The Way of American Zen.

American Zen, the group is called on fb, I just joined the group recently following and advice by my friend Fadzly Mubin who I had visited in Kota Bharu a few weeks back. The group is made up of old farts like me perhaps younger and had had a run in with a touch of Zen school of Buddhism exported from Japan and imported into the United States  by the early teachers of philosophy and religions like D.T. Suzuki, Madame Blavatsky, to the present lineages of teachers of the various Zen Schools in America. The two main Zen schools being The Rinzai and the Soto Zen and I was a student of both the Rinzai and the Soto schools. My first Zen and Yoga instructor was Dennis Junpo Kelly now the Abbot of the Hollow Bone Zen lineage of the Rinzai Zen School. I have written of my life with Dennis too many times in the past in this Blog , so I will skip the details.

As most of my relationships with those who were closest to me, my relationship wit h Dennis and His Roshi, Eido Shimano Roshi cama to a bad end to say the least. I must have written this episode  a few times in my blog too so read if you who read to find out the dots and dashes that makes all the connections in my search for my self discovery. I am just a mixed up kid, singing ruddy toot toot to the moon while on the road to find out. Never did I claim to be any better or worse than the next guy but i can safely claim to have lived, eat, sleep shit the Zen life for about two years of my life and then some when I moved to Japan and live for three years in Sendai. There I was a very close to a priest of the Shingon school of Buddhism and through his lifestyle with his wife and children and how he behaves with others I was exposed to the life of Shingon Buddhism. It has elements of Shintoism the original Japanese spiritual practice.

Zen is to me the Way of the Samurai Warrior and the Tea Masters and Haiku poets, who gave a deeper meaning to the ordinary everyday life of the lay people. It is through these major practices of discipline that Zen was mostly propagated. The ceremonial and traditional practices of the Zen Schools mimics the Way or the Warrior and the Tea Ceremony, this is the mutation of the culture and the original religion or Buddhism. Buddhism evolved from the center of origin, where the Buddha taught in Lumbini, Kapalivastu and so forth: Zen is at the tail end of Buddhism geographically speaking. If one were to compare Art to Zen, it would be like in Zen, Buddhism is experienced and expressed in its most abstract form. Abstract Art = Abstract Buddhism. Some may call Zen an agnostic Buddhism just as Sufi is to Islam. As Islam expands from its centrifugal center in Mecca and Medina, it too evolves towards something new mostly influenced by culture and tradition. However the essence of the both teachings remains intact as one retract inwards towards the original center and discover the truth of the matter, the reality as it presents to you, you become awakened, in the form of Satori or Samadhi or Ultimate consciousness or being Graced by the Creator. Pick your choice, your belief system, your faith and your own Buddha Nature. The Koan has been shattered, the mind has been quietened and in the Here and Now you are who you choose yourself to be knowing that , and this too shall pass.

The next round you might be a devout Shaivite Hindu priest of the brahmin caste and you find yourself giving satsangs and dashan to your fellow humans on the banks of the Ganga, no problem, you most probably have the Vedas and Upanishads memorized word for word and you can perform all the poojas and sacrifices like you were born for it; just do it. Whether you play the sitar or the Koto, the guitar or the banjo, you play like there is nothing else in life worth doing than to play. This is how the samurai stands and faces his foes, with the clarity of mind that cannot afford any doubt, or the tea master performs his Char No Yu or tea ceremony for his Lord and Daimyo especially before every battle and the Haiku master captures it all in a very short and terse verse of a Haiku.

'Haiku, a Japanese poem of seventeen syllables, in three lines of five, seven, and five, traditionally evoking images of the natural world.'

My first exposure to Zen was when I stumbled upon a book written by Allen Watts entitled 'The Way of Zen', and I discovered this book while working as a librarian at the UWGB. It was while reading this book one evening at a Mac Donald's that I had my realization of myself being a Cheeseburger Buddha. I have written this episode perhaps again several times in the past and so for details the interested reader can browse the Blog. Alan Watts was one of the foremost exponent of Zen teachings in America. His lifestyle and his deep understanding the Eastern religions and philosophies was a major contributor towards the understanding of Zen and the Western mind.