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{"id":772,"date":"2011-12-26T10:16:06","date_gmt":"2011-12-26T16:16:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildfoxzen\/?p=772"},"modified":"2011-12-27T21:49:48","modified_gmt":"2011-12-28T03:49:48","slug":"reflecting-on-burial-rites-for-wild-foxes-adaptation-or-traditionalism-for-zen-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildfoxzen\/2011\/12\/reflecting-on-burial-rites-for-wild-foxes-adaptation-or-traditionalism-for-zen-now.html","title":{"rendered":"Reflecting on Burial Rites for Wild Foxes: Adaptation or Traditionalism for Zen Now?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"\"$ <\/a>In a recent conversation with dharma<\/a> friends, a quirky detail from the Wild Fox Koan came up. Click here for an old post wherein I quote the whole ugly affair. <\/a><\/p>\n

Deep into the koan, after the wild fox\/former Baizhang has an awakening, he asks the present Baizhang,\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWould you perform the funeral service for a deceased monk for me?\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

In Daishugyo<\/em>, Dogen comments, \u201cThis is not an appropriate thing to ask.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why not? \u201cIf we look for such precedents, there has never been anything like it.\u201d<\/p>\n

And just like Dogen, he looks at the story with fresh eyes, \u201cDo not groundlessly regard the transmogrification of a wild fox spirit as authentic and do not make light of the dharma standards of buddha ancestors.\u201d<\/p>\n

How about us here and now? There are many old ways that in the adaptation of Zen to the modern world, we have changed without finding any precedent for.<\/p>\n

Monks who don\u2019t live in monasteries or have life styles any different than laypeople, for example, or who live in monasteries but marry and have kids. See an excellent post about this by Jiryu, \u201cWhy There\u2019s No Zen in the West\u201d here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Although Dogen is regarded today as an old fart and dogmatic about tradition (and the above passages support that view), in his time he was and wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Dogen was also an innovator, extensively adapting the Chinese way to fit Japan, or perhaps taking the Chinese way and going beyond it (depending on your tastes). For example, Dogen was really into Chinese monastic architecture but developed oryoki-style eating which certainly was not part of Chinese Ch\u2019an. Dogen took the emerging koan tradition of the Linchi (Rinzai) line and the silent illumination approach of the Caodong (Soto) School and integrated them, vivified them, and in the process reinvented zazen (or at least its expression).<\/p>\n

Dogen was also an innovator in what defined a monk. He never took the Vinaya<\/a> precepts (as far as we can tell) like every \u201creal\u201d Chinese monk and almost all of the Chinese Zen ancestors (there might have been one or two that didn\u2019t but the exception proves the rule in this case) but adapted the Japanese Tendai style and attributed it to his teacher Rujing.<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s his dharma presentation based on and within the mosaic of the tradition but playing with it in wild and wonderful ways. That\u2019s why the old fart is still remembered.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s what I think would be best here and now with the various form and style issues too. In other words, it\u2019s best when we have deep familiarity with the tradition, are bound by it, but are free to express ourselves through it \u2013 and beyond it when possible.<\/p>\n

Like my doggie, Bodhi, above. He\u2019s got a hell-of-a collar and can play so freely within it.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"