Zendo at the Trappist Abbey of Maria-Toevlucht in the Netherlands
[This article originally appeared in the 2024/4 issue of Concilium, which was devoted to prayer. It appears here, newly translated, with the journal's permission.]
The Practice of Zen by a Christian
Like the Tao and Yoga, Zen is part of the world’s cultural heritage. Everyone can have access to it, and Christians also benefit from it when they adopt certain meditation methods and are careful not to allow these methods to weaken Christian prayer. While we can only rejoice at this development, it would be a dangerous step to speak of “Zen prayer.”
There is no such thing as “Christian Zen”; there are only Christians who practice Zen. They respect this Buddhist tradition too much to seek to exploit it for their own ends, let alone “baptize” it. What they want to achieve is a true encounter, as far as this is possible, between the whole of Zen and the whole of their Christian vocation. They trust in the fruitfulness of such an interreligious encounter at the heart of their spiritual life.
The whole of Zen
Zen Buddhism is not just a method of meditation, although the word itself is a transcription of the Sanskrit word dhyana, which in the practice of yoga means deep meditation. It is first and foremost a path of awakening. Among other awakening practices, zazen (座禅seated Zen) is clearly situated within Zen. The sōdō (僧堂), the training monastery, is the traditional setting for Zen, which is first and foremost a religious environment, centered on the main temple where the monks, the unsui (雲水), gather at dawn and several times throughout the day, to recite sutra, while the Master, the Rōshi (雲水), prostrates himself before the statue of Shakya Muni, the Buddha. Throughout the day, the monks are occupied in various rigorous activities that are all about being awake in everything they do: manual labor, eating, bathing, and the long hours of zazen in the evening.
The raison d’être of this quest for enlightenment is also indicated in the daily life of the sōdō by the regular recitation of a short text that begins with the words “Living beings, however numerous, I vow to save them all.” In Mahayana Buddhism, monastic training aims to form new Bodhisattvas, not brilliant people, but persons who have compassion for all living beings. This openness to the vast world is the very essence of Zen.
During zazen practice, these religious or humanitarian motivations are not made explicit. They do, however, sustain the energy of the unsui. Without this environment, they would not be able to cope with the exorbitant demands of life in the sōdō.
It’s true that today, even in Japan, zazen is most often experienced in a non-religious environment and driven by a desire for personal fulfillment. Practiced with intensity, this type of zazen will certainly bear fruit. But to ensure a true interfaith encounter, as I would like to describe it here, it is best to confine ourselves to reflect on the purest tradition of Zen, that of the monasteries.
The Whole of My Christian Faith
In welcoming another spiritual tradition, we should first recall that this encounter is an experience of hospitality and that the guest from Japan can therefore be a messenger of the Lord. As Saint Benedict explains in his Rule, the presence of the stranger is always a grace. This is why Christians who wish to commit themselves seriously to the practice of zazen must begin by ensuring that they have a real “home” in which to welcome this tradition that comes from somewhere else. They must be rooted in their own religious tradition. Like the sōdō for unsui in Japan, the environment for Christian meditators must therefore also include other elements of the spiritual life, which for Christian means are rooted in the Gospel—for example, service, lectio divina, and liturgy. Without such prior spiritual experience, those who meditate would risk becoming confused, disoriented, or losing their way. But this doesn’t mean you have to live in a monastery!
It is worth noting, however, that most of the pioneers of a Christian encounter with Zen were vowed religious, such as Fathers Enomiya Lassalle, Thomas Merton, Yves Raguin, Shigeto Oshida, and Kakishi Kadowaki. There were also lay people, such as Karlfried Dürckheim. For all of them, the Christian tradition has proved to be a very welcoming place, a solid home for interfaith encounters.
But this home is not always hospitable. There was a great deal of resistance to the first encounters with Zen. In 1960, Father Lassalle’s first book on the subject had to be withdrawn by order of his superiors. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a stern warning in 1989. And a famous theologian even described this encounter as treason and adultery. Indeed, Zen is particularly dangerous. By assiduously practicing zazen, there is a risk of becoming a Buddhist without knowing it. However, It is also true that those who engage in this encounter at the level of prayer ultimately find themselves changed but do not lose their identity.
The Experience
Zazen is a regular period of silence, of varying length, a time consecrated to God in the case of believers. However, zazen is not a prayer in the precise sense of the word; it is not a dialogue with the Lord. Although there may be a brief explicit invocation to begin with, the meditator then enters into total silence. It can be called a silence of adoration. It is lived before God, but it is lived beyond an awakened awareness of the divine presence, beyond all thought and will, with confidence that this silent withdrawal is fruitful.
This time of zazen is not, however, spent in wistful daydreaming. It follows a very rigorous method, a precise way of sitting, breathing, and directing the mind. This is not the place to describe it in detail. Let us simply remember that Zen takes our embodied condition very seriously and demands a posture that encourages awakening. It’s not a question of adopting a comfortable posture, “putting the body out of harm’s way to facilitate reflection,” as was once said in certain Christian circles that situated prayer in the head. Zen is experienced throughout the entire body, but particular emphasis is placed on breathing—deep, abdominal breathing. All the other requirements of zazen are designed to make us more aware of our breathing since meditation consists precisely in coinciding with this fundamental movement of life.
Zazen is practiced with open eyes. It’s not a question of excluding anything to “be more recollected” by closing one’s eyes. On the contrary, we see everything, but focus on nothing; we hear everything but do not listen. This attitude is extremely meaningful and even central to Zen. It consists of not wanting to grasp anything or pursue anything. It’s about putting aside all attachment, all rejection, and therefore all forms of having. Eventually, after hours of zazen, the thinking mill slows down and stops grinding out ideas and feelings altogether. It is no longer a question of having, or indeed of knowing or being able, but simply of being, of being there.
We might ask: what remains of our personality when it is deprived of everything that constitutes it? That’s the very point. According to the traditional Zen expression, when one is thus stripped of all having, knowing, and power, the “original heart” (本心 hon shin) is finally revealed. This “original heart” is pure relationship, interdependence. It has no consistency of its own but is communion with everything. It is not therefore static; with the movement of the breath, it is constantly welcoming and giving. Gradually, the practice of zazen plunges the meditator deeper into silence and the experience of emptiness.
This experience does not end with the time spent in zazen.. From now on, we discover ourselves more present, awake to all that everyday life has to offer. Above all, you discover that you are freer.
Conclusion
As we have seen, the framework of zazen practice is traditionally religious, both for Buddhists and for Christians. In the actual practice of zazen, however, religious belonging is not explicit. Only emptiness reigns, a dynamic emptiness that is openness. Thomas Merton seems to have had this experience. He wrote about it in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander:
At the center of our being is a point of nothingness that is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark that belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us (p. 158).
In fact, by delving into silence, this practice says nothing about God. However, it does develop our “capacity” for God. If human beings are capax Dei, it is because they can experience their absolute poverty, which is, paradoxically, the pure glory of God in us.
Today, more than ever, this “capacity” is encumbered by so many important and absorbing obligations. This is why zazen can be so welcome in the lives of Christians: it enables them to experience poverty, true freedom, and new creativity.
Translated by William Skudlarek
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