Search for Zen sanctuary

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33382, 14 November 1973, Page 6

Search for Zen sanctuary

New Zealand, over the coming decades and into the millenium, may be a spiritual haven in an increasingly contused world, according to a Canadian, Virginia Stevenson. Ms Stevenson is a disciple [ of a Japanese roshi (priest), j Joshu Sasaki, who intends to, start a Zen monastery and; associated lay community in New Zealand. She has been in the country for a year, living at Russell, raising funds and inspecting sites for the venture, which I will be modelled on the! roshi’s present home, the; Cimarron Zen Centre in Los Angeles — an agricultural and craft community to ■ which people come for I sesshin, periods of intensive! meditation and instruction by! ■ the roshi. The first sesshin in New Zealand will start this Saturday, at the scout camp at Kaiapoi. It has been organised with the help of a Christchurch group, the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order (formerly the Christchurch Buddhist Society). This group, under an English monk, has been active for about three years, holding its own retreats. Roshi Sasaki, who is on his first visit to New Zealand, will give a public lecture on Friday week at the university. N.Z. BASE The roshi, who, since leaving Japan, has been engaged in travelling around the United States and Canada holding sesshin, intends to make his base at the New ■ Zealand centre. Already, about 50 North Americans ■ have said they will join him i here. Ms Stevenson says that the

ilNew Zealanders she has met ( who are interested in Zen ; and the proposed centre are, < like these Americans, moti- i i vated by a spiritual search — , [■seeking some meaning for the , individual in a world ; increasingly dominated by j the growing monoliths of . State and industry. This inquiry often comes i' [from people of a church back- [ [ground, and, surprisingly,': takes them back into a|[ ibroader sort of Christian be-:' 'lief — one which, however,!' she sees as opposed to the; [charismatic religion of the “Jesus Movement.” This' latter group has its own [ 'growing intolerance, a com-; ■munal defence, coming down ! I from the top, against the outride world. Zen, which means meditation, eventually gives the individual an intuitive realisa- ■ tion of his real nature. 'Meditation, which has become known best through the publicity of the Transcendental Meditation organisation,;, is essential to this, along with'' an enlightened personal!' guidance. DIFFERENCE The difference between [ i Christianity and Buddhism,!, however, lies in the Western;' tendency to focus not on thei Buddhist experience, which is [ essential, but on the explana-: tion, which is accidental and J which, indeed, Zen often [< regards as completely trivial [ and even misleading. Buddhist meditation, and < above all that of Zen, seeks 1 not to explain but to pay ( attention, to become aware, ( to be mindful — to develop a consciousness that is above j deception by verbal formula, , emotional excitement and . expectation, she says. The psychologist, Dr C. G. . Jung, who near the end of I his life became very interested in Zen, said the : fact that general bodily sen- ' sations disappeared during meditation suggested that ' ■ their specific energy had been withdrawn and gone towards heightening the clarity of consciousness. As a rule, this phenomenon was | spontaneous, coming and;! going of its own accord. This would seem to have a parallel in the much-! I publicised use of meditationlas an alternative to drugtaking. Drugs, especially the more powerful hallucinogens, give a seeming means of self-transcendance—a glimpse of the infinite—but always, it seems, a return to the unsatisfactory inbalance of life seems to be an axiom and a complaint. [ PARADOXES Zen admits this, and makes! a virtue of it; it takes the; good and the bad, and laughs I at them both; it is making a ’ pleasure of necessity, wanting to do what you are doing, cheerfully; it has a fine dis-: regard of intolerance, seeing; some good in everything and; everyone. The often surreal-; ist writings of the Zen masiters are full of humour,; 'laughter at themselves and! •others (to try to get them to: '.see the same paradox). ; This Zen humour is much) [concerned with the collision! between the ideal and the; real, with the emotional and ■ intellectual contradictions of I life, the personal, marital, social, and cosmic paradoxes; it is dealing with things for what they are, with no regrets; and no expectations, nothing: special and nothing owing. Although the fundamental teachings of Zen are drawn from centuries of practice in India, China and Japan it is! [religious rather than al [religion—in the sense that! [religions are dogmatic, teach-' ling a code of “we are right and you are wrong.” The accommodation of Zen in Buddhism was possible because of the marvellous elasticity and tolerance of BudIdhism.

Zen is bringing the East and the West together by way of mutual recognition; Japanese such as Dr D. T. Suzuki, Joshu Sasaki Roshi and others have gone to the West because they saw people interested in the same goals, and the “Zen” in the teachings of Christ is cited along with such writers as Eckhart, ! Dickens, early Wordsworth, R. L. Stevenson and on to Father Thomas Merton, R. D. Laing, Alan Watts and John ■Cage.