Episode 24 - Transmission, transformation and secular Zen

In this episode I talk about my many years of Zen meditation practice and relate my experience to the development of a sceptical, secular Zen that is rooted in contemporary western culture – with an emphasis on empirical investigation, naturalism rather than supernaturalism, and minimal ritual. I relate this development to the twin functions of teaching and learning - that is, transmission and transformation – as first suggested by the Brazilian philosopher of education, Paolo Freire. I suggest that it is possible to develop a secular twenty-first century approach to Zen that is not bound by the hierarchical power structures of earlier forms of Zen.

Transcript

I began Zen practice in 1965. Although I undertook retreats in the early 1970s at Throssel Hole Buddhist Abbey, a Soto Zen centre in Northumberland, and more recently with Thich Nhat Hanh, I have been wary of labels and institutionalised religion. During my fifty-nine years of doing zazen I haven’t been a ‘disciple’ of any particular Zen teacher and I haven’t been a monastic in Japan or here in the UK. Zazen practice itself has been my primary teacher – particularly in the form of shikantaza, (just being here, being aware) following the writings of Dogen. Having come across a translation of the Fukanzazengi, Dogen’s instructions for zazen practice, I set out to follow his instructions as best I could. I did this alone for about six years, sitting at home or in the woods and commonland near our house in the Charnwood Forest area of Leicestershire. It wasn’t until I went to Throssel Hole and later met a Japanese Soto Zen monk travelling in the UK, that I had any confirmation that what I had been doing was ‘correct’ zazen.  

During those years I often had the feeling that I ought to become a monk, move to Japan, do things properly.  But something held me back. I wanted my Zen practice to be firmly located in my daily life – rooted in my day-to-day experience as I studied at art college and went on to a career as artist, writer and academic. It seemed to me that my Zen practice only made sense and had real validity if it stood the test of living the life I was leading. I did my best to learn from other teachers, writers, poets and artists – always assessing what they had to say and show against the lessons I was learning from zazen in my daily life. 

Though for many years I felt a sense of inferiority or inauthenticity due to my lack of formal institutionalised training, I gradually began to see that this gave me a fresh perspective on Zen practice as a homegrown unschooled lay person. Since then, I have tried to develop a form of mindful ethics within contemporary European culture - free of the orientalism and hierarchical power structures that have often been a feature of Buddhist practice (including Zen) in the west – this is what I have been trying to do since I began to do zazen in 1965.   

My Zen practice has been complemented and enriched by ideas, and approaches to living, learnt from a number of other sources – particularly the strands of sceptical philosophy developed by Pyrrho of Elis, Sextus Empiricus, Spinoza and more recent thinkers such as John Dewey, Gary Snyder and Sulak Sivaraksa. All of these individuals share a view of the world as a place of interdependence, process, transience and uncertainty – a world in which all beings have a vital role to play from the smallest microbe to the largest whale, fungi or tree. Human flourishing is inseparable from the flourishing of all beings and the wellbeing of our planet. These thinkers encourage us to be aware, to be open to many viewpoints, to suspend judgement, to see clearly, to recognise our own assumptions and preconceptions, and to be compassionate and kind to ourselves and to all beings. They advocate ways of living which are grounded in a deep awareness of the miracle of being-here. They all suggest that in order to live peacefully and sustainably, we need to free ourselves from craving, aggression and delusion. In this sense they offer extensions and variations to the dharma advocated by Buddhist and Zen teachers. 

In the late 1990s, I met Martine and Stephen Batchelor and gave a couple of talks and ran a workshop as part of their programme at Sharpham College. I followed the development of Stephen’s thought over the following years as he formulated the idea of ‘secular Buddhism’ – a term he applied to what he saw as Buddhist practices stripped of ritual, exoticism and supernatural beliefs – a revised and renewed set of practices that were grounded in contemporary science, culture and social context. I began to realise that the approach I had taken all those years ago could now be categorised under this new, awkward and possibly misleading label that is now in quite common usage, namely, ‘secular Buddhism.’

In 2016, prompted by discussions with my friend, Glenn Roberts, I launched the Exeter Meditation Circle as a forum for the development of secular Buddhist and sceptical Zen practice.  From the outset we wanted the Circle to be grounded in mindful meditation and in the sharing of experiences and a mutually supportive process of learning. Our focus was, and is, on this life – our daily life with all its ups and downs, shocks and surprises, messiness and mystery. Mindful awareness of our daily experience is our primary method for understanding, and coming to terms with, life’s pleasures and pains. Mindful meditation, including zazen, is not only about awareness and insight, it is also about minding – caring for ourselves, for others and for the wonderful planet that is our home. 

On the About page of our website we wrote this statement:  

Our aim is to understand how things are (Dharma) by paying attention to our own experience – learning to live in harmony with a world of constant interaction, change and uncertainty.

The process of awakening is a process of learning - in this sense we are all students and teachers, helping each other to grow in understanding.

As a retired academic, and still very active artist and writer, I have often reflected on the extent to which Buddhist practice, particularly Zen, can be grounded in a creative, democratic and dynamic educational ethos. How can we develop our insights and understanding in a way that is mutually beneficial - taking account both of the disciplines and traditions of mindful meditation practice, and the developments in educational practice and understanding that have taken place in the past half century? This has led me to pose the question can there be a ‘secular Zen’? This is a potentially controversial notion as one of the key features of the different traditional forms of Zen and Chan, as practiced in Japan, China and other south-east Asian countries, has been the concept of transmission of awakening from master to master, and the legitimising of authority provided by the master-disciple relationship. It is worth noting that this has been a largely patriarchal history, with all the issues and questions that this poses for a twenty-first century practitioner.

One thread of reflection that I keep returning to, is the tension between two important functions of education, namely, transmission and transformation. The Brazilian philosopher of education, Paulo Freire, developed an approach to learning that he called ‘critical pedagogy’ – an approach that stressed the need for all agents within a learning institution, (students, teachers and support staff) to be considered as of equal importance in the development of understanding and practical wisdom. Central to Freire’s radical view of education was the need to respect all voices, opinions and views, counterbalanced by an equal respect for critical questioning - particularly of those with power and authority. So how does this relate to secular Buddhism and the idea of secular Zen? 

Freire points out that there is a tension between considering educational institutions and processes as ‘instructional sites’ and seeing them as ‘sites for self and social empowerment.’ The term, ‘educational institution’, can be applied as meaningfully to a Buddhist sangha or monastery, as it can to a school or university. Education, in Freire’s view, has two complementary functions: one, to transmit knowledge, values and culture from one generation to the next, (or from one class of society to another); and two, to transform individuals and communities - to change, to empower and to liberate. Too often educational institutions act primarily as agencies of social, economic and cultural reproduction, reinforcing the status quo, legitimising oppression and coercion – neglecting or actively inhibiting the potential for social and personal transformation. Those in power use education as a way of retaining and consolidating power, rather than as a means of distributing power or of empowering others. The maintenance of power (and the transmission of knowledge and values integral to that power) becomes the ‘hidden curriculum’ that underlies the stated curriculum.

Within a Buddhist context the emphasis on transmission of experience and realisation from master to master is understandable. Buddhists would like to be able to trace the process of realisation from generation to generation back to the Buddha’s own awakening. However, there can be no certainty that contemporary experiences of awakening are the same as those of earlier generations, let alone of the Buddha or his immediate circle of students. Undoubtedly, as in the game of ‘Chinese whispers’, accounts of experiences (and probably the experiences themselves) have evolved and changed over the centuries. All we can do is to compare contemporary descriptions with those of the past and note the echoes, similarities and reiterations that are indicative of consistency and continuity – though such similarities cannot guarantee or provide proof of what will always remain unknowable. 

This method of validating authenticity needs to be seen against a backdrop of the power relations involved. There is always the potential for institutions, and individuals - including Buddhist abbots, priests and lay teachers - to be more concerned to maintain their own hierarchies and privileges rather than to liberate and awaken students. My years as an art educator showed me that over-attachment to a teacher or tradition, can severely inhibit learning, growth and realisation. I have also seen how students often become dependent upon their teachers and invest them with too much authority and reverence. This can lead to abuses of many kinds, and in recent times there have been a number of well-documented examples of such abuses within different Buddhist schools and traditions. 

Within the context of understanding that all things are interdependent, Buddhist authority figures should be working to empower their students, to enable them to think and act independently, rather than to cultivate dependence and uncritical acceptances of their teachings. There are no formulae that can ensure a balance between transmission and transformation is kept on the side of the latter – but teachers need to be sensitive to their own power and always work towards the awakening of students, rather than clinging to status and tradition as being of most importance.  

In my view, Buddhist teaching and learning should be primarily concerned with personal and collective transformation and empowerment – trying to realise the Buddha’s aim of alleviating suffering. It is important to be aware that institutions of learning (including Buddhist temples, monasteries and lay sanghas) almost inevitably reinforce the instruction and transmission functions of teaching and learning - despite the rhetoric of creativity and empowerment they often promote. It seems to me that we need to do all we can to redress this imbalance of power and emphasis, by focusing on the transformative function of education. This means enabling students to have an active voice, to be questioning, engaged and self-reliant, and to be full participants in their own learning. In this way the learning process becomes one in which individuals, working together, can see into the nature of reality (dharma), and be awakened, transformed and empowered. 

The Kalama Sutta is a famous Buddhist text describing how a community of people of the Kalama clan were visited by a stream of teachers, priests and ‘wise men’ who argued among themselves and offered everyone contradictory advice. Every time the community thought they had learnt the truth, another teacher came along and told them it was untrue. The people were confused and despondent and came to the Buddha to ask his advice. This is one translation of what the Buddha had to say:

Do not go by oral tradition, by lineage of teaching, by hearsay, by a collection of texts, by logic, by inferential reasoning […] by the seeming competence of a speaker, or because you think, ‘The ascetic is our teacher.’ But when you know for yourselves, ‘These things are unwholesome; these things are blameable; these things are censured by the wise; these things, if undertaken and practiced, lead to harm and suffering,’ then you should abandon them. (Bodhi 2005: 89)

In other words, do not accept what you read or hear at face value. Do not depend on the understanding, or misunderstanding, of others, but on your own understanding. Learn from your own experience and test the accounts of other people’s experiences against your own. The Buddha advised that we should always test his teachings against the reality of our own experience and leave the teachings behind – letting go of the raft when we’ve crossed the river, not putting it on our backs and carrying it with us. There are many such accounts of the Buddha advocating free enquiry, learning from experience, weighing up for oneself what makes sense and what makes life more peaceful and less painful or burdensome. 

Experience is the ultimate teacher – not the Buddha, a Zen master or a charismatic guru. Everything that happens - all our meetings with other humans and encounters with the world - are aspects of our experience. In this way we learn from everyone - and every situation becomes an opportunity for learning and for contemplative enquiry. Zazen, and other forms of mindful meditation, can be seen as a lens or prism through which we can see more clearly everything that arises. The practice of mindful enquiry is also a space in which to learn how to trust our own experience, understanding and judgment. Certainly, for me, the practice of zazen over the past fifty-nine years, has been my primary learning experience. Zazen has been my teacher along with all those individuals I’ve met who manifest kindness, insight, wisdom, compassion and equanimity – many of whom would not call themselves Buddhists. Not all of these individuals are living. I have learnt much from historical figures within the Buddhist tradition, and from thinkers, philosophers, poets and writers who are part of my cultural inheritance, though not part of the history of Buddhism. This, along with the Meditation Circle, is the very inclusive and diverse sangha to which I belong. 

As a largely self-taught, somewhat reluctant, sceptical, secular Zen practitioner, I have been very aware that I run the risk of wandering into cul-de-sacs and blind alleys, developing ineffective practice and understanding, and becoming too attached to my ‘own’ opinions. Self-deception and hubris are tendencies that I have had to particularly guard against. I long ago learnt that glorying in one’s own knowledge or virtue is just another form of attachment and is a hindrance to learning, growth and realisation. Occasional retreats, being part of a regular sitting group and studying the writings and learnings of others, have provided a critical framework within which I can examine and realise my own understanding. Zazen itself, the practice of mindful meditation, maintained over many decades, teaches patience and contemplative stamina. It also erodes any excesses of self-congratulation, pride or misunderstandings as surely as rain and ice erode the sharp features of a boulder. 

When we started the Meditation Circle, I hoped that it would provide a space within which those who were interested could meet as equals – sharing our experience and understanding - and learning from each other. I now feel we have come some way toward realising these aspirations. In a small way, we have been contributing towards an emerging culture of awakening in which all beings, and the environment in which we live, are valued and cared for.  In my case, this is a manifestation of a secular practice that is grounded in zazen – a form of secular or sceptical Zen, if you like - and is part of a process of change that points to a positive way out of the many crises that affect us. I firmly believe, that as we help each other cope with the vicissitudes of life, we are contributing, in a small way, to the ancient Buddhist project of freeing ourselves and others from unnecessary suffering – enabling all beings to grow in wellbeing, understanding and peace.  

Thank you for listening and bye for now.   

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Bodhi, Bhikkhu. 2005. In the Buddha’s Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon. Massachusetts USA: Wisdom Publications.

Freire, P. [1985] The Politics of Education: Culture, Power and Liberation. London: Macmillan.

Exeter Meditation Circle website: http://www.meditationcircle.org.uk/