Koun Franz, a Zen priest from Montana currently living in Japan, writes that in Japanese monasteries, priests often sub-specialize in one particular thing. For example, there's a priest who is the expert in folding transmission papers. Others master particular ceremonies, or styles of chanting, or forms of poetry. When a particular skill is needed, the go-to guy is called forth to take charge and make sure the thing is done correctly.
Some of the larger, older Zen centers in the West may be developing such a depth of skill now, but most of us are struggling with a learning curve. Even those of us familiar with zendo etiquette and the daily chanting service -- when to stand, when to bow, when to put hands in gassho or shoshu --Â can feel challenged when something new is introduced.
For example, my Zen center will hold a formal fusatsu ceremony on Friday. This is a beautiful and elaborate ceremony that requires a style of chant-singing that's quite different from our usual monotone drone. We're trying to learn it by listening to recordings of other Zen centers' ceremonies. And, of course, centers in different lineage traditions go by different scores, so to speak, so the recordings don't match.
We could use a coach.
You might ask, what is the point? There's a school of thought that all the frou-frou isn't needed; just sit zazen. Yeah, maybe. But I find as time goes by I am more interested in maintaining a connection to the whole tradition -- past, present, future -- and the many ancestors who kept it alive, from Shaolin to New York. Paying attention to the details of the tradition is a way to do that.
Koun Franz writes,
"So central to this practice is the teaching that in doing just one thing, we can express every thing. The whole thing. No one aspect of the practice is lacking -- each is a full, wide-open gate. Zazen is full and complete, and through it, we can know the point of practice. If we do it fully. Bowing is the same. Sewing a robe is the same. Chanting is the same. Cooking is the same. Just by listening fully, I am saying what needs to be said, doing what needs to be done. I believe that. And so I am interested in this idea of a second specialty. I would like to see teachers take responsibility for just that one thing, whatever it is, and explore it so deeply that their investment in it makes them a doorway to something more."
I've said this before, and here it is again -- we can't know what's going to open the door until it opens. Many times I've heard senior students and teachers say that the very practice that most annoyed them at the beginning was the one that opened the door. If we keep only the stuff we like, or that's easy, or that feels comfortable, what are we losing? We can't know.
So along with zazen, "We also need to take a look at the parts that will die without our intervention," Koun Franz writes. "A hundred years from now, what will we have saved?
It's also possible that a hundred years from now, American Zen centers will have developed a jazzy-bluesy style of fusatsu chanting that's more New Orleans than Kyoto, just as earlier generations adapted Chinese forms to Japan. Nothing wrong with that, I say.
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