Zen Teachers As Professionals – Not

Here’s Bodhi on his 3rd birthday.

He looks how I feel about the conversations about Zen priests being “professionals” or not that are kicking around at Hardcore Zen and various other venues.

In my view, Zen is a craft rather than a profession and I think we could have some really creative guilds.

I learned Zen through working close up with Katagiri Roshi, much like an apprentice – much more like that than like my other professional training program.

I’m not arguing that we’re not a profession because I want low standards, and willy-nilly ethical guidelines. Rather, I want higher standards for Zen teachers than for my other profession. And my training with Katagiri Roshi was far more intense, difficult and rewarding than my other professional training.

Most importantly, when dharma transmission is reduced to a check-off on a list of professional requirements, Zen in any meaningful way will be stone cold dead.

As for Roshi, he did talk about a priest’s “career” and a bodhisattva’s “career” but not so much in the context of doctors and lawyers. In many ways he did not live his life the way that doctors and lawyers live in America. His practice was much more than a profession.

The Soto Zen Buddhist Association has decided to frame itself as a professional body after some pretty good debate about five years ago. However, as far as I know, it does not have training standards that compare to those of any professional organization I know of. The trainings offered by the SZBA are voluntary because we don’t want to upset anyone.

However, professions do not have voluntary training standards, at least for those key competencies that their national organizations deem essential – Brain Surgery 101 (Voluntary)? It seems from where I sit that the behavior of the organization and the “professional” framing are going in different directions.

Deciding to call ourselves professionals without the underlying professional elements accepted in this culture (training programs with similar standards, a common body of knowledge and skills, exams, rules, etc.) just makes us look kinda fanciful.

Finally, and more important to me, a priest does not primarily serve the greater good in the way that professionals do – serving people’s transient needs. A priest’s most important function distinguishes a priest from a profession – primarily serving the truth.

Zen Teachers as Professionals – Not