As promised, at the beginning of each month in 2024, we return to the topic of “Election Year Zen” with my DharmaByte column (DB) for the Silent Thunder Order monthly newsletter, amplified in the subsequent UnMind podcast (UM) of the month. Please refer to last month’s DB and first UM, if you have not already done so, to review my rationale for this approach to a topic that most Zen practitioners would prefer to avoid.
In an earlier DB in June of 2023, I had broached this subject gingerly, and touched on it in my second major book, The Razorblade of Zen. In the newsletter column, I make the point that partisan politics in general is not a topic we would recommend bringing up in the context of the zendo (which came up in dialog with one of our affiliate Zen centers). Quoting myself again:
In a recent meeting with one of our affiliate centers, the focus was on “The Platform Sutra of Huineng,” in which he admonishes all to not find fault with others. One of the members who helps organize these events sent me some questions she wanted me to address, including the dilemma of how we are supposed to not find fault with people who are waging war on others, and committing atrocities such as bombing cities, civilians, and children. She was concerned that raising these issues might be too personal, in the context of a Zen community, where the underlying premise might be to provide some shelter and sanctuary from the insanity of the world. But I assured her that, no, these very events are apt examples of the very ignorance, and resultant unnecessary suffering, that are pointed to in the foundational teachings of Buddha. And that she is right to raise such questions in the context of Zen practice in modern life.
It is my understanding that in the monasteries, and perhaps the smaller meditation halls in the villages and cities of the countries of origin of Zen Buddhism, the custom is to have little or no speaking in the meditation hall itself (in Japanese called the “zendo”).
For example at Eiheiji, the training monastery established by Master Dogen in the 13th century, ceremonial services are typically conducted in an entirely separate building as are formal talks and other forms of dharma study. This tradition has carried over into the American Zen community where we are encouraged to leave the zendo quietly after the meditation and gather in another chamber before engaging in dialog. So the idea that we preserve the sanctity of the zendo, and protect the sanity of its attendees, has some legs. There are good reasons for the design intent of the specific protocols we have inherited from Zen’s storied past.
However, in most smaller temples and training centers, having multiple rooms, let alone separate buildings, in which to conduct various activities is a luxury that many cannot afford. This explains why both the main altar (J. butsudan) and the smaller zendo altar dedicated to Manjusri are often in the same room, separated by space, or located on different walls of the meditation hall. We compromise and hold competing sessions at different times. The meditation hall becomes the dharma hall, then reverts when sitting in zazen. Silent, upright seated meditation is the hallmark of Zen, taking precedence over all other activities, fostered by instruction periods for newcomers.
However, Zen is not unconnected from reality outside the temple, though the zendo does function as a kind of social sanctuary, as does zazen itself, in the personal sphere. We can accommodate both functions in the same space by scheduling them at different times. This does not mean, however, that everyone has to participate. Just as everyone need not attend all newcomer instruction sessions. Which is why instructions are not given with every zazen session in the zendo but at another day and time.
Members who do not want to discuss buddhadharma on any other than the personal plane are welcome to avoid attending dharma dialogs that have a social slant. But if we prohibit such discussions, we are sidestepping our civic responsibility which, if you study the Buddhist canon from Buddha on down to the present day, you will see that the ancient sages and their modern counterparts did not shy away from the subject.
When it comes to indiscriminate bombing of civilians and children, we are no longer in the realm of “politics.” If we are silent, we become complicit. Buddha, I believe, would have spoken out against this betrayal of compassion and wisdom. As did Matsuoka Roshi concerning the corrupt regime in Vietnam and other atrocities of his time. We can look to the teachings and meditation practice of Zen Buddhism to find a degree of solace and sanctuary from these insults to humanity. But we cannot run, and we cannot hide from them, ultimately. However, we do not have to join the partisan divide either.
To provide some historical context for this discussion, we refer to the foundational documents of the founding fathers of this nation, the oldest surviving democratic republic. In the prior installment on this matter, we quoted the famous first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence. Let us continue with the second section:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Aye, there’s the rub: if “all men” — which phrase we now define to include all women and all children, of all races, ethnic backgrounds, and countries of origin — are indeed created equal, and endowed with unalienable rights, then there is no rationale, no excuse, for waging war in which innocents are slaughtered as “collateral damage.”
— That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
If the very purpose of government is to secure such rights as to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, then the institutions of government — including first and foremost the military — must be prohibited from depriving citizens of any country of these rights, with or without the concept of a “Creator.” They then go on to define the remedy:
— That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
So here is the ostensible rationale for past and recent attempts to overthrow the present government, though the events of January 6th clearly appear to have partisan roots. At the time of this writing, of course, this ultimate right was claimed in the context of Great Britain’s “crazy” King George, and his autocratic grip on the colonies. The history of protests of the original tea party and privileged Tories — loyalists and royalists, or “King’s men” — illustrates that the times were probably as divisive, or even more so, than our present partisan divide. Anticipating that this passage might be construed to lend support to purely partisan motives, the framers optimistically hang the hope of future jurisprudence on the dictates of prudence itself:
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Leaving aside for now the determination of which causes should be eschewed as “light and transient,” this passage suggests that the call to arms is proportionate to the degree of oppression the hoi polloi are willing to bear. This returns us to the theme of the last prior segments of UnMind, with their emphasis on the intersection of design thinking and Zen where, in both arenas, one of the central questions bearing on happiness and suffering is, “How much is enough?” If the majority of people are fat and happy, and their “kitchen table” issues — the price of eggs, bread and butter — are relatively bearable, little attention will be devoted to overthrowing the government, no matter how corrupt. “Let them eat cake” works, if there is fairly widespread access to cake.
The division of the citizens into haves and have-nots with those at the top of the game, the “one-percenters,” raking in wealth that is unimaginable, and largely inaccessible, to the majority, may be much more exaggerated today as well as more obvious and open to scrutiny, owing to the ubiquitous availability of 24/7 real-time news media.
This has national and international implications as an impetus to immigration from the poorer countries of the world where upward mobility is more restricted. It makes matters much more complicated on the home front as it becomes a knee-jerk finger-pointing exercise blaming our problems on them, one of the main forms of legerdemain of the political class. And, as Taoism reminds us, “When the blaming begins, there is no end to the blame.”
We will leave it here, for now. But stay tuned next month and check out the next UnMind podcast for amplification and analysis from the standpoint of Buddhism.
