Visiting the Ancestors in Japan

Evening meditation at Soji-ji is announced by deep percussion sounds on a distant drum and runs on a muffled base gong. A monk calls out faintly. We are led to a smoky Japanese zendo hall, with its raised sitting platforms and separating screens arranged at right angles around a central altar. I notice that its many-armed Kannon Bodhisattva statue is covered from view by a huge fan. (I never do learn why.) We take our seats. After a short introduction in Japanese, a deep gong sounds three times and we slip into zazen. Monks bustle about, but the sitting is good, deep. First quiet in days. Daido tells us later the Soji-ji Guest Master -- a senior Roshi -- is impressed. Sometime later we file back to our quarters to sleep.

The next day begins at 3:30 a.m. Roll up the futons; a cold splash down the hall in the public, unisex bathroom, and off we hustle to the Butsuden, or Buddha Hall, for dawn service. It is cavernously empty, an endless sea of dimly lit tatami mats. Supposedly it can accommodate a thousand monks. Huge posts vaguely subdivide the expanse into sections -- right, left, center, rear, altar. Above the center section, disappearing into the gloom, hangs an enormous, filigreed, ornate brass "chandelier" without lights. The huge altar's front is illuminated, but it recedes into darkness beyond. Daido and the other monks disappear momentarily behind to offer incense to the founder, Keizan-Zenji. Soon they reappear and kneel at front-left to wait.

As we likewise kneel at rear-center, a brisk rustle announces the black-robed monks' arrival. Within minutes two hundred or so are precisely aligned in blocks on either side of front-center, and dawn service begins. Resonating bells. A great, deep-throated mokugyo -- a wooden percussion instrument -- accompanies the sonorous babble of chanting. The monks chant from identical books held high and exact. They rise repeatedly for sets of full bows. They walk rapidly, following complex interweaving trails, chanting all the while. Later, stacks of yellow, folded sutra books appear. The monks' cacophony buzzes on as they "play" the sutra in each pleated book twice, like an accordion. Then on to the next, for each of the twenty or so in the stack. Each time the chant changes, an attendant removes the chant leader's book with a swoop, waving his robe as he replaces the text and whisks the old one away. The date is April 8, 1987.

The focal point of the ceremony about to follow the morning service now in progress is an American Zen master named John Daido Loori. He is vice-Abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery in Mt. Tremper, New York.[2] I and several other adult "students" from his monastery have accompanied him to witness his upcoming "Zuise" ceremonies at Soji-ji and Eihei-ji Temples -- the co-head temples of the Soto Sect of Zen Buddhism in Japan. The ceremonies will formally recognize the completion of his training and his receipt of the full Soto "transmission" from his teacher, Hakuyu Taizan Maezumi-roshi. So far as I can determine, Daido (as we call him informally) is only the third American ever to be so ordained.

Loori's visit to Japan is one of many signs that Buddhism in America is no longer just a literary or New-age fad. During the l950s and early l960s, many knew about Zen or had read about it, but few "practiced" it. Today that is no longer true. Nobody knows the numerical extent of Buddhist and Eastern religious practice in the United States, although some place the number of practitioners as high as five million. Whatever the count, it is unquestionably growing steadily. Buddhism has become a serious religious practice for a significant segment of Americans in addition to those Asian-Americans who grew up with it.

For me personally, the ceremony in progress feels like an extraordinary convergence, an epiphany, in which a significant institutional development in the history of American religions, plus an important development in the biography of another man (Loori), have intersected in a deeply meaningful way with my own history. A few years before, my life had reached a crisis. Personal, family and professional difficulties that had been building for years erupted in an overpowering sense of loss, from multiple sources, all at once. Extended therapy had helped, but there came a point where it could no longer cope with the radical unravelling of aspirations and self-concept that underlay the crisis. It was a difficult time. Without knowing it, I had discovered the First Noble Truth of Buddhism -- that life is inherently a condition of "dukkha" -- of impermanence, change, suffering and resulting delusion. But it was also lucky time, for not long afterward, entirely by chance, I met the teacher whose Zuise I was now about to witness, and found, through my Zen practice, a way to deal with that unravelling of the soul that had opened me to his influence initially.

Judging from the cultural and ethnic origins of the other Americans kneeling with me in the Butsuden, we are an unlikely group to visit their "ancestors" in Japan. Lionel, Betty and Louise are Jewish. Motoko is Japanese-American. Jules is African-American. I am a "WASP" whose distant relatives include Charles Grandison Finney, one of the better-known bible pounders of 19th Century America. Loori himself is a second-generation Italian-American. Yet, we are all on a pilgrimage to visit the temples and Dharma-descendants of the great teachers in our own Zen "lineage."

Zen lay practitioners and teachers alike can trace the lineage of teacher-student "transmissions" that led to their own practice all the way back (with a few liberal assumptions) to the historical Shakyamuni Buddha of 5th Century B.C. India. My own teacher is Loori. His was Hakuyu Taizan Maezumi-roshi, founder of the Zen Center of Los Angeles. Maezumi, in turn, received the transmission from three teachers in Japan, two of whose temple grave sites we will visit.

Our pilgrimage and Loori's Zuises, however, have greater significance than their meaning to each of us personally. They are also indications of a very significant development in American religion -- the successful culture diffusion of Buddhism to the West[3]. By "successful," I mean not merely the spread of Buddhist ideas to the West, which began before the turn of the century, but the actual diffusion of Buddhist institutions.[4]

Two days earlier, we had arrived in Tokyo. Puffing on foot from Tokyo Station, bags in hand, we are deluged by fresh impressions. Unlike in Manhattan, we wait patiently at the crosswalk with the other pedestrians until the signal changes -- even with no cars in sight. Street cleaners wear spotless uniforms, but sweep with crude branch brooms. Traffic is heavy and noisy, yet all the cars and trucks are sparkling clean. Soon after arriving at the glitzy Fujya Yaesu Hotel, we are met by Soto priest Dosho Saikawa, who will accompany us on our travels, along with a young Zen priest named Seido Suzuki, who has spent two years helping at Loori's monastery. Doshosan and Loori feel especially close due to Dosho's long period of koan study with Loori at Mt. Tremper a few years before. We are also welcomed by an American woman who has been studying at a Soto monastery for women in Nagoya. She, too, has visited Doshin-ji. Their ruddy faces and the unerring directness of their gaze reveals something of their advanced study.

A day after our arrival in Tokyo, hazy clouds diffusing the warm April sun, we meet Takeshi Kuroda-roshi, one of Maezumi-roshi's younger brothers. The Maezumi family is quite influential in the Soto Sect of Zen -- the largest Zen sect in Japan. Accordingly, our pilgrimage will include visits to the temples of his three brothers, who are also Zen priests.

Takeshi is Abbot of Zenko-ji, in Yokohama, about 30 kilometers away. It is the first temple we visit. Following the customary practice of pilgrims, we file immediately to the main temple hall for three prostrations and chanting. Then, in an ornate and gilded ancestors' altar room, we light more incense, bow again, and chant in memory of Baian Hakujun, the Kuroda Roshis' father. Altars are immaculate, baroque, glittering, like miniature, crowded stage sets. Choice artifacts are everywhere -- Bizen pottery, calligraphy panels, scroll paintings, intricately carved Buddha statues. Candles flicker deep in the recesses of each altar, guarded by carved lions, elephants and guardian figures, decorated by larger-than-life brass-lotus bouquets. In a tiny garden, red-bibbed Jizo Bodhisattvas stand in a stony row, witness to the closing mist outside.

Kneeling at low tables in the guest hall, we cautiously lift the red lacquered covers of our first Japanese "box lunch." A painter's palette awaits -- tempura, sashimi, sushi, snails, crab, rice, seaweed, sweet vegetables, pickles. The hall's takenoma, with its calligraphy, its rusty Bizen pot, and its sprig of forsythia, presents a glimpse of tranquility to our over-stimulated senses. I notice that it is now raining outside.

After leaving Zenko-ji, taxis drive us through Yokohama to the temple complex of Soji-ji. Founded in the 13th Century by Keizan-Zenji, its giant, pale green, slant-tile roofs glisten with rain. A weathered wooden key secures our street shoes in old wood lockers in an open-air hallway. Then, as Loori registers, we sip green tea served by a young monk in black. Wandering to one dim hallway's end, I encounter the looming, giant, black Buddha of the Tenzo's, or head cook's, altar, faintly illuminated by red Chinese lanterns. The monastery's gloom engulfs me. Soon we are led to Soji-ji's guest quarters, pungent with the smell of tatami mats, the dark, unfinished lattice woodwork lit by daylight through the shoji screens. I slide open a screen; outside, a steady rain is falling with a hiss, punctuated irregularly by a raven's rasping squawk.

Taizan Maezumi-roshi is with us now, serving more tea. Roshi, Loori and the other monks then leave for Zuise preparations. Waiting, we write postcards and journal notes, or stand on the veranda under dark-carved dragons in the eaves, unspeaking, listening to the rain. Then a tour through endless dim hallways, the smell of incense, a glimpse into the zendo, or meditation hall, revealing only one vague figure. The monks practice sitting meditation one and one-half hours a day, and meditation retreats, or "sesshins," are offered twice a year, Loori later tells us. Huge cavernous rooms... Side altars move past.... The vast kitchen is lit by bare fluorescent bulbs, creating a ghostly, greenish luminescence. As we pass monks stop to bow. We bow in return.

Back again, we are led to dinner in a private room. Two straight rows of Buddha-trays opposite one another lead across the tatamis to the takanoma's quiet grace at one end. Kneeling seiza, we find small lacquer bowls containing soup, seaweed, sweet vegetables, beans, spongy tofu, mushrooms, boiled vegetables, and rice. They are sweet-smelling, pleasing to view. "Seventy-two labors brought us this food.... " we intone, before finally eating in the silent concentration of formal meal-taking, or "oryoki." Drum rolls mark the setting sun. Later that evening we sit in meditation, or "zazen."

Next morning, after nearly an hour of watching the dawn service that has been going on all the while in Soji-ji's Buddha Hall, we finally rise to offer incense and money at the alter. We are then led to another room where Daido and a fellow celebrant have donned the orange kesa robes of Soji-ji and are being presented tea and various documents as part of their confirmation. Shortly we return again to the great hall for Zuise. Chanting has continued all the while. The actual Zuise ceremony is short -- arrival of the Vice-Abbot, multiple bows, offerings of incense and more chanting. Daido, Maezumi-roshi, Doshosan and Seidosan -- all of whom have accompanied Daido nearly everywhere -- are led to the rear, while the monks-in-training file out. Zuise is over. Loori now carries the horsehair fly whisk symbol of transmission. It is an important moment, not only for Loori personally, but historically, as part of the transplantation of Zen from East to West.

Before long, we follow the Vice-Abbot, Daido, and their respective retinues to a side altar at front-right. We all kneel, Daido in the place of honor, the Soji-ji monks facing him. All bow to him in recognition and proclaim their unison congratulation -- "Omedeto!" We then file past a nearby pedestal altar to bow and pour sweet water over a little Buddha figurine, all glistening from his bath the moment before. It is the Buddha's birthday.

Finally, we are led to the Abbot's garden for official photographs, and as we step from the surrounding glassed-in veranda, we see daylight has come. The garden is exquisite -- sculptured, yet natural and relaxed. The trees, shrubs and scattered rocks cascade towards a central open space of grass and pond. Huge white, gold and black carp swim lazily, partly obscured by reflections. The largest trees and shrubs have been placed to integrate completely, from all directions, with the green-tile eaves and ridges of the monastery buildings just beyond. Many monastery gardens are dry -- a few boulders surrounded by crushed white rock, like the one Seido built by Doshin-ji's entrance gate. But this one is lush. We assemble, shutters click, and Daido's first Zuise is officially recorded.

Later in the day, after a short train ride further south to Kamakura, we meet some other "ancestors." Our entourage -- three bald Zen monks, one towering above the others (Daido), trailed by a motley gaggle of American tourists scurrying to their train -- prompts fleeting gawks from passersby whose normal urbane reserve is momentarily overcome. Kamakura holds special interest because Zen flourished there during the 13th Century. Like all tourists, we visit the graceful Daibutsu, or Great Buddha statue, whose thirty-seven foot bulk was cast in bronze six centuries before. The day is pleasant. Fresh cherry blossoms glisten against a blue spring sky.

We encounter our ancestors in Kamakura during a visit to Engaku-ji, a Rinzai temple founded in 1282. Passing under the magnificent weathered entrance gate, we amble up the paved walkway with bleached gravel on either side, then past the sun-drenched Buddha Hall and some smaller buildings. Later, as we stroll on the path back out, I ask Daido how he feels about visiting this place. He can scarcely speak, being so deeply moved by the visit. Regaining his voice, he quietly refers to all the centuries of zazen, of sesshins, of transmissions that converged here to make our practice in America possible. For this is the temple of Abbot Soyen Shaku, one of the first Japanese Zen Buddhist teachers in America. It was here, too, that Soyen Shaku's students, Nyogen Senzaki and famed author D.T. Suzuki, both trained before joining their teacher in America to help introduce Americans to Zen. Without these three, Zen would not be flourishing in the United States today, Daido suggests. As we wait at the gate before leaving, we notice some costumed Zen archers practicing -- handsome, deliberate, graceful. Sesshins, the intensive meditation retreats that are so central to Zen practice, are still offered at Engaku-ji five times a year.

My own gratitude is aroused by Daido's deep feelings. In the midst of an extremely difficult time in my life, I had met him three years before entirely by chance. I had been searching for some method of cutting free from the entanglements of a depression that had been building for years but had just recently reached a crisis. Psychotherapy had helped, but could not change the realities of history and circumstance. One Sunday in the midst of it all I attended a Unitarian/Universalist Church service where a visiting speaker was scheduled.

I had not gone to hear the speaker, especially. He began so quietly I had to strain my ears. Soon I could hear this quiet, bald-headed man describing a 2,500-year old technique for gradually cutting oneself free from the entanglements of delusion and suffering. The words struck me like a silent clap of thunder, for they sounded exactly like what I had been trying to do all along, but unsuccessfully. Without directly referring to the historical Buddha's Second and Third Noble Truths, he explained, in effect, that just as suffering is caused by the clinging and attachments engendered by yearning, desire and ambition (and the deluded idea-systems generated by these), so too, suffering can be dissolved by freeing oneself from these attachments and delusions. Soon the speaker was describing the means to accomplish this freedom (the Fourth Noble Truth), the most important being meditation.

The speaker was Loori. Within a month I travelled to his monastery to learn more, returning many times over the next few years. The Japanese forms and sounds were not a barrier for me, since I understood from the outset it was the method, not the trappings, that was essential. Almost immediately, as I began regular meditation practice, I felt a change. The color of each moment began to return. Gradually, the depth of my cycles of despair lessened. Within a few months I became a non-resident member of the Monastery. Eventually, as my practice matured, the log-jammed crisis with which I had been struggling began to move again. There followed a period of actual residency at the Monastery, which involved some extraordinarily difficult moments as the rigors of monastic life took precedence over personal weakness. In 1985 I formally received the precepts that mark one's becoming an ordained lay Buddhist. The resolution of the crisis that began then has continued ever since.

Originally, my encounter with Loori seemed just a stroke of good luck. Now, walking out the weathered gate of Engaku-ji, I realize that what seemed like good luck originally was also the result of centuries of effort by teachers whose compassion required them to share the method of Zen with others. In our lineage, much of that sharing occurred here, at Engaku-ji. It is a moment when perspective sharpens because of my deep feeling of personal and historical convergence. Leaving, my conversation with Daido lapses as we reflect on the personal meaning this foreign place has for us.

The next day is an important one for the Kuroda family. Junpu Kuroda-roshi, one of Taizan Maezumi's older brothers, will become Abbot of his temple, Kirigaya-ji, located in a suburb of Tokyo. We have been officially invited to his Installation Ceremony -- called Shinsanshiki, or "Ascending the Mountain." Today he is addressed as "Hojosan" -- Master of the Abbot's Quarters.Immediately upon our arrival we are taken upstairs for lunch with other family members and guests of honor. Out of nowhere, Maezumi-roshi appears to greet us in his ineffable and mildly quizzical way. "How is it going?" Tesshu answers that he lost his camera but later got it back from the taxi driver. "That's good," suggests Roshi. "Were you worried about it?"

Roshi then introduces his mother -- a tiny, weathered, sparkling old woman in her eighties. It is an important moment for both Daido and "Mamasan," as he later calls her when chatting to us informally. Somehow, they find room among the crowded tables, knapsacks and cameras to make full, kneeling prostrations to each other, as is customary when expressing deep respect in Japanese Zen. During lunch we chat with a blue-robed Rinzai monk who will visit Doshin-ji in the summer. Dosho shows us a newspaper ad describing his temple's new zendo, laid out in the "American style" borrowed from Doshin-ji. Very few local temples have zendos in Japan -- Doshosan's is an exception.

Back downstairs, Shinsanshiki begins. In the audience, seated on closely packed rows of folding chairs, black suits and shaved heads are conspicuous among the men, rakusus and traditional kimonos among the women. The shaved head indicates status as a Zen monk. The rakusu -- a bib-like ceremonial garment worn around the neck -- indicates formal status as a Zen Buddhist and is worn by lay practitioners and monks alike. (Nearly all of us are wearing our own rakusus, too.) Roshi and his mother sit side by side, the one towering over the other. Hojosan enters with the diamond "chings" of inkins (an inverted brass hand-bell held on the end of a lacquered wood handle) and proceeds to each of several side altars to bow and offer incantations. His chanting voice is high, intentionally whining, with repeating glissando inflections of pitch. He then climbs the high altar to chant acknowledgements to many letters of gift and congratulation.

Soon "Dharma combat" begins. Dharma combat is an exchange in which one Zen practitioner either tests their own Zen insight or that of another, often in the form of a question about Zen practice from one of the sutras -- the religious texts of Buddhism. Unlike ancient times, in modern Japan this verbal confrontation is rehearsed. Questions or challenges are submitted beforehand so appropriate answers can be prepared. Today the combatants charge forward with a great gusto, bellowing their acted confrontations as they stride toward the high altar. Hojosan's voice returns, clear and high-pitched. As each challenger withdraws, they conclude in chanted Japanese, "Thank you for your answer, thank you, thank you."

On his turn, Daido moves quietly forward. He draws from the poem "Shakyamuni's Plum Tree," in Keizan-Zenji's Denko-Roku -- a collection of commentaries on famous Dharma exchanges between great Zen teachers and their successors, starting with Shakyamuni Buddha. "Shakyamuni's plum tree has clearly sent forth new roots, new branches here today. But what of the brambles that Keizan-Zenji speaks of? What will we do about them?" Hojosan answers in English that the brambles are ordinary life, as is the plum tree. Both are the same. Certainly an adequate answer, Daido comments later. The answer might seem trite, were it not for the hard lessons of Zen training. Before my own practice began, I had tried in vain to cut the brambles away, to avoid them, to eliminate them, to numb the pain they caused by any means. But that won't work, Hojosan reminds us, for paths and brambles are inseparable, like life and death. Zen training is simultaneously difficult and powerful because that is part of its lesson. Shinsanshiki concludes with a reading of many congratulatory letters from major Soto temples in Japan and abroad.

The next day our train destination is Eihei-ji. There, not only will the official recognition of Maezumi-roshi's transmission to Daido be completed at a second Zuise, but we will meet the thirteenth-century teacher, Dogen-Zenji, whose writings are often studied at Doshin-ji. Founded in 1243, the second great co-head temple of Soto Zen is located a little more than 300 kilometers west of Tokyo, in Fukui Prefecture, near Japan's northern coast. The area is called "snow country," where the enclosed corridors between monastery buildings are completely covered in winter. Initially following the country's southern shore to Nagara, the shinkansen, or "bullet train," then turns inland. A taxi completes the last few kilometers over some mountainous foothills and leaves us at Eihei-ji's roadside gate. It is late afternoon and the rain is falling again, quiet and steady. The gate leads deep into a grove of towering cryptomeria trees -- a type of cedar related to our redwoods.

We register and are led by a monk to our rooms. He explains Eihei-ji's strict rules. One must walk with hands in "shashu" (one hand over the other fist, held at one's diaphragm); eyes must be lowered; all lined up, groups must move together. A "military mentality," Tetsugen Glassman-sensei, Daido's Dharma-brother, had complained on an earlier pilgrimage.[5]

Waiting now, I slide back the shoji screen and stand on the balcony outside. Surrounded by the darkening afternoon, cryptomerias, mysterious and lush, disappear upwards in the mist. The courtyard below is empty. Nearby, roof tiles glisten with rain. Up the hill to my left the mossy eaves and dark wood-latticed window panels of old monastery buildings recede into the gloaming. The place is deeply still.

Later, led again to a separate room, we eat our handsome evening meal alone, in silent rows, as at Soji-ji. Then, just before bed, Tesshu and I sit in zazen, perched on our futons, facing the panelled wall. Resonating from somewhere up the hill, we hear the soft, muffled gong of the monastery during its period of evening meditation. It sounds every few minutes -- mysterious, moving, silence closing in between. It can be faintly heard in the valley below, we are later told. Eventually, it ceases. We sleep. My hips are sore from the tatamis.

Four in the morning. We are led to the Zendo where we do zazen, along with other guests. Again, the sitting is welcome and strong, and later Daido (though not present) is complimented. His second Zuise follows the zazen and is much like the ceremony at Soji-ji. Before service, Daido disappears with others behind the altar to offer incense at a reliquary containing some of Eihei Dogen's ashes. Probably none of the ancestors has had a stronger impact on Daido; he is deeply moved.

"I met Dogen today," Daido comments later. He is also deeply moved by the sight of his sangha (Zen community) kneeling in the Butsuden as he arrives for Zuise.

After the hour-long morning service and its ancient choreography of chants, deep bells and wooden percussion sounds, and after the Zuise ceremony itself, we follow Daido and the other officiants to a series of altars and ceremonial rooms throughout the monastery. Between them (curling our toes to keep from losing our absurdly small institutional slippers) we trod briskly along the dusky wood corridors that tunnel through the winter snows, but which now reveal the first faint light of dawn. At each altar we bow and watch Daido offer incense. One is Dogen-Zenji's memorial altar. Another is in a large, empty and airy room, almost modern in its simplicity. There Daido is given tea and some papers; he sits up front and symbolically becomes Abbot-for-a-Day at Eihei-ji. In another small room all the high monks in their russet-gold robes chant their congratulation.

Soon we are in yet another chamber sipping green tea with Soko Suzuki-roshi, who is Kanin-Roshi at the monastery (a high post) and a Dharma-brother of Shunryu Suzuki. Shunryu Suzuki is well-known in America as the founder of the Zen Center of San Francisco and author of the beautiful book Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. At one point his Dharma-brother smiles and makes movements of discomfort. Motoko's translation indicates he is impressed with our steadfast kneeling "seiza" positions, noting with good-humored gestures that not all foreigners do as well. Philip leans to ask me what was said. "He knows how painful our legs are," I whisper, speaking for my knees. Later, waiting in the entrance lobby, I sit next to Maezumi. "Did you like it?" he asks. "We owe you many thanks for being Daido's teacher," I reply. Roshi beams and grasps my hands.

Roshi's smile reflects not only his own momentary pleasure, but also his role in the "culture diffusion" (as the anthropologists call it) of Buddhism from East to West. In America, however, the practice of Buddhism is still culturally marginal; most conversions are to Christian fundamentalism, not to Buddhism, and Zen will need every legitimation it can muster to gain popular acceptance. I have learned, for instance, that casual reference to my own practice usually either stops conversation cold, leads to a rapid change of topic, or prompts, at most, a very brief interchange of embarrassed, superficial inquiry. The cultural marginality of Zen in America is precisely why Zen Mountain Monastery's board of directors so firmly joined Maezumi in urging Loori to travel to Japan for official certification by the Soto bureaucracy.

For awhile, during its first years of struggle for survival in the early 1980s, nestled at the foot of surrounding mountains, Loori's monastery seemed an idyllic, isolated retreat where official recognition seemed beside the point. The setting is bucolic, to be sure. But the pilgrimage made clear it must also be seen as part of the great stream of Buddhist teaching and practice that extends back for centuries, as we saw in Japan, and is now taking root in a new culture, as it has so many times before. Loori's "confirmation" may help to underscore this historical reality.

Within an hour we are standing on the train platform in the city of Fukui. We chat about our experiences. Daido notes that, although the training at Eihei-ji is very disciplined, most of the monks who "graduate" will rarely sit zazen again. Generally, no provision is made at local temples throughout Japan for their members to meditate. "Funeral directors," is how Yasutani-roshi, one of Maezumi's teachers, had described the average Zen Priest in Japan some years before. But there are strong exceptions, one of which we will visit later in the day. Soon we are being lulled to sleep by the motion of our train.

Our destination is Obama, a small town 90 kilometers to the southwest of Fukui, on the Sea of Japan. We will visit two small neighboring monasteries -- Bukko-ji and Hosshin-ji -- both of which are important in our lineage. First we walk through the town's quiet, sunny streets to Bukko-ji, whose Abbot, Tangen Harada-roshi, is the last Dharma heir of Sogaku Harada-roshi, and is one of the few Japanese masters of koan study to accept Westerners into training. Sogaku Harada is important in our lineage because his combined Rinzai and Soto training was transmitted to Hakuun Yasutani-roshi, who was one of the three teachers from whom Maezumi received the transmission.

Two schools of Japanese Zen are in the process of transplantation to American soil -- Soto and Rinzai. Both originated in ninth-century China. They have merged in the transmission to Maezumi-roshi, as they have historically several times before. Both sects emphasize disciplined monastic practice, but they differ in style. Rinzai Zen is famed for its more aggressive teaching techniques, including in past centuries shouts and even blows by the teacher; today its distinguishing trait is probably its emphasis on the study of "koans" -- those enigmatic questions or exchanges that are, indeed, intended to defy ordinary reason. Hakuin-Zenji's "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" is probably the best-known in America. There are hundreds of others.

Soto practice, in contrast, is gentler in style and is more likely to advocate more gradual attainment of enlightenment through a type of unstructured zazen called "shikantaza." Recurring disputes between the two sects have erupted throughout the long history of Zen. Today, however, as we find our way through the back streets of Obama, both are embodied in the same two teachers, Maezumi-roshi and Loori-sensei.

What accounts for the diffusion of Buddhism to America that is represented by these two men, walking side by side in front of us? Part of the answer must be historical and sociological.[7] Starting around the turn of the century, Soto priests like Maezumi increasingly visited America to serve the religious needs of its growing population of Japanese-Americans, as well as to introduce Zen to Americans of European descent. Ironically, although World War II interrupted the cross-cultural flow, it also facilitated a few fertile exchanges -- such as Robert Aitken-roshi's contact in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp with R.H. Blyth's writings on Zen. After the war, the flow resumed, including visits by such future teachers or beat-generation writers as Philip Kapleau, Gary Snyder and Allen Ginsburg to the Orient for periods of religious study.

The invasion of Tibet by the Chinese also contributed by displacing numerous Tibetan Buddhist teachers whose subsequent immigration to America greatly stimulated interest in Buddhism generally. The founding of permanent centers of Zen training like the Rochester Zen Center and the Zen Center of Los Angeles marked a turning point, for now Americans like Loori could study without travelling to the Orient. As such students began to complete their training, they moved to establish new centers elsewhere. This, in turn, led to the founding of numerous affiliated groups and sub-centers. The Zen Center of Los Angeles, for instance, has spawned 49 other centers, affiliates or sitting groups. Four of these are major residential monastic centers in their own right, and eight are located in Central America or Europe. Itself part of this network, Loori's Zen Mountain Monastery now supports six American sub-groups (including my own affiliate in Vermont), plus one abroad.

We arrive first at Bukko-ji. After three bows in Bukko-ji's small Buddha Hall, we are served tea. Louise, who has been in Japan for several months, helps translate. Motoko was a former student of Tangen Harada for a short time, so she and the Abbot greet each other warmly. I am transfixed by the face and bearing of Tangen Harada. His expression is naturally joyful, even pixy-like at times. His laugh is utterly spontaneous. He listens intently to our every introduction, radiating his reply. I comment later to Daido, who agrees "his eye is open." After tea the Abbot shows us his new zendo -- an unusual feature in the average temple, we now realize. Returning, we pass several Western and Japanese monks preparing vegetables; Motoko is delighted to recognize an old friend. One of the others is an American, an illustration, perhaps, of the growing interest in Zen practice in the United States.

We don't stay long. Passing a fish pond and Buddhist grave-stone pyramid outside, we follow a narrow trail along the rice paddies to the other temple, Hosshin-ji, which is visible in the distance. Our goal is the grave of the senior Harada -- Sogaku Harada-roshi. Another American monk training at Hosshin-ji shows the way. Daido offers incense and prostrates himself before his ancestor. One by one we do the same, placing a stick of incense and bowing once. A breeze stirs the leaves around us and warm, dappled shadows on the grave site sparkle and dance. Just before departing we are shown the tiny quarters and garden occupied by the senior Harada during his last years. His severe, oval, photo-portrait peers from a scroll on the wall.

Back at Bukko-ji, we say farewell to Tangen Harada, retrace our steps through the quiet town, and soon are on a bus for Kyoto, some sixty kilometers to the south. We are exhausted. The trip has itself been a rigorous sesshin, with its daily dawn and evening zazen and its relentless itinerary. It has cleared my mind and opened me to new impressions and experiences in the same way as meditation retreats at Doshin-ji. It has also left us extremely tired and quite ready for our two free days in the famed capital of ancient Japan.

The difficulty of Zen practice probably explains why, despite its remarkable growth in America, it appears "elite" to some and shows no signs of becoming a popular religion with mass appeal. Buddhism evidently does speak to the spiritual needs of many Americans in a way that Christianity and Judaism do not. My own personal experience suggests that Zen is spreading in the United States because it offers a unique combination of deep spiritual experience, community support, and a practical method to deal personally and effectively with the trials and pains of ordinary life. But Zen practice clearly is not for everyone. This is not because it is intentionally exclusive. On the contrary, because it is non-theistic it offers no doctrinal barriers to speak of, and teachers take a vow to teach all who earnestly ask. Nor is it because of its cultural unfamiliarity, although that is a subjective barrier for some. Probably the greatest barrier is the strenuousness of Zen practice. As Dogen wrote in the 13th Century:

While the verse may sound enticingly "spiritual," it has a kicker -- namely, the part about forgetting oneself. That turns out to be extraordinarily difficult. Consequently, an active sorting process occurs among those who decide to give Zen a try. Those like myself with the good fortune to locate a qualified teacher or an authentic center soon discover the practice requires discipline, willingness to experience one's deepest hidden and neurotic self, a tolerance for hard work and even pain, and the passage of time. The newcomer soon finds that Zen is neither a quick fix, nor just a way of getting "centered" and relaxed, nor merely an appealing philosophy. It is a demanding practice that requires one to let go.

As Loori is fond of saying about his monastery, "people come here looking for a refuge from the pains of the world, only to discover that the monastery is a furnace that burns off everything extra." That can seem very threatening; as Dogen noted earlier, "firewood does not become firewood again after it is ash..."

In Kyoto we go separate ways. It is a relief to be out of the pack. Betty, Lionel and I spend the first day happily together visiting Nara, the ancient capital before it moved to Kyoto in 710 A.D. Nara, famous for the Daibutsu statue at Todai-ji, is located only forty kilometers to Kyoto's south. We join the babbling throngs, pushing past the clouds of incense at the grand front door to peer up at the blackened, fifty-three foot high Great Buddha, still serenely sitting amongst the hubbub in the same pose it took in A.D. 747.

Next day I set out alone. At my first stop, when I unknowingly step off the bus without my change, the bus follows me and another passenger gets off to return my coins. Then I walk through residential streets to Myoshin-ji to see its lovely dry and planted gardens. Hiking on through the confused back streets of western Kyoto eventually brings me to Ryoan-ji, another Rinzai temple, with its famous and timeless dry rock garden. My life crisis and discovery of Zen a few years before had both laid groundwork for my second career as an artist, and photographs of this famous garden had subsequently come to symbolize for me much of this personal conjunction of art and Zen. Stopping first for hot broth and noodles at a stand outside the temple, I enter. The chatter of the tourist throngs fades in its astringent space. I have a strange sense of not being anywhere, of feeling as quietly empty as the space itself. Later in the day, fatigue dulling my senses, when I forget my knapsack in Kyoto's MacDonalds, a young customer chases a full block after me to return it.

Later, as the sun descends, I make my way to Kennin-ji, one of Dogen-Zenji's first temples. Kennin-ji was founded in 1202 by Eisai, one of the first Zen priests in Japan. Dogen studied briefly with Eisai, and then with Myogen, who transmitted to Dogen here in 1221. Together they departed from Kennin-ji in 1223 for their famous travels in China. But in stark contrast to this rich past, except for some voices in another room at the receiving hall, the temple seems desolate, in decline. The grounds and gravel paths are empty. Hanging laundry, parked cars and bicycles, and miscellaneous trash containers bedeck quarters that once were sacred ground. The contrast with my own search, so changing and alive, is dramatic.

Next day, we make our way by local trains to Seidosan's family temple, Unsen-ji. Seido has been with us for the entire trip. He was born and raised at Unsen-ji, and his father still serves there as Abbot[9]. We must first change trains at Okayama, on the coast, to reach Takahashi, which lies 50 kilometers inland among the mountains to the northwest.

Later, we ride by taxi up the steep and winding one-lane mountain roads to Unsen-ji, perched high on a ridge overlooking the village of Ugi and its surrounding mountainous farmlands. Even here, deep in the interior, settlements and farm houses are always in view, and every foot of arable land is cultivated. Climbing a long set of stone temple steps, we are greeted by a fearful carved wood dragon with long wire whiskers on the weathered temple gate; hanging just below, flapping in the warm April sunshine, a banner proclaims "WELCOME." Through the gate, in the courtyard, our hearts melt as we walk through two rows of bronzed and weather-beaten Japanese farmers in their baggy, dark suits, all clapping, smiling and voicing their greetings. They are the temple's board of directors. Seido's father, Kodo Suzuki, with his mother close beside, walk forward to greet us. Within moments we are bowing and chanting our respect at the main altar. Then tea. One farmer, robust face shining with energy, keeps shaking his head in wonder at my considerable size. We learn that some of the board members have never before seen westerners.

The day is fully planned. After a Western-style lunch, we drive to nearby Hirokane House, a rustic country villa built a century before by the historically prominent Fugiwara family. Back again at the temple with a little time, I wander off alone in the warm afternoon sun to explore the dry forest ridge just behind. The pace has been relentless, and I need to be alone. Voices melt away. Soon there is only the crunch of dry leaves under foot. Climbing past a tall blooming azalea, I find a quiet spot in the light and sit zazen for half an hour. A bird warbles.... Faintly, away, the barking of a dog.... A breeze stirs a faint floral perfume....

I hustle back in time for a koto concert, performed by a Suzuki family friend, and then a tea ceremony conducted by Seido's aunt. At five Seido begins to sound nine strokes of the huge brass courtyard gong -- the same nine strokes that have resounded twice daily through the valley below for years. Imitating Seido's swing of the huge log clapper, we take turns.

Preparations for supper -- a banquet, we soon see -- begin immediately. Into the main hall we move low tables and zabutans -- the thin square floor cushions that take the place of chairs. There is bustling in the kitchen. Half a dozen board members arrive with their wives, and soon we are all sitting in two opposite rows, passing rice cakes, vegetables, saki and beer. It is a simple meal, for this is a relatively poor temple.

Despite the language barrier, we converse successfully with the board members across from and beside us. Questions. Half-understood replies. More sake. I have to ward off attempts to refill my glass by the vociferous farmer who stood earlier shaking his head at my size. Finally, I stack glasses and plates on top to signal "no." He roars with laughter. The talking gradually crescendos to a full-scale party.

I rise to take a picture (and relieve the pain in my knees). Seconds later, the same farmer is pointing to me, repeating his wonderment to all. He jumps up, rushes over, puts his arms around my thighs and hoists me off the ground. Uproarious laughter. I pick him up in turn. Evidently my bulk is a great curiosity, for the wife of one of the other board members now wants me to lift her in my arms so she can be photographed -- like the traveller being recorded on an elephant in India, I suppose.

With the last jammed chunks of ice now flowing swiftly away in the thaw, our performances begin. First we persuade Philip to play his shakuhachi. He plays "Plum Blossoms." The Japanese ladies sway and hum along. Great success. Then Betty sings a lovely song, Lionel helping with the verses. Animated by the muse of performance, my incredulous admirer appears with a large basket, a kerchief bound tightly around his head and his pant legs rolled up. Prancing with a shout to the center of the room, he spontaneously executes a sake-inspired eel-fishing dance. As he hunts, he swoops, shouts, grunts, pauses and draws his skein (basket) through the shallow water of his imaginary lagoon. His gestures are fluid and spontaneous, yet separated into the momentary poses of Gugaku traditional dance. He loves to play the clown. Everyone laughs and claps; the place is in an uproar.

By this time, a microphone and electronic equipment have been set up for karaoke, the favorite Japanese party pastime in which revelers take turns singing at the microphone to the instrumental accompaniment of pre-recorded popular songs. The board members and their wives take turns. One farmer has had enough sake that he cannot sing, but only adopts an awkward swaying pose and croaks loudly a few times with the orchestra. The karaoke prize goes to a lovely teenage girl in the Suzuki family. Eventually the party winds down, ending with the usual group photograph. We carry away the tables, drag out some futons, and within a half hour I am falling asleep under the steady gaze of a bronze Buddha sitting in the takanoma of an adjoining room.

Early next morning we are awakened in the chilly mountain dawn by Seido's nine strokes on the courtyard gong. Futons stored, we do zazen, joined by two of the temple's board members. Influenced by his long stay at Doshin-ji, Seido plans to build a zendo at Unsen-ji next year. This morning's sitting, however, is a rare event at the temple. Afterwards, appetites quelled, we wander about the Temple grounds, soaking up the morning sun, absorbed by the distant clear-mountain vistas. A few kids below mount their bikes and ride off to school.

Just before departure, we convene in the living room to admire a series of centuries-old scroll paintings. Four Arhats grin out at us as we kneel. A heron stands timelessly in a black ink pond. The Buddha lies in his parinirvana. Culturally they are a world away from my own painting, with its recent passionate abstraction. But I have been deeply influenced by the momentary gesture of Zenga masterpieces, like some of those in front of me. Like so much art, they seem to me like a personal gift. Seido's father then presents a concrete gift to Daido -- a large, box-shaped calligraphy ink stone. Carved in China many years before, the sides are covered with intricate reliefs. He is overcome.

Most of that day is spent travelling. Once back on the coast, the shinkansen takes us first to Osaka, and then on to Tokyo. After changing trains, we begin the day's last leg to Otawara, an agricultural city 140 kilometers north of Tokyo. It is the home of Koshin-ji, the temple where Maezumi-roshi was raised as a boy and where his oldest brother, Kojun Kuroda-roshi is now Abbot. There we will meet another ancestor, Maezumi's father, Baian Hakujun, who was the first to transmit to his son. We are tired. It is hard to realize that tomorrow, after a day of sightseeing, we will return to Tokyo; and that a day after we will be in New York.

Next morning, Koshin-ji's 4:30 a.m. gong brings a teaching. As I sit up to sharpen my wits, I see the young, blue-robed Rinzai monk who has joined us rise swiftly from his mat, sweep up his futon and quilt in a single gesture and fold them as he strides to the sliding-panel storage closet from which they came the night before. It is all done in less than 30 seconds. He strides off to wash; no trace of his slumber remains. I smile in memory of my students back home who "simply cannot" wake up in time for a nine a.m. class. We follow and within moments are doing zazen in the Butsuden. Unlike most of the temples we have visited, there are stacks of black zafus, or meditation cushions, by the door. Later, we assemble for a hot Japanese breakfast of rice, hard-boiled eggs and vegetables. Then we are summoned to visit our ancestor by climbing the graveyard hill behind.

The morning is bright with sun and haze as we pass the great front-yard bell, turn a corner, and climb the hill's long stone staircase. The cemetery is resplendent with blossoms of giant cherry trees and the chirping of birds. As we climb, Otawara unfolds at our feet. Maezumi leads, holding a short, double-headed inkin bell and miniature wooden mokugyo. His father's grave marker is an unweathered, rounded marble cylinder standing atop a square block with a hollow for offerings. As we gather around, Maezumi lights several ample handfuls of short incense sticks. They burst into flame, and he hands a small clump to each of us. He sounds his tiny bell, and to the shallow tonk-tonk of the two-inch mokugyo we chant in the bright air. We each approach the grave in turn, bow fully to the memory of our Dharma ancestor, and offer our blazing sticks to the stone. With each offering, the gravestone hollow gradually ignites with fire and smoke. I am deeply moved by the flames. For a moment, they are the crucible, not only of our intense and rigorous pilgrimage, but of the momentous transformations occurring in my own life. My emerging practice of Zen. Letting go the ambitions of an earlier career. Remaking a marriage. Finding a way through art to a more passionate self. An emerging career in painting. How fortunate is the transience of experience! The flames begin to dwindle. Roshi's face is impassive. His mother, standing next to him now, comes here daily to make an offering. Afterwards, we wait with our Zen ancestor's bronze bust in the front dirt courtyard for our taxis. Maezumi's taxi arrives first; he climbs in, waves good-bye, and drives off. It is the last we see of him in Japan.

Contrary to one popular misconception, Zen practice does not escape the pains of the world. Rather, it provides a means of gradual flowering and transformation, along with the discipline to live in their midst -- like a lotus in the fire, to use a well-known Buddhist metaphor. The image is esoteric; but what could be more realistic and practical than a systematic and effective method of fully becoming what one can naturally be and of "hanging in there" in the meantime, as that happens? Indeed, the one factor that may best account for Zen's spread in America is its practicality. Certainly that was centrally important for me. Now, several years later, the seemingly esoteric practice of Zen is no longer external to me -- something found at the Monastery, in the personage of my teacher, or in historical writings. Not only does it continue to resolve the crisis that led me to practice initially, it has become part of my growth and daily living, as essential to my presence-of-mind and self-management as rest and recreation. Evidently other Americans are having the same experience.

[1] Henry Chigen Finney is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Vermont in Burlington, a professional artist, and a student at Zen Mountain Monastery since 1984.

[2] He has since become Abbot.

[3] Rick Field's How the Swans Came to the Lake (Shambala, Boston, 1986) provides an account of this historical development.

[4] See Henry C. Finney, "American Zen's 'Japan Connection:' A Critical Case Study of Zen Buddhism's Diffusion to the West," Sociological Analysis, Winter 1991, 52:4,379-396. As I explain in this article, neither the scope nor the causes of this development are well understood by prevailing theories in the sociology of religion.

[5] Recounted in Peter Mattiessen, Nine-Headed Dragon River, Shambala, Boston, 1986.

[6] Eihei Dogen, "Shobogenzo Genjo Koan," Zen Center of Los Angeles, 1977, p. 3,

[7] See Finney, cited earlier, for a detailed sociological answer.

[8] Eihei Dogen, "Shobogenzo Genjo Koan," Zen Center of Los Angeles, 1977, p. 2.

[9] Abbot Suzuki died after our return, so his son, Seido, is now Abbot.

[10] From Zenkei Shibayama, A Flower Does Not Talk, Charles E. Tuttle Co., Rutland, Vt., and Tokyo, 1970, back cover.