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Public Zen, Personal Zen Public Zen, Personal Zen CRITICAL ISSUES IN WORLD AND INTERNATIONAL HISTORY Series Editor: Morris Rossabi The Vikings: Wolves of War by Marn Arnold Magic and Superson in E urope: A Concise History from Anquity t o the Present by Michael D. Bailey War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust, Second Edion by Doris L. Bergen Peter the Great by Paul Bushkovitch A Concise History of Hong Kong by John M. Carroll Ming China, 1368–1644: A Concise History of a Resilient Empire by John W. Dardess A History of Medieval Heresy and Inquision by Jennifer Kolpacoff Deane Remaking Italy in the Tweneḁth Century by Roy Palmer Domenico A Concise History of Euthanasia: Life, Death, God, and Medicine by Ian Dowbiggin The Work of France: Labor and Culture in Early Modern Times, 1350–1800 by James R. Farr The Idea of Capitalism before the Industrial Revoluon by Richard Grassby Chinese Migraons: The Mo vement of People, Goods, and Ideas over Four Millennia by Diana Lary The Concise History of the Crusades, Third Edion by Thomas F. Madden The Great Encounter of China and the West, 1500–1800, Fourth Edion by D. E. Mungello A Concise History of the French Revoluon by Sylvia Neely The Brish Imperial Cen tury, 1815–1914: A World History Perspecveḁ by Timothy H. Parsons The Norman Conquest: England a er William the Conqueror by Hugh M. Thomas Europe’s Reformaons, 1450–1650: Doctrine, P olics, and Community , Second Edion by James D. Tracy PublicA BuddhistZen, PersonalIntroductionZen Peter D. Hershock WMAN & LITTLEFIELD Lanham • Boulder • New Y k • T o • Plymouth, UK RO or oront Published by Rowman & Li. lefield 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com 10 Thornbury Road, Plymouth PL6 7PP, United Kingdom Copyright © 2014 by Rowman & Lilefield All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including informaon storage and retrieval systems, without wrien permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. Brish Library Cataloguing in Publicaon Informaon Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publica on Data Hershock, Peter D. Public Zen, personal Zen : a Buddhist introducon / Peter D. Hershock. pages cm. — (Crical issues in world and internaonal history) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4422-1612-9 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-4422-1614-3 (electronic) 1. Zen Buddhism—History. I. Title. BQ9262.3.H47 2014 294.3'927—dc23 2013040486 TM The paper used in this publicaon meets the minimum requirements of American Naonal Standard for Informaon Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America Acknowledgments Some books fly into and through an author’s life on wings of sudden and then surprisingly sustained inspiraon—book s that seem almost impossible not to write. This book had more reluctant beginnings and yet has proved to be unexpectedly rewarding. In 2006 I had the great pleasure to be able to invite Morris Rossabi to serve as a presenter for a faculty development program on the Silk Roads and China, hosted at the East- West Center in Honolulu under the auspices of a grant from the Naonal Endowment for the Humanies (NEH). The lectur es and discussions that Morris conducted were models of combined communicav e ease and depth, marrying scholarly aplomb with urbane and yet uĀerly sincere friendliness in a way that was manifestly rare. When the opportunity arose to run a similar program in 2010, Morris was high on the list of presenters to bring back for a larger role in the program. Out of that second occasion to have contributory shares in a vibrant community of inquiry (for which thanks are due to NEH) came a suggeson from Morris that I consider wring a book on Japanese Z en for his series on Cric al Issues in World and Internaonal ̀ History. As someone trained in Asian and comparav e philosophy, not history, I was both flaered and quick to offer reasons why that would not be a good idea, including the crucial fact that my study of Buddhism had focused largely on China, not Japan. Thankfully, Morris was not dissuaded and apparently gave a rather bright green light to Susan McEachern to approach me from the editorial offices of Rowman & Lileḁ field. The combinaon of Morris’ per sonificaon of caring humanity and Susan’s measured yet persistent invitaons t o give the offer serious consideraon eḁventually dissolved enough of my reluctance that I actually began thinking about what kind of book on Zen I might be able to write, and how it might differ producv ely from the hundreds of tles alr eady in print. To both Morris and Susan, then, go hearĀelt thanks. Thanks are also due to my many teachers, without whom I would not have been able to write this book. First to menon ar e the many scholars of Zen on whose work I have drawn and to whom readers are directed through endnotes and my suggesons f or further reading. But included as well are such now “problemac” figur es as D. T. Suzuki and Alan Was, through whose wrings I fir st encountered Zen as a teenager raonally dismayed by the arms race and the depredaons of w ar in Vietnam and at home, and spiritually doubul about the pr omises of either organized religion or individual (and oĀen hedonisc) “ self-discovery.” Doors are somemes opened b y what hindsight might represent as unlikely hands. Deeper thanks are due to my Buddhist teachers, Seung Sahn Dae Soen Sa Nim and Ji Kwang Dae Poep Sa Nim, through whom the personificaon of Zen became for me more than words on a page. Without Dae Poep Sa Nim’s instrucons t o make my graduate school office into my “Bodhidharma cave,” I most likely would have failed to finish my doctorate and connued looking ̀ for the Buddhist path rather than stepping (however lightly and awkwardly) onto it in pracce. My indeb tedness remains unfathomed. Finally, thanks are due to my family. We are all sons or daughters, born through bonds of love and blood, a “red thread” stretching interminably behind us. And as vibrantly inmaȁte as we can be with friends and colleagues, it ulmaȁtely is in our families that we are most profoundly and steadily refreshed in treading the infinite path of realizing appreciav e and contributory virtuosity. Introduction Among Buddhist tradions of though t and pracce, Z en has been one of the most successful in garnering and sustaining interest outside of the Buddhist homelands of Asia. Over just the last fiy y ears, thousands of books on Zen have been published in Western languages, hundreds of Internet websites have been launched on Zen history and pracce, ̀ and the word “zen” has come to be part of the lexicon of global popular culture. This relav e popularity is somewhat ironic. For most of its fiĀeen- hundred-year history, Zen (Chinese: Chan; Korean: Sŏn) generally has portrayed itself as a return to Buddhist origins that requires extraordinary commitment and personal effort. Seng ̀ itself apart from (and oĀen above) other Buddhist tradions, Z en has underscored its special status by claiming to replicate in each generaon the enligh tened mutual understanding that was realized when the Buddha held up a single flower and elicited a smiling response from his disciple Mahākāśyapa. Epitomizing this valorizaon of ̀ silently shared enlightenment, when the iconic ninth- century Chinese Zen master Linji Yixuan (J: Rinzai Gigen) was publicly invited to explain Zen, he responded that “as soon as I open my mouth, I will have made a mistake.” Whereas other Buddhist tradions ̀ in China at the me iden fied themselv es with parcular t exts or commentarial tradions, ̀ Zen came to idenf y itself as being “beyond words and leers”—a tradion cen tered on and sustained by “direct transmission, from heart-mind to heart-mind.” Given all this, why write yet another book about Zen? Part of the answer is that books are not wriĀen for tradions; theḁy are wriĀen for readers. Zen might have idenfied ̀ itself as a tradion based on a special communicaon occurring “beḁyond words and leers,” but this did not stop Zen teachers from wring , or from doing so extensively and with great erudion. In f act, the arculaȁon of Z en has been so inseparable from wriĀen communicaon thaȁt imagining Zen without wring is lik e imagining a hand without bones. Another, related part of the answer is that whenever Zen teachings and pracces haȁve crossed cultural boundaries— as in being brought to the West—new kinds of wrings deḁveloped, adapted to the needs and interests of new kinds of readers. Wring neḁw books on Zen might well be said to be a crucial factor in the connued vibrancy and mobility of Zen. One of the guiding assumpons in wring this book has been tha t if all things arise interdependently and are connually changing—tw o of Buddhism’s founding insights—then Zen should be presented as having complex origins and as relentlessly dynamic. One implicaon of this is thaȁt the depth with which Zen is presented will be correlated with the breadth of consideraon giv en to the contexts of its origins and development. That is, snapshots of Zen are not enough. Accordingly, a substanal poron of this book is historical—a presentaon of Z en not as it is, but as it has come to be. A second guiding assumpon has been thaȁt history and biography are inmaȁtely connected, and that the success of an introductory presentaon of Z en will in some measure be related to how well it integrates both the “public” and “personal” dimensions of Zen.
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