Teaching Zen to Americans

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Signature: __________________________________ _______________ Kim Boykin Date Teaching Zen to Americans by Kim Boykin Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Division of Religion _____________________________________ Wendy Farley Co-adviser _____________________________________ Gary Laderman Co-adviser _____________________________________ Eric Reinders Committee Member _____________________________________ Steven Tipton Committee Member Accepted: _____________________________________ Lisa A. Tedesco, Ph.D. Dean of the Graduate School _____________________________________ Date Teaching Zen to Americans By Kim Boykin B.A., Vassar College, 1987 M.T.S., Candler School of Theology, Emory University, 1996 Advisor: Wendy Farley, Ph.D. Advisor: Gary Laderman, Ph.D. An abstract of a dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies of Emory University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate Division of Religion American Religious Cultures 2010 Abstract Teaching Zen to Americans By Kim Boykin Teachers in the Zen Buddhist tradition have used a variety of strategies for describing Buddhist practice and its relationship to enlightenment or buddhahood. In examining the stream of Mahāyāna Buddhist thought and teaching that leads to and includes Japanese Zen, I find three main varieties of “instrumental” (goal-oriented) descriptions of Buddhist practice as a means to attain enlightenment: (1) practice as a means to attain prajñā (the wisdom of śūnyatā, or emptiness); (2) practice as a means to “uncover” inherent buddha-nature; and (3) practice as a means to “realize” inherent buddha-nature. I also find a “noninstrumental” description of Buddhist practice as manifestation or expression of inherent buddhahood—a description exemplified by the teachings of Dōgen. I then focus on descriptions of practice in three classic texts of American Zen: The Three Pillars of Zen by Philip Kapleau, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki, and Everyday Zen by Charlotte Joko Beck. I argue that all teachers in the Zen tradition, even those who describe practice as instrumental for attaining enlightenment, are challenging, to one degree or another, an instrumental orientation to Buddhist practice in particular and life in general—that is, an orientation of striving to attain a goal—and in the American context, Shunryu Suzuki’s Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind and Joko Beck’s Everyday Zen offer interesting new pedagogical strategies, challenging the instrumental orientation more strongly than do most of their predecessors other than Dōgen, while also incorporating an instrumental element that Dōgen eschews almost entirely and that is probably important for the instrumentally oriented Zen student. Teaching Zen to Americans By Kim Boykin B.A., Vassar College, 1987 M.T.S., Candler School of Theology, Emory University, 1996 Advisor: Wendy Farley, Ph.D. Advisor: Gary Laderman, Ph.D. A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies of Emory University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate Division of Religion American Religious Cultures 2010 Contents 1. Introduction 1 “Practice and Enlightenment” Instrumental and Noninstrumental Teachings Overview Previous Work Related to the Topic 2. “Practice and Enlightenment” in the Asian Development of Zen 14 Practice as Instrumental for Attaining Prajñā Practice as Instrumental for Uncovering Buddha-nature Practice as Instrumental for Realizing Buddha-nature Practice as Noninstrumental Practice as Both Instrumental and Noninstrumental Challenges to Instrumentality 3. The Modernization and American Immigration of Zen 72 The Modernization of Buddhism in Japan Buddhism Comes to America Modernized Japanese Zen Comes to America 4. Philip Kapleau’s The Three Pillars of Zen 98 The Three Pillars of Zen and the Popularization of the Practice of Zen Practice as Instrumental for Attaining Prajñā Practice as Instrumental for Realizing Buddha-nature Practice as Instrumental for Realizing Buddha-nature and as a Manifestation of Buddhahood? Two Truths about Practice How to Practice to Attain Enlightenment Stressing the Instrumental 5. Shunryu Suzuki’s Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind 138 Shunryu Suzuki and Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind Descriptions of Practice in Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind Suzuki’s Complex Presentation of Practice How to Practice to Resume One’s Buddha-nature Suzuki’s Integration of the Instrumental and Noninstrumental 6. Charlotte Joko Beck’s Everyday Zen 167 Charlotte Joko Beck and Everyday Zen Practice as Instrumental for Attaining Prajñā Practice as Instrumental for Realizing the Perfection of Things as They Are Two Truths about Practice? How to Practice to Realize the Perfection of Things as They Are Joko’s Integration of the Instrumental and Noninstrumental 7. Conclusion 197 Challenges to Instrumentality in the Asian Development of Zen Challenges to Instrumentality in Modern American Zen Appendix: Ch’an/Zen Lineage Chart 204 References 208 1 1 Introduction “PRACTICE AND ENLIGHTENMENT” A perennial issue in the thought and teaching of Zen Buddhism is the tension between two basic teachings of the tradition. First, Zen teaches that all beings inherently have the nature of buddhas—awakened or enlightened beings. Second, Zen teaches that we need to engage in practices such as meditation, listening to the teacher’s talks, and following the moral precepts. But if the ultimate aim of Zen is buddhahood and all beings inherently have the nature of buddhas, why does one need to engage in the practices of Zen, practices that can require a great deal of effort and discipline? Why exert oneself in this way if not as a means to attain buddhahood? This question plagued the young Dōgen, who would later found the Sōtō school of Zen in Japan, and led him on a journey from Japan to China in search of an answer. Buddhist scholar Francis Dojun Cook renders Dōgen’s question as “If one is in fact a 2 Buddha right now, why practice at all?”1 and Zen teacher Philip Kapleau renders it as “‘If, as the sutras say, our Essential-nature is Bodhi (perfection), why did all Buddhas have to strive for enlightenment and perfection?’”2 This issue in Zen teaching—the tension between teaching the importance of practice and teaching that beings are inherently buddhas—is sometimes referred to as “practice and enlightenment.” This tension could be seen as a sort of doctrinal or metaphysical or philosophical issue in Zen teaching: how to philosophically reconcile a claim that beings inherently have the nature of buddhas with a claim that practice is necessary. But this tension can also be seen as an issue about how Zen students engage in Zen practice, or orient themselves toward Zen practice, and this practical and pedagogical angle is what especially interest me. On the one hand, Zen teachers sometimes stress the importance of engaging in the practice of Zen, encouraging an attitude of effort and discipline and, usually, of striving to attain a goal—the goal of enlightenment. On the other hand, Zen teachers sometimes stress that buddha-nature, or the nature of an enlightened being, is inherent in everyone, encouraging an attitude of acceptance and letting be and letting go of a supposed need to strive to attain a goal. Scholar John McRae, in examining teachings on “the basic attitude one that should be adopted toward Buddhist spiritual cultivation,” calls this issue “a notoriously refractory subject.”3 I have struggled with the refractory subject of “practice and enlightenment” myself over many years—in my own Zen practice, in my teaching of beginning Zen 1 Francis Dojun Cook, How To Raise an Ox: Zen Practice as Taught in Zen Master Dogen’s Shobogenzo (Los Angeles: Center Publications, 1978), 8. 2 Philip Kapleau, ed., The Three Pillars of Zen (New York: Doubleday, 1980), 5. 3 John McRae, Seeing through Zen: Encounter, Transformation, and Genealogy in Chinese Chan Buddhism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 66. 3 practice, in my academic study of Zen, and in trying to explain Zen to beginners in my book Zen for Christians4—and I have been intrigued by the various ways that Zen teachers in the American context have dealt with this issue. In this dissertation, I first examine the various descriptions of practice in relation to enlightenment that are found in the stream of Mahāyāna Buddhist thought and teaching that leads to and includes Japanese Zen. Then I focus on the descriptions of Zen practice in relation to enlightenment in three classic texts of American Zen Buddhism: The Three Pillars of Zen by Philip Kapleau, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki, and Everyday Zen by Charlotte Joko Beck.5 These books have been important to me in my own Zen practice and have been widely influential in American Zen. I was pleased that Zen teacher James Ishmael Ford ratified my selection of American Zen classics in his 2006 book Zen Master Who? He begins by saying that among the numerous books on Zen practice, “some, like Philip Kapleau’s The Three Pillars of Zen, Shunryu Suzuki’s Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, and Charlotte Joko Beck’s Everyday Zen deserve to be called true Western spiritual classics.”6 INSTRUMENTAL AND NONINSTRUMENTAL TEACHINGS In the stream of Mahāyāna Buddhist thought and teaching that leads to and includes Chinese Ch‘an, Japanese Zen, and American Zen, I have found a variety of strategies for describing Buddhist practice in relation to enlightenment.

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