Sangha Posts

Provocative Zen Teachers

Some Zen teachers are pussy cats, and some are tigers. Some are emphatic, some are ambiguous, some are dogmatic, and some eschew all dogma. Which Zen teachers are right?

When you are still searching for a teacher to trust, this may feel like a very important question. You are probably drawn to a particular kind of teacher, but you may also have doubts and feel drawn to more than one kind. The teacher at your local Zen center, for example, may present himself as a spiritual friend who can help you find your own way, and who responds to Dharma questions with phrases like, “In my practice, I have found…” This may put you at ease around the teacher, but make you doubt the depth of his Dharma. Another teacher you encounter may present a much stronger and clearer picture of the True Dharma and How to Realize It; she may state things in absolutes, provoking you but also inspiring you. 

It’s important to realize that no single Zen teacher holds the entire Dharma, and every teaching style has strengths and weaknesses. A relatively informal, laid back teacher can make it clear to her students that they ultimately have to find their own path, but she may also fail to motivate her students enough. When the Dharma is presented as a method to improve your life, and is the subject of open, round-table discussions, you may end up thinking there’s not all that much to it. The fact that it is also an urgent matter of life and death can be missed. On the other hand, provocative and charismatic Zen teachers can inspire emulation instead of real practice in their students. They can inadvertently discourage authenticity, or inspire a cult of personality focused on the teacher and his special relationship to the truth.

Still, Zen teachers who dare to take a stand can help wake you up. Zen master Lin-chi said, “Students these days haven’t the slightest comprehension of the Dharma. They’re like sheep poking with their noses – whatever they happen on they immediately put in their mouths.”¹ This sounds harsh and judgmental, but it makes you think about whether this is true for you. Have you really understood the teaching you are accepting? Dogen said, “Even if you hope to live for seventy or eighty years, in the end you are destined to die. You should regard your pleasure and sorrow, relationship, and attachment in worldly affairs as your enemy… You should keep in mind the buddha way alone and work for the bliss of nirvana.”² Yikes, aren’t we supposed to enjoy our lives? And yet, perhaps you are letting precious time slip away without making a diligent effort to fulfill your deepest aspirations and resolve your deepest doubts.  

Modern teachers can be provocative, too. Kodo Sawaki roshi said, “Everyone steeps himself in his own life and lives, blindly believing that there must be something to his daily activity. But in reality, a human being’s life does not differ from a swallow’s, the males collecting food and the females hatching eggs.”³ This may sound like a bleak view of humanity, but if was stated more gently, would you deeply contemplate in what way this is true? While most Zen teachers want to encourage everyone and present almost all Buddhist practices as part of a smorgasbord of options, some will tell you frankly that if you don’t become a monk, or spend thousands of hours in meditation retreats, or have an awakening experience, you are very unlikely to be able to experience the Truth for yourself. Which teachers are right?

Actually, most Zen teachers are right, in the sense that they are honestly and earnestly expressing the Dharma as they understand it, and as they manifest it as an individual. When you become a Zen teacher, you realize that it’s not really up to you how you express the Dharma. You just speak, and act, and your Dharma message comes out with a particular flavor. Any teacher can and should become more skillful and humble over time, but an informal, approachable teacher is not going to be able to be a fierce, charismatic, provocative teacher even if she wants to be, and vice versa. A teacher’s primary duty is to be completely him or herself, and to bravely express the Dharma as he or she experiences it. 

The best approach as a student is to appreciate all the different kinds of Zen teachers for what they have to offer you. The Dharma is richer, and the Sangha benefits, from teachers across the spectrum from mild mannered to fiery. For example, when I tell you that liberation is accessible to you even if you are busy with your family and have little time to sit zazen, I mean it. It is not my way to harangue you about how essential it is to dive into the furnace of meditation retreats; I don’t think saying that would be helpful. It will only make you feel separated from “real” practice – and liberation is, indeed, available to you right now. When and if you are drawn to retreats, you will go. However, I am glad there are other teachers out there who will shout at you, “Wake up! You’re wasting your time!” There is truth in their Dharma, too.

¹ Watson, Burton, trans. The Zen Teachings of Master Lin-chi. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1993
² Tanahashi, Kazuaki, trans. Enlightenment Unfolds: The Essential Teachings of Zen Master Dogen. Boston, MA: Shambala Publications, 2000
³ Uchiyama, Kosho. The Zen Teaching of "Homeless" Kodo. Kyoto, Japan: Kyoto Soto-Zen Center, 1990

What’s the Good of Zen Teachers?

Why, in a tradition like Buddhism in which you are supposed to verify everything for yourself, is there such an emphasis on Teachers?

In Zen our relationships to teachers are complex and multilayered. Relationships with teachers, whether brief and informal or long-term and committed, are every bit as complex, nuanced and varied as any of our human relationships. Every teacher-student relationship is different. Like our other relationships, they can be supportive, rewarding, instructive, challenging, frustrating, painful and ambiguous. Like those other relationships, the teacher-student relationship can be transformative.

Unlike our other relationships, however, the teacher-student one is explicitly based in, and in service of, Dharma practice. As we go deeply into a relationship with a teacher, the relationship can also become a koan for us – a thorny, elusive, apparently paradoxical matter that cannot be understood or explained with the discursive mind but can be understood and appreciated through personal experience.

Guidance

At the simplest level, a teacher provides guidance. The teacher is a senior, someone who has walked the path before us and can advise us how to do so ourselves.

To some extent this is like learning any discipline, in that we turn for instructions to people who know the discipline. Learning from a person who knows their stuff trumps learning from a book anytime. Zen practice is a full experience of body and mind; you wouldn’t think to become a doctor or an aikido master by reading and practicing on your own, would you?

Zen teachers guide us in meditation practice (zazen), in applying the precepts to our lives, in strengthening our practice, in study of the teachings, and in learning how to take a “Zen” approach in any given situation. We primarily get this instruction by meeting with teachers in sanzen and practice discussion, but also through interactions over meals, during ceremonies, social situations, work, etc. Much Zen instruction just takes place through time and proximity to the teacher and other practitioners. There is much happening in our practice below the surface, at the subconscious or unconscious levels, and much of it simply takes time to develop and ripen.

An obvious question is, “How good is this teacher?” To some extent we need to ask this question. Does it seem like they know the teaching? Do their answers ring true to you? Do they seem confident and yet able to admit limitations or mistakes? How well do they walk the talk?

But we can get stuck here, evaluating the quality of a teacher, as if spiritual proficiency or authority is something that can be measured objectively. Perhaps we decide that we can only respect a teacher enough to ask for guidance from them if they are a celibate monk, are a lay teacher, meditate a great deal, act in a dignified manner, are a woman or a man, are morally impeccable, spout obscure teachings, are charismatic, or apparently free from any desire or difficulty.

It is not that these things don’t matter, but rather that a better question to ask is not, “Is this person a good teacher,” in some objective sense, but rather, “Are they a good teacher, or guide, for me?” This is something you have to learn by experience, by working with a teacher for a while.

Sometimes there is a strong resonance between teacher and student. For example, I knew the instant I heard her speak that Gyokuko was my teacher. She heard the question beneath my question. She understood me somehow, and therefore was able to give me effective and appropriate instruction. I never went awry in listening to her, and it built my faith in her guidance and in the practice.

Sometimes it is not so straightforward. Sometimes other aspects of the relationship with the teacher (which I discuss below) are more important or salient for someone. Someone may have a meaningful relationship with a teacher where the guidance is less personal, or where there is little explicit guidance.

Finally, regarding guidance, sometimes it is less about the brilliant response a teacher gives us than it is about the effectiveness of having to come up the question in the first place. Ever have the experience of being in a class, having a question, walking up to the teacher and asking it, and then going, “Oh, wait, I know the answer now”? Sometimes the very process of showing up, of expressing ourselves to another person, helps to clarify what is going on for us.

Encouragement

Much of this practice we do on our own. In the spirit of the Protestants, we need no intermediary between us and the Dharma, or between us and our Buddha nature.

However, if you never think you need encouragement, think again. If you try to do without it, you may be placing a heavy burden of expectation on yourself that you’d be better off without. No one will look down on you around here for needing some encouragement. In fact, it lets us know that you are working hard, pushing the edges of your comfort zone.

Throughout much of my practice, my meetings with Gyokuko involved telling her what I was working on, what I was experiencing, and asking her, “Am I going crazy? Am I way off base? Am I OK? Does this happen to other people? Does this sound like authentic practice?” Because of her own experience and her experience in working with lots of other people, she was (almost) always able to reassure me. My mind would be put at ease, and I could concentrate on the next step in practice.

Zen practice requires incredible spiritual courage and perseverance. We have to face our deepest fears. It is also sometimes runs counter to “common sense” and certainly to cultural norms – which say that when you encounter something or someone that makes you uncomfortable, you are supposed to get as far away from it/them as possible, as quickly as you can. In our practice we move toward such things, and pay close attention. Most of us find we need encouragement sooner or later to tread in such unfamiliar and scary territory.

Witness

Another aspect of Zen teachers, more subtle, is teacher as someone who bears witness to your practice – in a given moment, and/or over time. There is great value and power in stepping forward to allow someone to see us at what is undoubtedly our most vulnerable – when we are actively examining, questioning, building aspirations, facing doubts, and working on our life and practice.

Most of us (all of us?) have a deep and great fear that if people see who we really are, we will be rejected – everyone will know we don’t really belong, that we are fundamentally flawed. Or perhaps we fear that other people will be malicious and take advantage of us.

I was bullied for various reasons throughout middle school. I learned early on not to let the other kids know what I really wanted, or what I really cared about, because they were sure to take the opportunity to point out my failures, make fun of my preferences or mock my aspirations. I learned to hide my vulnerability and instead to project a persona of competence, confidence and cynicism.

When we gradually begin to show ourselves, we gain trust in others and build real confidence in ourselves. And show not just the bits we want to show, but the parts we can’t hide if someone watches us over time.

Also, it is valuable to be witnessed over time – to have a spiritual friend that gets to know your spiritual practice and life very well. S/he has context for your questions and struggles, as well as for your triumphs. Many of us get to the point that our teacher is the only one who will fully understand or appreciate the significance of particular aspects of our life and practice. For example, if you finally manage to start pausing before you speak so you can choose what’s best to say next (for some of us, a Herculean task), a teacher who knows you well will be able to celebrate with you. On the other hand you may get caught up in some repetitive – and ultimate destructive – karmic cycle and not even realize it, and a teacher who knows you well will be able to gently point the situation out before the cycle goes too far.

Barrier/Challenge

This is the aspect of Zen teachers that usually shows up in the old stories: teachers as challengers to their students, poking them with questions they can’t quite answer (yet), or pointing out their limitations. Outside of the old stories, this kind of challenge happens both consciously (on the part of the teacher) and unconsciously – but more often the latter.

Teacher as barrier or challenger is most often something that develops in a very close teacher-student relationship after a long period of time, typically many years. Beware of teachers that present themselves in this way early on, before they really know you and before you have built up a relationship of trust and understanding. This is potentially dangerous territory for both student and teacher. Students can get hurt, and teachers can get lost in an arrogant sense that their spiritual insight gives them access to a kind of omniscience when it comes to dealing with people’s spiritual life and practice.

At the same time teacher as challenger is a potentially transformative opportunity. If we can trust a teacher enough to invite him or her to give us honest feedback on our life and practice, we can address our blind spots. By definition, we can’t see them! We have the opportunity to turn the heat on our practice up a notch, and extend our mastery of our life.

A karmic resonance or intuitive match with a teacher may help her or him be insightful about us, but frankly it doesn’t take a Zen master or an intuitive genius to be able to see our weaknesses, our stuck places and our unresolved karma. If you think of any of your close relationships – significant others, parents, children, friends – you can probably think of things about their life and behavior that you’d like to be able to point out to them. Unfortunately – or fortunately – it is inappropriate and unhelpful to offer unsolicited criticism. For this reason, most Zen teachers will not offer potential charged “feedback” unless you have made it very clear, over time, that you 1) want to hear it, and 2) can handle it. In most cases you have to ask again and again in order to make the invitation strongly and unambiguously.

Sometimes teacher as barrier or challenge has nothing to do with the teacher’s intent: we gravitate toward a certain teacher because they trigger old patterns in us. Like being drawn again and again to the same kind of intimate romantic relationship, we may start to act out with our teacher our unresolved karma from parental, romantic or other relationships.

This is where the teacher’s training is very important! They must have done enough personal work, and have received enough tough training from their own teacher, to be able to recognize their own karmic reactions and know how to deal with them – in order to avoid getting involved in a destructive karmic dance with a student.

Ideally we get to act out our karma while the teacher remains more or less still. Then we have to watch how we dance. We try our demands, manipulations, guilt trips, drama, projection, attempts to please, whatever. They don’t work, but they also don’t backfire as they might in other kinds of relationships – for example, when another person reacts to our behavior with defensiveness or anger.

It is sometimes said it is the job of the teacher to “keep pulling the rug out from under us” until we no longer fall down – until we are standing in the unassailable place, not on any simple rug. My teacher did this by not-doing; in a sense she refused to offer me any rugs, at least not when I was being really demanding about it. I craved her approval and understanding, but could never get it when I really wanted it. I struggled with this for many years, until finally I truly didn’t need her – or anyone’s – understanding or approval any more. Not that I didn’t want and appreciate connections with others, I just didn’t need their approval to know I was fundamentally OK.

Pulling out the rug is especially important when it comes to spiritual insight; the teacher must keep testing the student, not allowing him/her to concretize an experience, get stuck in a concept or memory, or become arrogant or complacent because of a sense of spiritual accomplishment.

We may think it is the teacher that makes us doubt ourselves, but actually no one can instill doubts in us about something we have complete knowledge of/confidence in; when someone causes doubts to arise, they were already there. We should become grateful for the challenge, even when it is upsetting.

Formalizing a Teacher-Student Relationship

Think again of the people in your life, and how you’d like to be able to give them a little honest feedback about their stuck places and suffering. Actually doing so is rarely ever effective, is it? That is because someone must ask for such feedback first. They must be open to it, and ready for it. They need to have some idea what it is they are asking for, too.

That’s why, in order to establish a formal teacher-student relationship, you have to ask the teacher at least three different times. Each of these must be serious, considered, “asks.” The teacher may put up obstacles, make certain requirements first – for example, that you finish school, clean some particularly disruptive karma, demonstrate stability or just give it more time.

This kind of relationship takes time to form; a teacher must know a student. The student must have come forward to meet the teacher many times, and allowed her/himself to be seen.

The impetus for the relationship must come only from the student; the teacher must examine his or her own motivations to make sure s/he does not nurture any ulterior motives in taking on a student (ego, a sense of self-importance, hoping the student can be useful to the teacher, etc.). Teachers must always understand that someone’s practice is still ultimately their own; that the teacher’s view is limited; that a student has Buddha-nature and must always be respected, and that patience and gentleness are as important to the process as frankness and challenge. This does not by any means require that the teacher must always be nice and polite with us. Some of the necessary messages would not get across that way.

The necessity and significance of the student’s conscious willingness is enacted in the ceremony of discipleship (lay and monastic) when the teacher is about to cut off a small portion of hair on the crown of the student’s head, traditionally seen as the “root” of the small self. The teacher asks, somberly, three times: “This portion of hair is called the shura. I am going to cut it off. Only a Buddha can cut it off. Do you permit me to do so or not?” If the student doesn’t reply, with a determined voice, “Yes,” three times, the ceremony is not completed.

Start to Work with a Teacher

Of course, it’s not necessary to formalize a relationship with a teacher. You can work productively with someone for a short time, when you feel the need, or over a long time – even many years – without becoming a formal student.

How do you start? Just take the opportunities you have to spend time with and talk to a teacher. Go to sanzen/dokusan when it is offered, and make appointments to speak with the teacher in practice discussion. You may feel as if you benefit from someone’s teaching by practicing with them and listening to them teach in group settings, but in those situations the teacher is less likely to get to know you. To build a relationship for all the reasons mentioned above takes some one-on-one time.

Zen “Forms” (Established Ways of Doing Things) and How They Can Be Liberating

In traditional Zen practice we have a lot of what we call “forms.” Forms are the physical ways we do things… they include the ways we move in the meditation hall, place our shoes outside the door, the way we chant and offer incense, show respect for one another, and cook communal meals. Our forms include our rituals and ceremonies, the titles and names we use, and the rules, procedures, conduct, traditions and paraphernalia we encounter in our particular religious practice.

If you practice Zen you have a relationship to “form” whether you like it or not. You may avoid form if you practice entirely on your own, or in a rare community that has gotten rid of all forms. However, in a community setting it’s pretty much impossible to get rid of all forms, because you’re going to have to make some decision about the physical ways you do things together – an voila, forms! Even if you are ambivalent about form and engage in it simply because it is part of the whole practice package, and even if you generally try to avoid form, you still have a relationship with it.

For most of us, our relationship to form changes over time and occasionally makes big evolutionary leaps. In my case, I converted to Zen from religious non-conformism and spent many years devouring the details of the forms in an effort to perfect them. Then, even though I had become a monk, I began to think the forms were stupid, pointless, and a big cramp in my style. Rather ironically, then, I was put in the position of shuso, the one who helps to maintain the container of form for the whole sangha. I knew that whenever I approached someone to correct or instruct them about a form, they could see me as a glowing bodhisattva, a bigoted tyrant, a nit-picky irritant, or simply as a fixture of their practice environment, like the hot water pot or the bell calling them to zazen. To face these possibilities calmly, I have not relied on confidence in myself. Rather, I have relied on a growing confidence in the wisdom of these forms.

I want to roughly describe a series of different relationships to form, based on my own experience and my observations of others. I don’t mean to suggest this is an exhaustive list, or that the different relationships always unfold in this order. However, I hope these descriptions might be useful for understanding and accepting the viewpoints of others, and for reminding us that our own viewpoints are subject to change. Whatever category or categories you might fall into, engage that relationship wholeheartedly: explore it, question it, feel it, accept it, and do not compare it to others. The most important thing I have learned is that the form works its own magic on us, below the level of our conscious minds.

First, new practitioners of Zen often engage the form as if The Form Is the Key. At some level we hope that if only we can bow in all the right places at all the right times (gracefully and reverently, but also without any ego involved), finally fold our oryoki cloth in a perfect rectangle, finally zing the teacher with our understanding in sanzen with just the right mix of deference and attitude, the reward of Zen will be ours! This big, complicated, puzzling, frustrating spiritual practice will yield to our efforts (we hope). Sometimes we see the teachers or fellow practitioners that inspire us performing some simple action like putting their shoes straight and our heart almost breaks. We had no idea there could be so much subtlety to placing one’s shoes, or that we could be so very far from embodying our own ideals.

Later, such practitioners have either given up Zen because they felt they could never master all those forms, or they have come close to mastering them and realized they still don’t have It. Eventually, no matter how difficult you find it to learn forms, you can move through a Zen environment performing complicated and graceful maneuvers (that look really good to newcomers) and still feel dead inside. You can practice diligently long enough to earn a fancy name or vestment, yet still feel like these are pasted on over your anguish.

Then we arrive at a rather tense relationship with form: I’ll Do It Only Because You Make Me. Many people start here, and never go through a honeymoon with form. Here we can feel a bit like our deepest longing is being held hostage. Some aspects of Zen have changed our lives or touched us so deeply that we know we must keep coming back. But then our teachers and seniors insist that we engage in certain activities, and surround ourselves with various paraphernalia, that may be meaningless to us at best and repulsive to us at worst. We are constantly on our guard against being bamboozled into something that compromises our integrity, independence, values or self-image. It can be extremely difficult for some of us to participate, for example, in a ceremony if we suspect it is getting everyone all worked up emotionally to the point that they are losing their better judgment. Some people absolutely cannot practice where the kyosaku (“encouragement” stick) is used to strike people during meditation, even when it is totally voluntary, because of the suggestion of violence, punishment or intolerance. Others are repulsed by the system of ordinations, wagessas, rakusus, and kesas, seeing it as being ripe for abuse by egotistical competitive types.

This can be a very difficult relationship to have with form, and many people stop practicing Zen because of it. Some of us strive to find ways to practice only those parts of Zen that seem pure, or fundamental, or at least acceptable to ourselves. We dream about how wonderful practice must be at centers where one gets ordained, or we only feel comfortable meditating if there is a beautiful rock on the altar instead of one of those troubling, baggage-laden (usually male) Buddha images. Or we participate at a traditional center, but duck out right before the irritating or aversive form is about to start.

If we decide to stick it out, though, we may arrive at yet another relationship with form, perhaps best called, Whatever. This is the “whatever” that is said with a small shrug. It is not tuning everything out, nor is it a bleak indifference. It is more good-natured than that. We can say this about the forms when we begin to notice how impermanent and ephemeral our small selves are, how often we are wrong, how limited is our view, how profoundly we change over time. Then we start to take ourselves less seriously. It is not that we shrug and say, “Ah, violence? Who cares?” It’s more like we shrug at ourselves. When our inner champion for social justice is on her soapbox, crying out against the patriarchy we are helping to perpetuate by reciting the lineage of (almost all male) teachers from the time of Shakyamuni Buddha, we smile gently at her and say, “Hmm. You may have a point there. But is this really about justice, or is it about you? What are you so afraid of?” Because we are holding ourselves more lightly, we can start to take the risk of experimenting. Reciting the lineage of male dharma ancestors one more time is not likely to forfeit all the gains women have made, so what happens if we do it wholeheartedly, just once?

In a particularly open and quiet moment, we may come to see the forms as an Existential Lifeline. Just for a moment, we see what is right in front of us as if we were seeing it for the first time – fresh, without filters, without judgment. If our eyes happen to rest at that moment on a sunset or a stoplight or a coffee mug, we may have a very interesting experience. If we happen to be sitting, or bowing, or chanting, or putting on our wagessa, or caring for an altar, or reading a scripture, or facing a teacher, we may receive a piece of the transmission from our dharma ancestors. It is almost like they have left their initials carved into the rock next to particularly stunning, remote waterfall. The message is: we were here, isn’t this place amazing? Then all of the forms appear to serve one purpose, and that is merely to call our attention to the wonder of our existence. In themselves, the forms are indeed empty and many of them are utterly arbitrary, but they are also profound and precious.

It is probably this aspect of the form with attracts us to begin with. Many of us grew up without being exposed to the practice of taking care without any underlying motive. Sure, we knew how to take care of something expensive, or how to take care when we were about to take a big test. But to carefully place our shoes straight or eat mindfully so our silverware doesn’t bang noisily against our bowls? Personally, when I first started encountered Zen, I found the concept completely radical. The reverence and appreciation these Zen people seemed to have for their lives! I wondered, “How do I get some of that?”

Later, even the stoplight and the coffee mug may begin speak the dharma of the ancestors to us. Everything becomes (at least in some moments) rich and luminous and poignantly precious. Putting on our coat becomes as reverent and important an activity as putting on our robes. Having dinner with a difficult relative becomes as engaging as a koan. Learning to dance reveals as much about ourselves as reflecting on the precepts.

Ironically, although it is often Zen practice that has allowed us to experience life this way, this is also one of the times when we are most likely to give it up, or at least find ourselves drawn further and further away from it. Our response to form becomes It Is All The Same. Everything is dharma, everything is practice, so why limit ourselves to a prescribed set of acceptable behaviors? Why spend our vacation time staring at a wall, when we can explore the dharma through passionate sex? Why continue to perform the same stale rituals over and over, when there is a world full of spiritual traditions out there to explore? Many of the people in the world who describe themselves as Zen Buddhists, but do not affiliate themselves with any group or particular lineage, preach the dharma of “it is all the same.”

When we recognize the truth of sameness, when we gain faith that everything, in a sense, is holy, we may also experience a fair amount of anger towards our spiritual traditions and advisors. It can seem as if they have tricked us by convincing us there was something inherently lacking or defiled about the world or about ourselves. Perhaps they just wanted to recruit more followers, or perhaps they are much less wise than we thought, but they have distracted us for too long with all their forms and ideals. Now we have discovered the inherent purity of ourselves and of all things, and no one is going to put us back in that prison of shame!

Once again, though, if we still stay with the form, our relationship to it can shift in a very significant way. We may notice that our spiritual advisors were not imprisoning us in shame. We were imprisoning ourselves. Having discovered that there is nothing inherently lacking in ourselves or in the world, we have liberated ourselves from ourselves. If there is anyone that needs to be carefully watched lest they capture us again, it is ourselves.

Yet, even when proximity to the form is no longer threatening, there remains an important question: why would we bother to keep holding the form after it no longer seems to serve any purpose for us personally? Why would we continue to enter into the formal spaces, which often just cramp our styles? This was a critically important question for me, as a monk. I realized that as a religious non-conformist, my personal definition of “conform” was “to give up one’s intelligence and will; to lack creativity; to huddle together like sheep out of fear.” I was shocked to look up the word and find it meant “to act in accord or harmony with a standard or norm.” What was I missing here?

When our view broadens, we create space for regarding form as The Creation of Sangha. This is about conforming with each other so that we create something in common and move in harmony together. In order to create anything together, we have to compromise with each other. Each of us has to sacrifice some of our independence, willfulness, personality and flavor not because those things are bad, but because we value and want to support our common endeavor. Imagine what it would be like if the temple was simply open on Sundays for several hours for “spiritual practice,” and no other forms were applied. Imagine people coming into the zendo, doing fast or slow walking meditation here and there, bowing in the corners, doing yoga, coming and going, perhaps carrying on conversations and strumming on guitars. Perhaps that sounds like heaven on earth to you, but ask yourself how supported you would feel in your spiritual practice, especially when the going got hard. Would you be able to meditate as deeply if the person next to you was doing Chi Gong, or reading a book of poetry?

Every sangha and its attendant forms is an imperfect package. Some of its forms may be deep, beautiful and meaningful, and some of its forms may be anachronistic, awkward and inefficient. When we have invested deeply in the sangha over time, we may be able to negotiate to change some of them. Most of the time, though, we simply engage in the forms because that is the way we do things when we are together. In one sense, the more standardized the form, the more inclusive is the group. It is a very moving experience to go to Japan and see Zen Buddhists straightening their shoes, bowing, and sitting zazen just like we do. We belong to the same group.

Over the long haul, do you believe the sangha is important, to you and to others? If so, then support it. Every time you straighten your shoes, you are addressing the sangha: “I value being a part of this community.” When you come to sit with others, even though your practice at home is strong, you are saying, “This community has been of great benefit to me, and I want it to continue for my sake and for the sake of others.” Especially when you compromise something of yourself by following a form, you are saying, “Though my community is imperfect, it is doing the Buddha work.”