Following up the recent vigorous discussion in the last post -- whenever you're quoting an Asian teacher to argue some point about what practice is, or is not -- consider the audience that teacher was addressing.
Skillful teachers don't give the same lecture to everybody. Their teachings are like medicine for whatever sickness they see in front of them. So, a lecture that is helpful to one audience might be entirely wrong for another one.
For example -- a Zen teacher in 14th-century Japan was no doubt dealing with a lot of young monks infused with samurai warrior culture and the code of Bushido. He may have felt they needed to stop being so dutiful and conformist and break out of their cultural molds, and lectured them accordingly. But if we could re-constitute the same teacher for an audience of 21st-century westerners, he likely would tell us to get over our cult of individualism and self-indulgence, and to be more dutiful and disciplined.
Zen has a tradition of "rebel" and "madmen" teachers going back to 8th-century China. These were guys who challenged authority and broke rules. As Zen became popular with the 1950s "beats" and the 1960s flower children, a lot of westerners romanticized Zen as an expression of their own cultural rebellion.
But if you have more personal acquaintance with Zen, you realize this was a gross misappropriation of its teachings. Cultural rebellion isn't really its purpose. Zen does encourage us to break out of the fetters of our cultural conditioning, whatever those are. But practice often is also about finding a balance between extremes.
So, if the dish is too tart, add sugar. If it's too sweet, add vinegar. The correct thing to do depends on what you're cooking at the time. And the cultural conditions in 8th century China or 14th century Japan were very different from what they are in, say, 21st-century California.
So, Ikkyu's� rule-breaking "crazy cloud" Zen may have been a corrective in Muromachi Period Japan, but Ikkyu's practice in our crazy cloud culture would be like adding sugar to syrup, or salt to brine.
I have seen people latch on to particular quotes and blow them up into something they aren't. For example, His Holiness the Dalai Lama once said, "My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness." And I've seen people toss that one out in arguments to "prove" that Buddhism isn't even a religion.
But His Holiness also spends three hours a day minimum in meditation, and he goes about offering teachings on things like Nagarjuna's Ratnavali (Precious Garland) and Geshe Langri Thangpa's Eight Verses of Training the Mind, which suggests that a state of "kindness" on the Dalai Lama's level really is something to be cultivated religiously.
By the same token, it's common for westerners to co-opt whatever they think Zen is as just another ego-enhancer. They pull some quotes out of context to build a case that Zen can be whatever "I" want it to be. And then they think of themselves as bold non-conformists, which in the context of our ego-worshiping culture is laughable.
The traditional Japanese Soto Zen service begins with three full bows to the Buddha. When the late Shunryu Suzuki was teaching in San Francisco in the 1960s and 1970s, students resisted the bows. So, Suzuki Roshi had the service begin with nine bows instead of three. "In Japan three is enough, but here in America we are so stubborn, it is better to do nine bows," he said.
Now, there's nothing magical about bowing. As far as I know, the historical Buddha realized enlightenment without ever bowing to anything. Probably you can find a famous teacher somewhere saying that bowing isn't necessary.
However, if it really annoys you to bow, if your ego is resisting, then that same teacher no doubt would tell you to bow. A lot. Nine times? Make that eighty-one.
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