Why a school is a better model for Zen in the West than a monastery

My Zen Manifesto

A lot of people are asking the same questions: where is Buddha dharma headed in the west? What is the best way to transmit the teachings and practice for a contemporary western culture? How can Buddhism adapt to this culture without sacrificing its principles or core essential meanings? What is getting lost in translation? A number of models have been adopted as ways of bridging the gap between traditional forms of Buddhist practice and teaching in Asian cultures and modern western societies in America and Europe. 

The city center. This model was adopted by early Zen teachers, including Suzuki Roshi and Maezumi Roshi. They began with small sitting groups practicing zazen together. This model is well adapted to contemporary lives filled with jobs, relationships, social engagements, and other responsbilities. The problem with the model is that it is difficult to sustain any continuity of practice, maintain the physical plant, or scaffold deepening practice when practitioners come and go without any regular schedule or structure. Some city centers developed residential programs to address the need for continuity and maintenance.  While this model has enjoyed some popularity, it has not had broad appeal, nor does it contribute to depth in practice. Few people can abandon their busy lives, careers, and relationships for even short periods of residential practice. People tend to “shop around” and scatter their energies and attention. Furthermore, Mu Soeng pointed to the problem of long-time Zen practitioners who had only ever done zazen and sesshin practice, yet were still feeling unfulfilled in their practice because they lacked  a context for making their practice meaningful. The Barre Center for Buddhist Studies originated in response to that need. 

The monastery. As soon as a city center becomes well-established, it seems, it begins to think about a monastery as a way of strengthening practice, training teachers and leaders, and developing a core group committed to carrying forward the dharma. The monastic model served well in the early days of Buddhism to break down  caste distinctions, make the dharma accessible to those who did not have wealth and privilege, and protect and maintain the rare and treasured texts that transmitted the teachings. It was a very influential model in spreading Buddhism, especially Zen, in cultures where there was a great divide between those who were wealthy and educated and those who were peasants, farmers, merchants, and the poor. Here in the west, this model does not work as well, except for a very small, select population. It is tempting and easy to dismiss the rest as “less committed” or “less sincere” practitioners, or to assume that at some point in their lives anyone who is really dedicated to practice will spend some time in a monastery. But I doubt that we want to write off such a large population of people who could potentially benefit from the teachings of the Buddha in their everyday lives. As soon as a monastery is established, however, it seems that regular practitioners begin to struggle with the expectations, explicit, implicit, and even projected, that any “real” or “serious” practitioner would abandon all and make a commitment to the monastic ideal. The monastic model does not fit well with our contemporary culture. Still, it serves a purpose: it is just not the vehicle for the movement of the dharma through the culture.

The therapeutic model. Buddhism has long held a natural attraction for psychotherapists. Psychotherapy shares with Buddhist teachings a focused attention on the mind and the self. Psychotherapy has learned a great deal about the workings of the mind and the development of ego from Buddhism, Buddhism has learned a great deal about the impact of the relationship between therapist and client, teacher and student. However, popular culture, regardless of how the profession might protest, views the purpose of therapy (of any sort) as to heal what is sick, mend what is broken, and get the person functioning reasonably normally in their work and relationships.  Healthy, high-functioning, stable and sane people are not normally drawn to therapy, nor do they benefit from it. It’s hard to imagine an sensible economic model by which healthy people pay for therapy. While Buddhist practice and ethical living have therapeutic benefits, therapy is not what the fundamental teachings and practice are about. Even though the Buddha has often been described as a physician, and even though the focus of the teachings is on the cessation of suffering, the therapeutic model does not adequately convey to the culture the enormous benefits of practice for normal, everyday life. And, unlike the public perception of therapy, this practice and its teachings are not simply for the comforting of the anxious, dissatisfied upper middle class, nor the urgent care of the severely dysfunctional. 

It is time for a different way of thinking. To foster the spread of the teachings and practice of Buddha dharma we should consider the culture and the times. What model would make sense to people and more adequately connect the teachings and practice to something that is immediately familiar and congruent with their lives? I like the model of a school for this purpose. Unlike therapy, with its association with healing the sick or fixing the broken, school is associated with personal development, teaching and learning, with paying attention and cultivating understanding. Unlike the discipline of the monastery, which requires abandoning one’s personal life, the scaffolding of school can be situated within an active, productive life, as a complement and support for it. Yet there is an expectation of some rigor, form, and discipline, which is connected to a sequence or path of development, unlike the forms of a city center, which often seem arbitrary, baffling, distancing, and obstructive. It is not usually clear to practitioners how the forms at a city center serve their development in practice, or their understanding of the teachings.

Because we have almost universal schooling in this culture, unlike in early Japan or China, it is safe to say that nearly everyone has a clear understanding of that model. What remains for adult education is to clarify the ways in which this kind of school differs from the experiences of earlier schooling. However, I think this is a much easier task, and a more sensible one, than to convince people of the necessity for wearing robes, chanting in Japanese, and so on. So there are many, many kinds of teaching and practice that would naturally lend themselves to the school model, from one-to-one practice discussion to one-to-many classes, to many-to-many retreats and study groups.

This is a natural model, and one which can complement all of the other models. It actually provides a context for the other models, in fact. Through this easily accessible dharma gate, people build associations with teachings and practice that enable them to keep moving toward deeper and deeper commitments as their lives allow: as children leave home for college, as careers become established and less demanding, as a sabbatical is granted, as people face retirement. Meanwhile, many, many more people are served the dharma in teaching and practice that “feels familiar” yet offers so much more than any adult education program can provide. Futhermore, it is one that healthy, high-functioning, and stable people will readily fund, as this model makes sense to them. They pay for other kinds of classes: Yoga, ceramics, French, piano, money management. This is adult integral development: psychosocial, spiritual, physical, relational. We are making it easy for them to enter, and then engaging them in the compelling and captivating activity of discovering their own minds, their own paths, their interdependence, the way to a deeper, more meaningful and joyful life. We can charge for this sharing of the dharma because, for this culture, this is what helps them to value what they are receiving, although they will soon realize that the benefits in their lives are beyond price. 

I believe this is our best avenue for transmitting the teachings and the practice of Buddhism here, in this culture, in this place and time.