This a Q&A episode based on questions I’ve received from listeners: Does Zen have anything to say about human relationships? Can we learn anything from the cultural popularization of the term “Zen”? If we have no independent self-nature, what about our sense of enduring self? Do Buddhists practice confession like Catholics?
Please feel free to submit questions via the podcast website. It sometimes takes me a while to get around to questions, but I have a running list, so don’t hesitate to send them. Sometimes they inspire full episodes too.
Quicklinks to Article Content:
Does Zen Have Anything to Say about Relationships?
The Cultural Popularization of “Zen”
No Independent Self-Nature Versus a Sense of Self
Do Buddhists Practice Confession Like Catholics?
Does Zen Have Anything to Say about Relationships?
Stephen wrote:
Hi, I’ve been practicing for three years or so, and one thing keeps gnawing away at me – I understand that we are each on our individual path and have to experience things for ourselves and shouldn’t have attachments. So how does this stack up given I am in a wonderful marriage to a loving and understanding wife – we want to follow similar paths, we’re certainly attached to each other and want to grow old together. Zen seems to say little about relationships, about love between two people and the family (we have three adult children). Much of what I read and find on your podcast seems relevant to individuals. Can you shed some light on this?
There are a slowly growing number of contemporary Zen and Buddhist books on how to apply our practice to our human relationships. A few that I found by searching, authored by Zen or Buddhist teachers or at least long-time practitioners, include:
Nothing Special: A Zen Buddhist Guide to Awakening Through Daily Life’s Feelings, Relationships, and Work by Charlotte J. Beck
The Zen of You and Me: A Guide to Getting Along with Just About Anyone by Diane Musho Hamilton
Teachings on Love by Thich Nhat Hanh
These kinds of sources involve a modern teacher describing how to apply our practice within relationships and they can be very helpful. I suspect, however, that what you’re really asking is whether there are traditional Buddhist and Zen teachings and practices that apply directly to human relationships. Honestly, of course, the focus of Buddhism and Zen through the ages has been monastic practice, and traditionally monks eschewed married life as well as full engagement with extended family. They didn’t work outside their monastic communities, and therefore the monastic regulations were guidance enough for their human relationships. (So this would have been fairly formal – conforming to formal roles while setting aside personal preferences, not unlike the training of people in the military.)
Still, the Buddha famously said that good spiritual friends aren’t just important to the holy life, they are the whole of the holy life.[i] It’s worth reflecting on what he meant! I take it to mean that human beings are social creatures by nature. We might like to think that our spiritual path is something we undertake and accomplish on our own, but this is impossible. If we try to do this, we are living in a fantasy land. On the other hand, we make progress on the spiritual path when we realize we are interdependent with other beings, and that not only do we need the support of others, the fulfillment of our realization comes through our interactions with others.
Then there’s the Buddha’s teachings on Metta, or extending to each and every living being the same love and concern we would feel toward our only child.[ii] The Buddha gives some further guidance to lay people in the Mangala Sutta, where he describes the highest blessings of a human life as including:
“To support mother and father, to cherish wife and children, and to be engaged in peaceful occupation… To be generous in giving, to be righteous in conduct, to help one’s relatives, and to be blameless in action… To be respectful, humble, contented and grateful.”
In Zen the bodhisattva aspiration is central, and Zen master Dogen describes four ways that bodhisattva’s care for living beings: Generosity, kind speech, beneficial action, and identity action, or seeing oneself as being in the same boat with all living beings. I cover this teaching of Dogen’s in Episodes 105, 106 and 112.
Still, these kinds of teachings, no matter how inspiring, don’t really address the nitty gritty of everyday human relationships, or the profound nature of our love for one another. I think it’s essential for us to recognize the radical shift Buddhism and Zen have undergone in the last 75 years – an eyeblink, really, in the history of the tradition. We’ve gone from a tradition focused almost entirely on monastic practice to one where lay practitioners vastly outnumber monastics and demand full participation in the tradition. In many lineages, lay practitioners openly question whether the monastic tradition is even relevant anymore.
We’ll see where all this goes, but at the very least the Zen and Buddhist traditions are being required to expand their frame of reference. Inspired by the central character of one of the earliest Mahayana Sutras, the layman Vimalakirti, lay people insist that full realization and actualization can occur right in the midst of their lay lives. Far from being obstacles to awakening, relationships with partners, children, parents, relatives, coworkers, and friends can be the vehicle to awakening.
Those lay people – or those ordained people, like me, living largely lay lives – who have stuck with the tradition and become teachers are now transforming it, offering guidance to people practicing in the midst of loving relationships. A great example of this is The Book of Householder Koans: Waking Up in the Land of Attachments by Eve Myonen Marko and Wendy Egyoku Nakao.
The Buddhist and Zen tradition can still be daunting or off-putting to newer people, unfortunately, before they gain enough confidence in the practice and in themselves to see past tradition’s historical focus on monasticism and envision a legitimate path of full engagement with the world and personal human relationships. I wish you the best of luck!
The Cultural Popularization of “Zen”
Jim wrote:
Zen has become infused into popular culture. In my town we have commercial ventures such as Appliance Zen (appliance repair business), Zen Skincare and Waxing Studio, Zen Sushi (it’s actually quite good), and Zen Snow Cones (smooth and relaxing). Then there is my favorite, Zen Tubing, with the tag line “get in touch with your inner tube.” They sell float trips down a local river and advertise with a cute frog sort of meditating on an inner tube. Another apparently popular item is Buddhist themed tattoos such as the enso. What can we learn from the cultural popularization of Zen?
The first think that springs to my mind is, “We can recognize how hungry people are for some of the peace of mind Zen practice offers.”
I admit to being mildly annoyed when I browse the gardening section of my local store and see Buddha-head planters. There are also usually Buddhas and various meditating animals available as garden statuary, but a planter which will let a plant sprout out of the top of the Buddha’s head always strikes me as hilarious and offensive simultaneously. Who would plant something in the top of Christ’s head?
It’s easy to get frustrated and put-off by the commercialization of Buddhism and Zen. If the name or imagery will help sales, it’s going to happen, regardless of what it cheapens or how off base the premise is. Still, I like to think about what people are attracted to when they choose to brand something as Zen or avail themselves of something branded that way. Of course it’s not going to be the tough parts of practice like uncomfortable meditation postures, letting of self-attachment, or working with our karma. Instead, it’s going to be the supposed end result of practice – freedom, ease, calm, peace of mind, centeredness, compassion, kindness, and imperturbability. When someone sticks a Buddha statue on their shelf or their garden even though they’re not interested in Buddhist practice, they are, in a sense, creating an altar to their own aspiration and longing for greater peace and realization.
I wouldn’t be surprised if someone did research on the names of businesses and found people had a more positive impression of businesses that included the word “Zen” – that they’d be more inclined to trust them and find their interactions rewarding. Most people know nothing about Zen other than it involves meditation and images of Buddha, so clearly if such an effect exists it would be due entirely to a cultural association with the word Zen. My sense of the cultural meaning is that it is an adjective that can describe a business, person, attitude, action, experience, or setting. Maybe us Zen practitioners can learn something from this.
What do people mean when they say, “That’s so Zen”? I think they’re pointing toward an intuition they have about a way we can experience the world. This experience includes unconditional equanimity – everything is fundamentally okay, no matter what’s going on. It includes a sense of aesthetic appreciation for the pure and simple things in life, in contrast with ostentation or excess. It includes a sense of patience and kindness toward all beings, and a calm sense of sufficiency that counteracts our desire to rush around grasping after more. These things seem like wonderful things for people to value in our society, even if they lack a full understanding of how they relate to Zen practice.
No Independent Self-Nature Versus a Sense of Self
Vicki wrote:
You have talked and assigned readings and books on the concept of no self. I understand I am not the same person as I was at 4 years old or 14 years old, etc. I understand that my experiences shaped who I am. Had I had different experiences, I would indeed be a different type of person. I understand that I am not my thoughts or feelings or my body.
And yet… there is a part of me that has been there from birth that has shaped me as much as my experiences. And this is true with all of us. We are all born with inherited personality traits. Perhaps these personality traits are my spirit or soul? Or what about that still, small voice inside? Or perhaps just awareness, the entity that watches those thoughts and emotions go by in meditation? In short, it is difficult for me to understand no self when it comes to this aspect.
It’s not that there is no self, it’s just that the self cannot be grasped. It cannot be fixed, definitively defined, separated out from its environment. There is undoubtedly a profound aliveness that we all experience. Or you might even say there is a profound aliveness that we are. Can it be called awareness? Energy? Consciousness? Inhabiting a body temporarily? We keep on looking for the self because we want to find it, control it, be able to rely on it, and keep it safe.
Awakening to no-self is giving up the search. It’s putting our faith in our unfolding life, moment by moment. We experiment with not trying to grasp or define our self. We open to the direct experience of our Being as precious, vital, and luminous… recognizing that our Being is not fundamentally separate from the Being of any other living thing, or of inanimate objects, or of the universe itself. Our particular life has its color and flavor – our physical body, personality, relationships, values, ideas, experiences, memories, passions – but we know our true Being doesn’t reside in, or depend on, any of the details. We can enjoy, treasure, be grateful for the details – but we don’t have to appropriate them to define and delineate the self.
It’s like learning to let go of struggling and allow your body to float in calm water. If you’re not used to it, if you’re afraid of drowning, it is very hard not to thrash around in an effort to save yourself. But once you can relax, you are held up. In the case of looking for our self-nature, it will manifest if we allow it to, but we have to stop struggling to control it. This doesn’t mean we stop asking the questions, “Who am I, really? What is the nature of human life? In what sense am I no different from the Being of any other living thing, or of inanimate objects, or of the universe itself?” It is essential that we wonder, seek, and question ourselves – but we know we can never arrive at a fixed answer. The answer will be something we live.
Do Buddhists Practice Confession Like Catholics?
Bruce wrote:
“[I recently read a passage from the Pali Canon where] the Buddha said if you violate any of the precepts, you should seek out your teacher and confess it to her/him. That was new to me – is this a common occurrence like the Catholics practice?
That’s an interesting passage on confession. The Buddha says that if a monk has performed a bodily, mental, or verbal act and:
If, on reflection, you know that it led to self-affliction, to the affliction of others, or to both; it was an unskillful bodily act with painful consequences, painful results, then you should confess it, reveal it, lay it open to the Teacher or to a knowledgeable companion in the holy life. Having confessed it… you should exercise restraint in the future.[iii]
This is particularly addressed to Buddhist monastics, who live according around 250 very specific vows. A ceremony of monthly confession is part of their discipline. The community gathers and each person publicly confesses what vows they have broken over the last month. This differs from Catholic confession because those who are listening to a monk’s (or nun’s) confession are their peers, and no one is claiming access to divine authority (and there is no deity to please or displease). Even a “teacher” is simply viewed as someone a few steps ahead of you on the path, not someone who holds the key to your salvation. The idea is that the monastics have voluntarily undertaken the vows, and the act of confessing to one another is supportive of their efforts to keep their vows.
In my Zen tradition there is no requirement for personal confession or a formal ceremony for it. However, if you take vows (receiving the moral precepts as a lay person, or becoming a formal student of a teacher, or getting ordained) you are encouraged to avail yourself of the supportive aspect of being “seen” within sangha. I like to think of it as positive peer support. If we know our actions are being witnessed to some extent, we are generally more conscious and mindful of them. The social relationships within sangha (including with teachers in sanzen or practice discussion, but also friends we develop in Sangha) help us see ourselves more clearly. It would be easy to just attend the Zen center once or twice a week, be generally friendly, but basically keep your practice entirely to yourself. That’s fine, but for most of us it’s easier for us to make changes in our lives if we have more social support.
I think most of us feel a sense of burden or stress when we have something we feel we’re doing wrong or failing at, especially when confessing this publicly might make us feel ashamed. It’s usually a relief to be able to tell someone about the situation and just have them listen without judging or offering advice. This is a curious human phenomenon, perhaps connecting back to the Buddha’s admonition that good spiritual friends are the whole of the holy life. When we confess something, we force ourselves to admit it instead of running from it. We give the situation some form, allowing us – perhaps with the help of others – to see what’s really going on, and whether we’re exaggerating the extent of our flaws. When someone just listens and witnesses, we can also borrow strength from their faith that we can figure things out for ourselves. It’s a profound practice.
Endnotes
[i] “Upaddha Sutta: Half (of the Holy Life)” (SN 45.2), translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight (BCBS Edition), 30 November 2013, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn45/sn45.002.than.html .
[ii] “Karaniya Metta Sutta: Good Will” (Sn 1.8), translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight (BCBS Edition), 30 November 2013, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/snp/snp.1.08.than.html .
[iii] “Ambalatthika-rahulovada Sutta: Instructions to Rahula at Mango Stone” (MN 61), translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight (BCBS Edition), 30 November 2013, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.061.than.html .
Picture Credit
Image by William Adams from Pixabay
