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{"id":1891,"date":"2013-06-30T09:01:47","date_gmt":"2013-06-30T15:01:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildfoxzen\/?p=1891"},"modified":"2013-06-30T09:22:02","modified_gmt":"2013-06-30T15:22:02","slug":"repaying-our-debt-of-gratitude-to-those-whove-gone-before-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildfoxzen\/2013\/06\/repaying-our-debt-of-gratitude-to-those-whove-gone-before-us.html","title":{"rendered":"Repaying Our Debt of Gratitude to Those Who’ve Gone Before Us"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"\"$ <\/a>For the upcoming workshop on the spirit, principles and practices of Zen priest home leavers at Boundless Way, I\u2019ve been reviewing a number texts about the fine points of Zen decorum \u2013 how to sit, walk, bow, wear the kesa, use the bathroom, etc.<\/p>\n

It strikes me that we\u2019re a tradition in major transition \u2013 from a slightly post-feudal monastic culture and into the global market place.<\/p>\n

We have the great good fortune to have the opportunity to receive the work of handful of teachers from the last century, providing two different approaches for embodying the buddhadharma, making it alive in our lives now.<\/p>\n

The first couple teachers are Roshis Dai-un Harada and Hakuun Yasutani. They took the traditional Rinzai koan system (or one of them) and made it portable by reducing the number of koans, including some Soto elements, and dropping the more scholarly dimensions of the training (essays, capping phrases, etc.). It isn\u2019t clear if it was their intention (I guess not) but the effect of this was to create a koan system that Westerns could work with without being fluent in Japanese and Chinese.<\/p>\n

The second group were also Soto teachers like Suzuki Roshi, Chino Roshi, Uchiyama Roshi and Katagiri Roshi. They took the monastic spirit, principles and practices and abbreviated them, focusing on the most essential elements of sitting, walking, and bowing, and offered them to a group of people much different than the mostly young, mostly male Japanese trainees of the past bunch of centuries. It seems that it was their intention to offer what they could \u2013 from their monastic tradition \u2013 in order to keep it alive for future generations.<\/p>\n

These two ways are not necessarily two. The choice isn\u2019t either or \u2013 most lines of training in the US today include elements of both of the above. My interest, as I\u2019ve said here many times, is in the synthesis of these approaches and what happens then.<\/p>\n

So I\u2019ve developed a way of working with Dogen texts that integrates koan processes with Dogen study \u2013 entering the text rather than philosophizing about it \u2013 and am now getting feedback from other teachers and gradually rolling them out with students in the Vine of Obstacles: Online Support for Zen Training.<\/a><\/p>\n

An edge of my present work involves the forms of Soto Zen and koan. What is koan behind the form, for example, the koan for which a clear response is gassho<\/em> by \u201c\u2026holding both hands together, with arms slightly away from chest and fingertips aligned with the end of the nose (fingertips should be held at the same heights as the nose)?\u201d<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, this moment I\u2019m very grateful to those that have come before us.<\/p>\n

May the merit from this
\nrepay our debt of gratitude for their compassion
\nnurturing us with the milk of dharma.<\/p>\n

\u2013 from the Personal Morning Service for Home Leavers<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"