Five Reasons why Zen is an Ideal Spiritual Path for this Time

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For the past nine years, I have been practicing Zen Buddhist meditation on a daily basis, have studied with Zen teachers, and have been regularly going on silent meditation retreats.  Zen practice has blessed my life in countless ways, and it has provided me with a practical means to connect to what I call “God” or Buddha Nature.  My broad view is that religions are essentially temporary paths to God-Realization or Enlightenment, and that there are many, perhaps infinite, paths leading to It.  Zen is merely one path among many, and is therefore not better or worse than others.  For this reason, I do not self-identify as a Buddhist.  However, I have come to the conclusion that Zen is an ideal path for many people in the West looking to deepen their spiritual life.  In this post, I will explore some of the reasons why I feel this way.

  1. Zen Redefines Faith and the Divine in a Way that is Compatible with Modernity

In our scientific civilization, many people find it increasingly uncomfortable to profess faith in a God that the natural world provides no tangible “evidence” for.  In traditional Western religions, holy books are invoked that speak of God, and devotees are often asked to have faith that such books provide adequate proof that God exists.  To a growing number of people, such a request requires an unthinkable abdication of their own intellect.  After all – even granted that Scriptures may be divinely inspired – mere human beings penned scriptures like the Bible.  While they undoubtedly contain spiritual wisdom, they do not provide an intelligent person with adequate proof that the Divine exists.

In Zen, faith has a completely different meaning.  A Zen Buddhist has faith that the experience of enlightenment is real, and that actual human beings, like the historical Buddha, have had this definitive experience for themselves.  Furthermore, it is possible that I myself, through dedicated practice, can experience enlightenment (I use such language as a practicality; enlightenment is not a thing to be experienced, for it transcends the dichotomy of knower and known).  If someone who has traveled to India describes to you all the wondrous sights he/she saw there, and also gives you a practical roadmap to go see for yourself, you would not discard their descriptions simply because they transcend your own currently limited range of travel experience.  Similarly, the beginning of faith in Zen is to admit that, although I myself have not realized It, the Buddha’s enlightenment experience is a latent possibility within myself that I am capable of actualizing.

Apart from faith, many people are jaded with the very idea of “God,” a creator outside of them who arbitrarily dictates the often horrific fates of human beings.  In Zen, “God” is replaced with Buddha Nature or True Nature.  We are God or Buddha Nature, but have simply forgotten who we are in our un-awakened state.  Enlightenment is therefore not a servile relationship with a Divine Presence outside of me, but rather realizing that I, and all things, are that Divine Presence!  In this view, God is an experience that is actually the experience of our own True Nature.

From this perspective, God-Realization or Enlightenment is a possibility for all people in this very life, for, as the Zen Master Hakuin wrote, “This earth where we stand is the Pure Lotus Land (Heaven), and this very body is the body of Buddha!” People who have been falsely taught that experiencing God is only possible in a distant and inconceivable afterlife will be refreshed by this life affirming, hopeful, and “earthy” perspective.   This re-conceptualization of the Divine and of faith is exactly what many Western seekers are looking for.  For such a view of faith does not require the surrender of one’s own intellect, but it also does not deny the possibility of profound spiritual experience.

2. Zen Emphasizes Empiricism instead of Dogmatism

Many people today are hesitant to affiliate with organized religion because they feel uncomfortable professing the “truth” of a theological belief system.  While the Zen tradition treasures many teachings connected to the historical Buddha and the lineage of Zen masters, there is no fixed belief system in Zen.  As with Yoga, Zen is essentially a practice, not a dogma.  Any insights that crystallize as teachings arise from the direct experience of the masters.

So while there are Zen teachings, a Zen teacher would never ask a student to be satisfied with another person’s description of Truth.  In the Dhammapada, the Buddha compares such dogmatic belief to a poor person “counting another’s cows” and pretending he/she is rich.  The great Zen master Dogen said, “to study the Way is to study the self.”  When you go on a Zen retreat, you do not generally read scriptures, and you do not have dry discussions about ancient theology.  You just sit there and “study” your own breath and your own wandering mind.  You study the moment Itself.  In Zen, all the teachings must be tested in the factory of your own living, breathing, human experience.  Any “understanding” short of this direct experience is, to a genuine mystic, unpardonably dissatisfying.

A person who has never meditated may discard the enlightenment experiences recorded by the Zen masters as childish delusions.  Such a person fails to realize that their own lack of spiritual experience does not negate the possibility of spiritual experience.  Meditation is an actual technology that has produced thousands of enlightenment experiences throughout the ages.  The discipline of Buddhist meditation can, in this sense, be thought of as scientific.  A person looking at a table with their own eyes has a view that is constricted by the limitations of their own senses.  But if a person looks through a highly powered electron microscope, they will find limitless worlds dancing and vibrating in a single centimeter of seemingly motionless space!  Similarly, one’s range of conscious experience can expand through the ancient meditation techniques of India that Zen has inherited, and one is given the tools to discover for oneself the priceless insights spoken of in the scriptures.

  1. Zen Meditation has Many Practical Benefits

Concentration techniques, like counting your breath, are the foundation of all Buddhist meditation practices, and these practices have been proven to reduce anxiety and stress.  While stress reduction and increased concentration are not the goal of Zen, they are a delightful by-product of having a regular meditation practice. Chronic stress plagues our information based civilization, mostly because people do not have the ability to calm their wandering mind.

I have often struggled with anxiety, and practicing meditation has been a priceless medicine for me in my daily life. Similarly, going on longer retreats produces a deeper relaxation that has ripple effects for months, even years, after I go.  As a social worker, having such a potent stress reduction technique is literally incalculable to me, and for this reason I would still practice meditation even if I did not believe in the possibility of enlightenment.

Other potential benefits of meditation include better sleep, having more insight into the natural workings of your own personality, and being more in touch with your feelings. Additionally, the concentration power naturally produced by meditation can aide one in any form of physical or mental discipline.

  1. Zen is a Rich Historical and Cultural Tradition

While the New Age movement in America has given millions of people a new perspective on life, and has introduced them to many exotic practices, it often lacks the sustained depth that is necessary to produce lasting spiritual experience.  While Zen is an open ended practice based on experience, it is also a tradition that spans over 80 generations to the historical Buddha himself.  It has a historical continuity that gives it both a rich cultural tradition, and a sense of time-tested validity.

Zen has spiritually transformed countless lives throughout the ages, and has produced enlightenment experiences in thousands of people living in profoundly different historical circumstances.  While getting too attached to tradition can be a hindrance to enlightenment, it should also be said that being totally devoid of tradition can be an equally harmful pitfall.  A classic spiritual maxim is that you cannot strike water digging a well with 10 shallow holes.  It is better to dig one deep hole and get to the Essence than to practice many traditions on a shallow level.

The New Age cocktail of “Kundalini Yoga on Monday, Sufi Dancing on Tuesday, Christian mysticism on Wednesday, Buddhism on Thursday, and Kabballah on Friday” can be intellectually stimulating, but it often blocks people from having any deep insights and achieving permanent spiritual transformation. For me, Zen provides a time-tested practice I have spent years, and will continue to spend years, deepening.  It is not better or worse than other traditions.  For me, it is my one deep hole to strike the water of spiritual realization.  Many Western people seeking a path would benefit from this “middle way” found in Zen of cutting edge practice combined with a rich historical tradition that is both culturally and spiritually nourishing.

  1. Zen is Essentially Nonsectarian

While Zen is technically a religious tradition, it is essentially empirical and non-sectarian. As is true in Yoga, members of any religion can practice it without renouncing their own traditions.  As I said above, I do not self-identify as a Buddhist.  I often pray to what I call “the Personal God,” study the teachings of many religions, and have recently been exploring my spiritual roots in the traditions of Judaism and Christianity.

In my life, Zen has actually enhanced my understanding of these other traditions.  When I lived at Great Vow Zen Mastery, I re-read the Christian scriptures, which I had discarded as childish, and realized that Jesus and the Buddha produced an astonishing number of nearly identical teachings.  Furthermore, my own mystical experiences in meditation gave me new insight into Biblical sayings I had heard since childhood, but had not been able to relate to.  When I read Jesus saying things like, “I and the Father are One,” I realized that he was not referring to his own unique status as an Incarnation, but to awakening experiences he was attempting to express in his own cultural idiom.

I found similar enlightenment experiences described in the Bhagavad Gita by Krishna, and by Sufi mystics like Hafiz and Rumi. I realized that the thread running through all these traditions was actual spiritual realization, and that Zen provided me with a path to understand them on an experiential, rather than intellectual, basis.  My own teachers did not discourage me from pursuing these types of connections.  In fact, they strongly encouraged me to realize the deeper truths of the Bible within the context of my own Zen practice.

My main point is that, because of its non-sectarian and practice-based nature, Zen practice is not mutually exclusive to other forms of religious affiliation.  The Buddha has been accurately described as a scientist of the human mind, a mind that all people share regardless of their race, religion, gender, or nationality. His insights can benefit the religious and the non-religious alike.  A Christian can be a Christian who practices Zen, just as they can practice Yoga or a martial art without renouncing their faith.  Similarly, atheists who have no religious affiliation can benefit from Zen for the same reasons. For Zen does not ask anyone to believe in a theology, but to simply study their own human experience with a profound intensity that does not settle for hearsay or “counting another’s cows.”

Thanks for reading.  With love,

Jfree

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