My friend, Lay Zen teacher Peter Levitt, is especially devoted to lay practice and the Lay Zen Teachers Association (LZTA). He reminded me recently of the important training and conversations occurring in the LZTA regarding integrating life and Zen. These same conversations and trainings are also taking place in the Soto Zen Buddhist Association (SZBA) and the American Zen Teachers Associations (AZTA). I applaud all of these efforts as steps in the right direction. Peter’s comments brought me back to November 1969, when Shunryu Suzuki Roshi said:
And here in America, something special is happening: that is our group. Our students cannot be categorized in the same way we define Zen student-Zen Buddhist in Japan, because you are not-you are not priest and you are not complete-completely layman. I understand it this way.” And later in the same talk he said: “I think it is the time to start our practice in its true sense, forgetting all about robed person or hippy-style person [laughs].
While the hippies may have mostly disappeared, questions about how much to be not quite a priest or not completely a layperson are alive and well. Sometimes Lay teachers liken their own Dharma brothers and sisters to “mules” when their friend’s lineage does not allow them to reproduce or pass on their empowerments to their disciples. In other instances, priests practicing with shaved heads and robes refer pejoratively to “PWH” (Priests With Hair).
My teacher Sojun Roshi and the late Maezumi Roshi of ZCLA both favored empowering laypeople even though there was a priest path in both lineages. Other not lay/not priest lineages came forward through the Sanbo Kyodan and then through the late Robert Aitken Roshi of the Diamond Sangha. As usual, there is plenty of diversity when it comes to just how these Lay teachers are trained, empowered and recognized. I enthusiastically value the contribution of Lay teachers in developing Zen in the West. I have asked several Suzuki Roshi practice leaders to create a path that empowers Lay Teachers in our lineage to give the lay precepts and to authorize their own students as Lay teachers. I will continue to raise this request in the Suzuki Roshi lineage.
I do not feel we should hinder the blossoming of Western Dharma by insisting that teachers must be priests to offer precepts and Lay empowerment. Nor do I believe that priests should always shave their heads, wear robes, live in a monastery or be celibate. I do believe that both (not completely) priests and (not completely) Lay teachers should make the same ethical commitments to their students and sanghas. And while I have seen power abuses in monastic communities, I have also seen similar problems with Lay teachers. We all need education and training to learn how to care for our communities. Acknowledging the importance of Lay teachers, we have fully included them in our SPOT training.
Our western Zen practice is still young and tender. We need to encourage all varieties of healthy growth. Sincere practitioners and teachers show up in all shapes and sizes. I have heard from other priests that they fear the Lay teachers will take their students and push priests out of their turf. I say: “Go for it!” Offer authentic teaching and let students have expanded opportunities to choose teachers and teachings that add meaning to their lives.
There has been a lively stream of lay practitioners from the time of the Buddha, through Layman P’ang and family in China, in Japan through D.T. Suzuki and Yamada Koun and to current Zen developments in the West. The differences between lay and priest practitioners have also varied over time. Sometimes priests have been celibate homeleavers, and sometimes (as currently occurs in Japan) priests have been married and lived with their families in temples serving the community.
Let me return to the beginning: Suzuki Roshi could see that our practice here was neither priest nor lay. He also said that we Westerners would need to work it out for ourselves. Is the practice alive? Is it related to your life? Does it offer liberation and creativity? Perhaps now is the time for us to see more of what he saw—that liveliness, sincerity of practice and lessening suffering are what matters—independent of whether the path and the teacher are lay or priest.
The post Lay Practice and Priest Practice in Zen: Which Way is the Essential No Way? appeared first on Sweeping Zen.