Here's a Wikipedia entry for those who don't get the reference in the title even after looking at the picture.Tonight April 17, 2009 (Fri) I'll be at Austin Zen Center 3014 Washington Sq., Austin, Texas 78705. Come at 6 pm for Zazen or at 7 pm for the talk. You can skip the zazen if you want. I'd be more likely to skip the talk! But that's just me. Either way is fine with the folks at the Zen Center.
Tomorrow, April 18, 2009 (Sat), is really busy. I'll be at San Antonio Zen Center, 1442 W Woodlawn Ave. San Antonio, TX 78201. They have 8:45am Zazen and at 10am I'll give a talk. At 11am I'll do a book signing. Come to all or any.
Then the very same day (4/18/09) at 3 pm I'll be at Book People bookstore 603 N. Lamar, Austin, Texas 78703.
The next day, April 19, 2009 (Sun), I'll be at Houston Zen Center 1605 Heights Blvd., Houston, TX 77008. 8:20 am is zazen. 9:45 am I'll do a Dhrama Talk followed by book signing supported by Brazos Bookstore. Both are open to public, and it's OK to attend just the talk if you're lame (or just can't get out of bed that early).
After that I travel to Dallas in time to be at Legacy Books 7300 Dallas Parkway, Plano, Texas 75024 at 7:30 pm on April 21, 2009 (Tues). What do you call a book signing in Plano? Plano book signing!
It's raining like cats and dogs here in Austin! And, just to emphasize things further, the guy I'm staying with, Lauren Crane, has a cat and a dog that constantly stage wrestling matches with each other in the living room. The TV weather people have been advising people to stay home and stay away from windows lest they get klonked on the noggin by hailstones the size of watermelons. So here I am blogging away. Ate a lovely dinner at a vegetarian place called Mother's last night.
I've been reading a neat book called Living And Dying In Zazen: Five Zen Masters Of Modern Japan. Josho at the Chapel Hill Zen Center kindly gave it to me. Thanks! It's got some great stuff about Kodo Sawaki and a bunch of other Zen teachers.
The back cover blurb says, "The deification of Zen teachers by their followers has been a problematic issue in American Zen; this book provides a healthy antidote, presenting four men and one woman who have lived and died in Zen within the rich context of their personal lives and their culture, so that we can fully understand what makes a Zen master in Japan." That's sorta what my new book is about too. Only Arthur Braverman came up with the idea four years ago.
This kind of ties in with something I've been wanting to say about monastic Zen practice. Number one, I don't hate monastic Zen practice! I've been noticing a lot of people think I do. I don't. OK?
But I do think there's been a tendency for people, both here and even more so in Japan, to view monastic Zen as the only authentic Zen practice. And that's just not so.
Buddha himself was not a monastic until after he established his order of monks. And, they say, he established the order of monks somewhat reluctantly because he believed, at first, that the understanding he'd come to couldn't be transmitted to others. They had to find it for themselves. Lots of the greatest Zen teachers were not monastics.
Monastic Zen developed as a way for people who were interested in Zen as a personal matter to practice in groups. All of the rules of monastic Zen are almost purely arbitrary. You turn on your cushion clockwise so you don't bump the person next to you. If it had been established that you turn counter-clockwise that would work just as well. You fold your oryoki napkins in that funky way so that everyone is doing the same thing and gets done at the same time and it looks neat and tidy when they're done (tidiness is very important in communal living). You could just as well fold them up a different way. And so on and on and on for about a zillion more rules.
It's important to note that none of the rules are magic or holy at all. But it's also important when you're in a monastery to follow their traditions and not do things your own way. Because doing it your own way screws it up for everyone else. It's an important reason but that is the only reason it's important.
Monastic practice becomes more complex the more people you have doing it. A single person alone can just as easily set up her own version. This is perfectly legit since all the monastic traditions started from the personal habits of specific teachers.
There is no fundamental reason monastic practice is any more "authentic" than practice by yourself or with a small informal group. Smaller, less structured groups might have a tendency to get a little sloppy. I once sat with an informal group in Japan who had a big beer drinking party after their sittings. I didn't go back. But then again, large monastic institutions have a tendency to focus on keeping their arbitrary rules at the expense of honest and sincere practice. Either way is bad for practice.
OK? Enough for today!
