Fw: Salinger and Buddhism as promised

Curtis Maxwell Perrin (cmperrin@fas.harvard.edu)
Mon, 29 Jun 1998 09:59:28 -0400

>>.  Look at the Zen sects of Japan:  there are as
>> many, if not more, rules than in any Western monastic order.  The Zen
>> masters stress that the *only* way to reach enlightenment is via those
>> structures
>
>Which sects? I always understood that the Zen strain of Buddhism developed
>in overt rebellion to the other three strains which had lost their original
>purpose to ceremony, rules, and structures.
>


Zen did develop out of Buddhism, but there have also been developments out
of Zen.  Anyone who is interested in the technicalities of the matter should
read R. H. Blyth's five volume study entitled *Zen and Zen Classics*, which
has the added benefit of being a "Zen" experience to read even if it
sometimes lacks in scholarly accuracy.  The Zen sects have a long history.
Blyth writes in Volume 2, "The Zen sect, in the sense of an organisation of
monks with the purpose of gaining enlightenment begins with Hyakujo,
(720-814 A.D.)."  There are many sects that developed in the history of
Japanese Zen:  the Soto Sect, the Ummon Sect, the Hogen Sect, the Rinzai
Sect.  The sects run along a continuum with Soto (the most understandable in
intellectual terms) to Rinzai (more unpredictable, paradoxical and, at
times, violent).  Nevertheless, all the sects have rules, and that was the
point I was trying to make.  If Zen monks follow rules to attain
enlightenment in the monasteries, I think Zen writers (Salinger) should not
be too stringently criticised for following the rules of style to reach
enlightenment in their stories.

Here's a quote from Alan Watts that maybe makes the point better than I:
"The solution to the difficulty [that some people think Zen means doing
whatever you want] is that no one should undertake the practice of Zen
without first having adapted himself to a thorough moral discipline.  While
morality should not be confused with religion, it does take one a certain
distance towards the goal; it cannot go the whole way because it is
essentially rigid, intellectual, and limiting, and Zen begins where morality
leaves off.  At the same time morality is valuable so long as it is
recognised as a means to an end; it is a good servant but a terrible master.
When men use it as a servant it enables them to adapt themselves to society,
to mix easily with their fellows, and most especially it permits freedom for
spiritual development.  When it is their master, they become bigots and
conventional ethical machines.  But as a means to an end it makes social
existence possible; it guarantees men against obstruction from their
fellows, and while it does not of itself produce spiritual understanding, it
provides the necessary freedom for spiritual development.  A garden has to
be disciplined so that the plants and flowers do not strangle each other,
but the beauty of the garden is not in the discipline so much as in the
things whose growth it has made possible.  And just as the garden must be
cultivated and planned before the flowers are allowed to grow, so the moral
law must be mastered before the spiritual law, for just as the flowers might
strangle each other, so might the followers of the spirit become wild
libertines."  *The Spirit of Zen* 63-4 (1992).

Anyone who wants to know more about that should try reading D.T. Suzuki's
book *The Training of the Zen Buddhist Monk* (1965).

Curtis Perrin
cmperrin@fas.harvard.edu