yesterday, i lit an incense stick and decided to sit in zazen for the entire period it burns. i waited till the last ember glowed bright, gasped for its last breath and fell down softly onto the incense holder. it was about 45 minutes. for the last 5 minutes, i was mainly looking at the stick, almost waiting for it to be over. sort of like sneaking a peek at a watch during meditation, which i surprisingly used to do when i started with the kwan-um school.

reading the faces of buddhism in america (ed. charles prebish). it is a scholarly (occasionally pedantic and theoretical but for the most part written by scholar-practitioners) treatment of the various flavours of buddhism available to the spiritual seeker (or shopper) today in america and how american culture and ways of thinking and social norms have influenced the evolution and praxis of american buddhism (zen, theravada, tibetan); orthopraxis as one essay puts it versus orthodoxy. this is an interesting topic and leigh and i have had many discussions on this. her usual response is that i am not a big fan of americanized buddhism with its group therapy like group talk sessions and i am not. this book would like me to believe that even the korean or soto zen schools i have been associated with is an americanized version of the more rigid, strict patriarchal parent schools in korea and japan. now there are two (possibly more) ways of looking at this and i can hear two voices reading this book although one is a feeble cry. one is to lament the americanization of buddhism in the sense that america is essentially imparting/imposing an ethic of individuality and democracy and equality (easier in a clique of middle-class white caucasian males with a grudging tolerance of women due to sheer numbers of white women in these groups). another way is to see how buddhism has evolved from its metaphysical roots in india to the freewheeling ch'an school of southern china, across korea and to the institutionalized but form-filled soto-rinzai lineages of japan and accept this as a natural fate of everything- afterall buddha dharma is subject to its own laws of impermenance too. the truth as in most cases is in between. it seems like the biggest hurdle to accepting buddhism in its spicy east asian form is not the cultural aspects of it (endless cups of barley tea and kimchi in lunches during kwan-um retreats and the corresponding japanese counterparts of sencha and miso in soto-rinzai sesshin suffice as evidence) but the concept of a monastic sangha, a sangha of bhikkus and bhikkunis as opposed to lay-people. ironically, it is in america that a bhikkuni sangha has the greatest chance of survival and acceptance due to the strong patriarchal asian traditions. i see the beauty and elegance of a system of philosophy and praxis which does not impart excessive importance to a monastic, renunciatory lifestyle but at the same time we cannot forget that the leaders of current american buddhist institutions are either monks from asia or westerners who have trained with asian monks, usually in the respective original countries. that could pose a problem to the continuity of the tradition taking a leaf from how quickly "indianness" dies out in children of abcds as they melt into the pot. but is that bad or lamentable? i think this is something only time can tell but then it is worth being careful before experimenting lest the buddha gets thrown with the bathwater. an essay also talks about americans reinventing the dharma wheel which is a very apt comment and it is probably a matter of time before some local guru patents zazen. the second half of the book deals with issues facing buddhism in america- feminism, homosexuality, racism whilst the first half deals with the flavours of buddhism- chin, japanese zen, pureland, tibetan, theravadin, vipassana, vietnamese....


my own personal experience on this has been interesting. i stumbled into kwan-um school at the local unitarian church on knapp st. in milwaukee and slowly started attending their mon/thu sits and then ymjj's as they call their sesshins. at a formal naming ceremony, i got a cool grey robe with a kasa and a korean name replete with a certificate and a branding on my left forearm with incense (a reminder of the shamanistic influence on s'on buddhism in korea). daegak, the guiding teacher of the kwanum school in maryland, broke away from the kwan-um school but continued a lot of the traditions. he dispensed with the 108 bows and the formal meals but the spirit continued- the dokusans, the long hours of zazen, the general form. i have sat occasionally with a japanese group usually on new year's eve for the kanzeon chanting or at a sesshin with one-drop zendo at whidbey. what was interesting was that there really was no major difference except for minor forms- clapper instead of moktak, a bell instead of moktak and facing the wall as opposed to facing the floor. i did not realize that that is in some sense the american influence and emphasis on meditation over rituals. i do miss the traditional retreat. in contemporary retreats there is no oryoki or meal gathas, no chanting and they are less form al. recently, i have been sitting with a local group which is led by doug mcgill, a theravadin/vipassana aficionado. there is no form, no instructions and sometimes it can get very annoying especially when there is a post-praxis discussion on enlightenment or metta. sometimes we listen to guided meditations from the insight meditation center or a talk by eckhart tolle. the sessions end by doug asking everyone-

so it's time to go
breathe in, breathe out, a few breaths
and let the words go.