Zen for Christians: a beginner's guide Read online

  In 1993, Brian and I moved to Atlanta so that I could start a master's degree program in theology at Emory University's Candler School of Theology and so that Brian could work on some writing he'd been wanting to do, with the help of an old friend and mentor of his who was now teaching at Candler. For me, the master's program functioned as Sunday school or catechism. I didn't know whether this schooling would relate to a future career, but I knew very little about Christianity and wanted to learn. I was also sporadically attending Catholic Mass with Brian, and we were going to Tuesday-night graduate student dinners at Emory's Catholic Center. Eventually, I started thinking about whether it was time for me to make a formal commitment to Christianity.

  At Easter Mass in the Emory chapel in 1995, I had a little religious and vocational epiphany. It hit me: "Oh dear, I think I want to be a Catholic priest." I knew, of course, that the Catholic priesthood wasn't likely to be a possibility for me anytime soon. I told a Catholic friend that I figured women wouldn't be ordained in the Catholic Church in my lifetime unless aliens invaded the Vatican. She thought the issue was, rather, that the aliens needed to leave the Vatican.

  Since the Catholic priesthood wasn't an option, it seemed that the obvious thing for me to do was to consider the Episcopal priesthood. So I tried being Episcopalian. I started worshiping at an Episcopal church, attending its confirmation class, and talking with Emory's Episcopal chaplain. But some how it didn't quite click. Then I tried the Methodist Church. I was attending a United Methodist seminary, after all, and had already met many of the requirements for Methodist ordination. I felt comfortable with Methodists, and I liked the theology of Methodism's founder, John Wesley, especially the way he juggles an uncompromising belief in salvation by God's grace alone with an equally uncompromising insistence on the importance of Christian practices like worship, prayer, and charity. But the Methodist Church didn't quite feel like the right place for me either.

  These excursions made it even clearer that Catholicism was where I felt at home. How I ended up with Catholic sensibilities I'm not exactly sure. Certainly, an important part of my attraction to Catholicism is my strong connection to monasticism and contemplative practice. I also like the high liturgy of Catholicism-the ritual, the "smells and bells." My husband, my best friend from college, a guy I had a crush on in junior high and high school, my first boyfriend, and even my Zen teacher all had been raised Catholic. For some reason, I seem to be drawn to people who were formed by Catholicism. Maybe I inherited my Catholic proclivities from my Mexican grandmother, along with my brown eyes. She spent most of her life trying not to be Mexican, which included not claiming the Catholicism she was born into, but she asked for a Catholic priest when she was on her deathbed.

  I finally decided that it was more important to me to be in the religious tradition that felt right than in the career that felt right, so I decided to go ahead and become a lay Catholic rather than an ordained Episcopalian or Methodist.

  Brian noticed that I and my friends Laurie and Jennifer, who also became Catholic as adults, entered the church already disgruntled about certain things. As he says, we got baptized and five minutes later said, "OK, I've had it with this!" He finds this amusing and wonders if it's a new phenomenon in Christianity.

  The process of becoming a Catholic is an extended one, and I was glad of that. I wanted some time to ease into this commitment and be sure about it. In one of the rites leading up to baptism, during the regular Sunday Mass, the priest asks those preparing for baptism, "What do you ask of God's church?" and our reply is, "Faith." I like that. I wouldn't have been a good candidate for "believer's baptism," as practiced in some denominations. I couldn't confidently say, "I have faith in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, so please admit me to the church," but I could easily say, "I want to have faith, so please admit me to the church." Similarly, I like that in the Nicene Creed, which we recite each Sunday, we say, "We believe in one God ..." and all the rest. On the days when I seriously doubt that I believe, I can confidently say that we believe, letting the church carry me along in her arms.

  As a part of the baptismal rite, though, in response to the priest's questions about whether I believed in God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, as described in the Apostles' Creed, I would have to answer, "I do." I was worried about this. I didn't know whether I believed, and I didn't want to be crossing my fingers behind my back when I said I did. Did I believe that this mess of a world is good, as God said it is? Did I believe in a power behind creation who cares about me personally? Did I believe in the possibility of the redemption of all the sin and suffering in the world? Did I believe in the meaningfulness of life even in the face of death? Well, no. Christian faith seemed and still seems-kind of nuts. But I dearly, desperately longed for that faith, and it seemed to me that my only hope for peace and joy in this life lay in that sort of faith. I consulted with a Jesuit friend and another priest I know, and they assured me that my deep longing for faith would allow me to affirm my faith at my baptism in good conscience.

  I was baptized and confirmed at the Easter Vigil Mass in 1998.

  Around the same time that I decided to become Catholic, I also started to get back into my Zen practice, after a long hiatus. Along with several people from a local Zen center, I helped start and run a Zen meditation group at Emory. And in the fall of 1997, 1 went back to Zen Mountain Monastery, which I hadn't visited for five years, for a weeklong sesshin. I wanted to do some intensive practice, but it also felt like I was going home to make peace with my past, since I had been so unhappy when I lived there. It was a difficult but good sesshin, and I was pleased to find that the effortful feel of the practice there had been toned down in favor of a more grace-full feeling. I wondered if it was only my perception of the place that had changed, but others confirmed that it was indeed different.

  A fairly new spiritual practice for me is prayer. Having decided to formally become a Christian, I realized that although I had done intensive spiritual practice in the Zen tradition, which bears strong resemblances to certain elements of the Christian contemplative tradition, I had very little experience with the basic Christian spiritual practice of verbal prayer. I said all the communal prayers that are part of the Mass, but I had trouble praying on my own. I had a lot of inhibitions and questions about prayer. So during my last semester at Candler, I arranged an independent study with a similarly prayer-impaired friend and a professor, and we read a bunch of books on verbal prayer, some of which were a big help in getting me over my blocks to praying.

  In particular, Karl Rahner, one of the great Christian theologians of the twentieth century, assured me that no matter the depth of my doubts about God and Christianity, I could still pray. "If you think your heart cannot pray," he says, "then pray with your mouth, kneel down, fold your hands, speak loudly, even if it all seems like a lie to you (it is only the desperate self defense of your unbelief before its death, which is already sealed): `I believe, help my unbelief; I am powerless, blind, dead, but you are mighty, light, and life and have conquered me long ago with the deadly impotence of your Son."' This was liberating. Although I couldn't will my heart to have a stronger faith, I could certainly will my body to take a posture of prayer and my mouth to say some words of prayer. Rahner assured me that not only was there no hypocrisy in this, but it was vital that I express my half a mustard seed of faith in this way.

  My favorite definition of prayer also comes from Karl Rahner, who says that prayer is opening our hearts to God. In the most familiar type of prayer, verbal or discursive prayer, we open our hearts to God using words. We talk to God, either aloud or mentally. But that's not the only way to pray. Christianity also has a tradition of contemplative prayer, in which we open our hearts to God without words or with very few words. We heed God's call in Psalm 46: "Be still, and know that I am God."

  In recent decades, some Christians have been dusting off the Christian contemplative practices and popularizing them. One popular form of contemplative prayer is ce
ntering prayer, a practice that comes from the medieval mystical tradition, especially The Cloud of Unknowing. Centering prayer is a practice of sitting silently in simple openness to God's presence and God's will and in the longing to know God more fully. Since the mind is prone to wander, you choose a "sacred word" to help bring you back to stillness with God-a word like God, Jesus, love, or mercy. When you become aware of thoughts, you return gently to the sacred word, a symbol of your intention to rest in openness to God. (The list of recommended resources at the end of the book includes resources on Christian contemplative practice, in case you're interested in exploring this.)

  Gerald May, whose writing on willingness and willfulness had been so helpful to me, is one of the founders and leaders of the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation, an ecumenical center in Maryland supporting Christian contemplative practice. My husband, Brian, participated in Shalem's Group Leaders Program, which provides training for the leadership of Christian contemplative prayer groups, and a few years later, I participated in the same program. One of the requirements of the program was to lead a seven-session contemplative prayer group, but I got permission, instead, to lead a Zen meditation group especially for Christians.

  Another requirement of the Shalem program was to meet regularly with a spiritual director. I hadn't had a spiritual director since Brian and I left Colorado, and this prompted me to seek one out. A few years earlier, I had done a silent weekend retreat with a group of other students from Candler School of Theology at a tiny ecumenical Christian retreat center in rural Georgia called Green Bough House of Prayer. I had met with the spiritual director there and liked her, and I decided it was worth driving three hours each way whenever I wanted to meet for spiritual direction. So I started making regular retreats at Green Bough, and Brian came along too.

  After my first visit to Green Bough, I told Brian that it's like a Jesuit retreat center run by your grandma. It has that same palpable sense of being a place of silence and prayer, but it feels softer and homier. There are knickknacks and needlepoint pillows around, and meals are eaten at the kitchen table. Green Bough has two permanent residents, who are living a sort of monastic life-Fay, who offers spiritual direction, and Steve, an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church, who leads the services-and they have room for about ten guests. There is a regular schedule of prayer, based on the Liturgy of the Hours. Each service is centered on reciting psalms and other prayers and also includes periods of silence. Many of the meals are eaten in silence. For a couple of years, Brian and I went on a retreat at Green Bough every month or two.

  Partway through my master's program, I had started working for Candler's Youth Theology Institute, which runs a summer theology academy for high school students, and I continued working there after I finished my degree. I was the assistant director, which meant basically that I was the office manager, and I also taught a bit of Zen meditation and Christian contemplative prayer during the summer academies.

  At age thirty-three, I still didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up, but I was sick of being an administrator and decided I had to do something else. I had discovered that what I like best is teaching religion and writing about religion, and even though, several times before, I had considered and dismissed the idea of getting a Ph.D. in religion, I finally decided that that was what I wanted to do. I am now a doctoral student at Emory, focusing on Buddhism and Christianity in the United States and especially on spiritual practices in those traditions. On the side, I teach adult education classes and Sunday school classes and lead workshops, mainly on Zen and also on Christian spiritual practices.

  Brian is now on the faculty at Candler, and he had a leave coming up for the 2001-02 academic year. I decided to take a leave from my doctoral program for the spring semester, and we spent the first half of 2002 living at Green Bough House of Prayer. It was after we had already planned our leave that I decided to write Zen for Christians, but this worked out perfectly. I used my time off from school to do most of the work on this book, while living in a community centered in prayer.

  I sometimes pray about my Zen practice, as I would pray about anything else in my life. I pray about the Zen classes I teach-that God may work through and in me and the class members. And I have prayed, in writing this book, that God may work through my writing to speak a word of truth, of grace, of love.

  * * *

  Practice

  Walking Meditation

  At a Zen center or monastery, when you sit two or more periods of zazen in a row, the periods of sitting meditation are separated by brief periods of walking meditation, or kinhin.

  Kinhin serves at least two important purposes. First, it gives you a chance to stretch your legs and move around between sitting periods. Second, it is a way to take the awareness being developed in zazen-in still, silent sitting-and extend it into a slightly more complicated activity: walking. The movements of the body, the changing scenery as you walk, the sounds of walking, and so forth, can stir up more thoughts, so it can be more challenging in walking meditation than in sitting meditation to notice thoughts and return the attention to the present moment.

  The spine and head are held upright, as in zazen. The gaze is lowered, though not unfocused. A special hand position is used. Make a fist with your left hand, with the fingers wrapped around the thumb. Put the fist up against your body, about at the waist, with the thumb pointing down, and cover the front of the fist with your right hand. Let your elbows fall naturally at your sides. Zen master Shunryu Suzuki says of this hand position that "you feel as if you have some round pillar in your grasp-a big round temple pillar-so you cannot be slumped or tilted to the side."

  Kinhin is traditionally done clockwise around the room. In the Soto sect of Zen, you take one small step with each full cycle of the breath, moving continuously but very slowly. In the Rinzai sect of Zen, you walk briskly. If you're doing walking meditation on your own in a small space, you'll probably want to walk slowly.

  In zazen, you notice your breathing and your thoughts; in kinhin, you notice your walking and your thoughts. Feel the physical sensations of walking. Feel your feet on the floor. Feel the movement of your legs. Feel your clothing brush against your legs. Feel the sensations as you lift one foot, move it forward, put it down, and shift your weight to it. When you realize that you are no longer attending to the walking, notice the thought and gently return your attention to the walking.

  You can do walking meditation anytime you're walking. You need not walk in clockwise circles or put your hands in any special position. Just notice your thoughts and return your attention to the walking, over and over and over. And if you're walking near traffic, raise your gaze!

  The Essentials of Walking Meditation

  • As you walk, be aware of the physical sensations of each step.

  • When you realize that your attention has wandered away from the walking, notice the thought and gently return your attention to the walking.

  Notice the thought,

  return to the walking,

  notice the thought,

  return to the walking,

  notice the thought,

  return to the walking, .. .

  * * *

  2

  The Buddhist Way of liberation from Suffering

  The Story of the Buddha

  Siddhartha Gautama, who would come to be called the Buddha, meaning the Awakened One or the Enlightened One, was born five or six centuries before Christ, into a noble family in a part of northern India that is now Nepal. Siddhartha's father, Suddhodana, was the head of the Shakya clan, so the Buddha is also known as Shakyamuni, "the sage of the Shakyas."

  When Siddhartha was conceived-so the story goes-his mother Maya dreamed that a white elephant entered her right side, signifying that her son would have an auspicious life. It was foretold that Siddhartha would either remain at home and become a great emperor or leave and become a wandering ascetic and a great religious teacher. Maya died a week after giving birth, a
nd Siddhartha was raised by Maya's sister, who became Suddhodana's second wife and later the founder of the first order of Buddhist nuns.

  Suddhodana wanted Siddhartha to stay at home to become a great emperor, so Suddhodana gave his son a life of luxury and protected him from all unpleasantness, disease, decay, and death. Siddhartha spent his time in his three palaces-one for the hot season, one for the cool season, and one for the rainy season. He wore fine clothes, ate delicious food, and had musicians to entertain him and attendants to serve him. No one who was sick or old or ugly was allowed near Siddhartha, and even dead flowers were removed from his presence. At age sixteen, he married the beautiful Yashodhara, daughter of a neighboring ruler, and when he was twenty-nine, they had a son, Rahula.

  Eventually, Siddhartha got bored and restless with his sheltered, pampered life, and he arranged to take a chariot ride outside the palace grounds. His father made sure that everything along the route would be clean and beautiful and that Siddhartha would only see happy, healthy, young people on his ride.

  But as it happened, Siddhartha saw a stooped, grayhaired man with wrinkled skin. He asked his charioteer, Channa, about this strange sight. Channa told him that the man was old. Siddhartha asked if this was the only person who was "old" or if there were others like this. Channa replied that everyone who lived long enough would grow old. Siddhartha was shocked and ordered Channa to take him back to the palace immediately, where he sat by himself brooding about this vision of old age.

  On a second trip outside the palace, Siddhartha saw someone who was coughing and shaking and moaning. He asked Channa about this, and Channa explained that this person was ill and that all people are subject to illness. Once again, Siddhartha was shocked and returned to the palace and brooded about this vision.