcohol. Japanese priests and their Western descendents are an anomaly.

How did this difference develop? The beginning is elusive, but one important development came when Saicho (767 – 822) rejected the Vinaya as Hinayana (small vehicle) and received imperial sanction [Jeff’s comment below says only after his death]. He gave only the “Bodhisattva Precepts” to his [Tendai] disciples. For Soto Zen an important development came with Dogen-zenji’s transmission of Zen to Japan. Although essentially all of the Zen ancestors in China appear to have been Vinaya upholding monks, Dogen-zenji was not. Records indicate that he took only the “Bodhisattva Precepts” while his teacher Myozen went to some lengths to receive the “Hinayana Complete Precepts.”[1] In his practice and teaching of the “Sixteen Bodhisattva Precepts,” Dogen-zenji seems to have followed Japanese Tendai rather than his Chinese Zen predecessors.[2]

In addition, a powerful inspiration for Dogen-zenji and Japanese Buddhism was the Lotus Sutra and the principle of Original Enlightenment. Following these developments in understanding the dharma, the precept ceremony became very important, perhaps the most important aspect of precept practice.

One root for this may be in the Buddha Shakyamuni’s statement in the Parinirvana Brief Admonitions Sutra (The Last Discourse Sutra), “You should know that the precepts are your teacher. To receive the precepts is the same as if I were to remain in the world.”

To “receive the precepts” (jukai) can be understood as referring to receiving both the practice of the precepts and the precept ceremony. In other words, Buddha’s statement can be read as follows: “The precept ceremony is the same as if (the Buddha) were to remain in the world.” The details of the ceremony thus became really important because the ceremony came to be regarded as the manifestation of Buddha. This may explain why in the four writings by Dogen-zenji on the precepts, three are instructions for the precept ceremony and only one is about the meaning of the precepts.[3]

This appreciation of the precepts led to the development of a two-tiered system – precepts as bodhisattva vows and training rules, many particular to each training place. Here is Shohaku Okumura addressing this difference:

A point we have to be careful about these (Zen) precepts is to know the difference between Vinaya and this Mahayana or bodhisattva precept. Vinaya precept is very concrete set of regulations, rules within a certain group of people. “If you behave like this you have to get out of the sangha, this group of people. There are certain concrete actions we cannot do. If you do, there are certain penalties. The strange thing about our precept, Mahayana precept, is that there is no penalty. That is a problem. In order to make these precepts as a concrete moral code we need to make another version. If we mix up these precept with concrete regulation, we will have some problem.[4]

Our Soto ancestors didn’t mix up Buddhism but put the full moon to use, concretely entering the dialogue between Yangshan and Changsha. “Everyone without exception has that (full moon Buddha nature). They’re just unable to use it.” “Precisely. So let’s see you use it.” The precept ceremony was one primary expression, a tangible manifestation of “Ahhhh!” that the community engaged in together.

For us, in my view, the upside of receiving the precepts as enactment of the formless form of the Buddha, lies in how this perspective can flip our practice from the moral and historical dimension – practice in order to get enlightenment – to immanent Nirvana, or practice as enlightenment, enlightenment as practice. The downside is that it seems to provide an excuse for many of us to not take the karmic consequences of precept violations seriously enough.

For our Japanese ancestors in the late 19^th century, eating meat, drinking sake and engaging in sexual relations were common place for “monks” in many Japanese traditions and had been for a long time.[5] These behaviors, summarized as nikujiki saitai (eating meat and clerical marriage) were officially given state sanction beginning in 1873 as part of the Meiji reforms. Intense debate preceded and followed the government’s action. I summarize some of the key arguments from Jaffe’s Neither Monk nor Layman as follows:

· In the age of the decline of the dharma, very few monks were following the precepts regarding nikujiki saitai and this hypocrisy was very damaging to Buddhism;
· The Buddhist attitude toward sexuality was damaging to women and children as was the practice of monks going to prostitutes, having illicit affairs with women or temple boys and/or producing “illegitimate” offspring;
· People generally lacked the capacity to be celibate and refrain from other “impure” behaviors and even if people could, “pure” behaviors were unhealthy;
· Clerics that married and behaved more like lay people would be of more use to the lay people and the modern state;
· If Japan was to compete with the West and Protestant Christianity, a docile and unproductive clergy seemed of no use.

Apparently, despite sect rules to the contrary and the strong opposition by sect leaders, most priests moved with the powerful current of laicization – a current in the stream of 19^th century capitalism that flowed from the West to the East – and married. According to a 1987 survey of Soto Zen, 80% of the clerics were married. Of the 14,000 temples, only 31 “…remain reserved for strict monastic training.” A 1993 Soto survey found that “…only 5 percent of the Soto laity explicitly preferred an unmarried cleric. An overwhelming 73 percent expressed a preference for a married cleric….”[6]

However, “…in monastic denominations like Soto, doctrine has helped ensure the survival of the ideal that stands in stark relief to the lived practice of their clerics.”[7]

Jaffe lucidly concludes his book as follows:

Despite their marriages and the imperative to find an abbatial successor, most non-Jodo Shin Japanese Buddhist clerics continue to view ascetic monasticism as the desired, if unattainable, way of life. Even while marrying, the Buddhist clergy largely have maintained, at least for ceremonial occasions, their distinctive dress and tonsure. Although such practices may be viewed as superficial, they are gestures that also represent continued respect for the ideal those forms represent. The ongoing emphasis on the lives and teachings of the founders of the established Buddhist denominations reinforces this monastic nostalgia (emphasis added) and stands as a normative critique of both local temple and householder life. More than a century after the decriminalization of nikujiki saitai by the Meiji government, many Japanese Buddhist clerics and their families continue to live amidst the tensions arising from the contradiction between the idealization of the monastic, celibate practice that remains at the heart of their sectarian identity and the practical reality of family life at their temples, which have become almost home.[8]

One striking point here is how, given the divergence between the ideal and the practice, our Japanese brothers and sisters (and many American practitioners) practice monastic nostalgia as part of the path. Those of us not living in monasteries often feel that somehow our practice in the world is pseudo-training; those of us living in monasteries often yearn for the “other monastery,” as Chozen and Hogen Bays put it (who as a married couple teaching what they call “family-style Zen” in a monastery embody the dramatic changes occurring in our tradition). The “other monastery” is where the real, pure, authentic practice is imagined to be happening.

Meanwhile, I live in a split-level house in an ex-urb (zendo downstairs, family area upstairs), serve my children as a part-time parent and earn a living by working with adolescents with challenging behaviors. After parenting and working, I shave my head, don my priest robes and open the house for zazen, accompanied in the warm months by an orchestra of birds. My monastic nostalgia is directed toward the next period of my life, when my children are grown, when I hope to live in community like I did when practicing with Katagiri-roshi at Hokyoji.

I imagine that you are in transition too, dear reader. Just as we are all in transition, we are inheriting a tradition that itself has recently gone through a major transformation, dragging along unresolved issues (as do we all), one major matter being priests marrying, eating meat and drinking alcohol.