As noted in my last entry, I’ve recently become involved in Zen practice. Of course, this is an “Americanized Zen”, not the real thing from Japan and China. In American Zen, you don’t need to become a dedicated, exclusive follower of the Buddha, as would be expected in Asia. I belong to a sangha whose roshi (i.e., guiding teacher and district-leader of sorts) is a Catholic Jesuit priest. That would be Fr. Robert Kennedy, SJ, who studied throughout his life under various Japanese and American Zen masters. Father Kennedy does not call himself a Buddhist, although he considers himself a student of Buddhist teachings.

So, there’s an ambivalent relationship with Buddhism in our group. We have our Buddha altar and idols, we chant some Buddhist drivel (like the Heart Sutra), and we occasionally discuss basic Buddhist teachings. And yet, our local leader (and many “modern Zen” web sites) tell me that Zen is open to all faiths or no faith. You have to respect the rubrics, he says, but once you close your eyes to meditate it’s up to you what to believe or not.

Well, that’s groovy. But I still get creeped-out at the end of our sessions when the leader or his right-hand man (who are both good people, don’t get me wrong) prostrate themselves three times on the floor before a Buddha statue. I don’t mind doing a little “gasho” bow towards that altar. But I didn’t leave the temples of Christ-Jesus veneration (in my case, the Roman Catholic and Anglican Episcopal Churches) as to mindlessly venerate a charismatic Indian sage from the 5th Century BCE. I spent a lot of mental effort over the past 15 years debunking the myth of Jesus as God-Man; and now, it’s time for the myth of the Buddha to come in for a reality check. Good for the goose, good for the gander.

OK, I’m not going to provide a comprehensive summary of research and findings regarding “the historical Buddha”. There are plenty of web sites where you can find that. But after reviewing those sites, I can say this: Siddhārtha Gautama started a cult that became a world religion because he preached a doctrine that pleased a whole lot of people. Why did this doctrine please so many people? Because it is ultimately ALL ABOUT THE INDIVIDUAL. (I am not a fan of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict; but he wasn’t far from the mark in 1997 when he said that Buddhism is a “spiritually self-indulgent self-love”). Despite all its philosophical babble about no-self and the delusion of reality, the core of Buddhism is inherently focused around the SELF.

Well, mostly anyway. Take a look at the Four Noble Truths, the heart of Buddhist teaching. It’s all about suffering and the end of suffering. Yes, you can interpret this teaching on a social basis, but its attractiveness is quite personal – freedom from pain! Then there is the Eightfold Path. Three of the eight points in “the path” are community-directed (right speech, action, and livelihood). The other five are all about you (view, intention, effort, mindfulness and concentration). Sure, Christianity and most other religions also promise personal benefits, mainly the achievement of “salvation” and the promise of eternal bliss after death. But they also require intense relationship: relationship with the divine, with the church, and with humankind in general.

Buddhism focuses much more on personal effort, on a do-it-yourself salvation (via good karma and deliverance from rebirth into nirvana). Yes, one of Buddhism’s “three jewels” is “the sangha”, i.e. the community that seeks the dharma (second “jewel”), which is the wisdom of the Buddha (third jewel). OK, it looks as though community and relationship has a one-third importance in the overall scheme of Buddhism. I myself feel that the “relationship” quotient is much higher in Catholicism and other Christian churches (this would probably also be true for Islam and Judaism; Hinduism is hard to get a fix on).

The problem, of course, is that a significant chunk of the “relationship quotient” in Christianity is focused on an image of God that is unattractive to many people (too harsh, too judgmental, too masculine); and is mediated by church leaders who themselves are often harsh, judgmental and exclusively masculine. For people who feel this way, a “do-it-yourself” religion like Buddhism seems attractive. But to me, it’s throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Instead of trying to fix the relationship problem, Buddhism just avoids it (or sometimes doesn’t; e.g., there are many people who have had bad experiences with Buddhist leaders, even with the Dalai Lama).

The center of Buddhism, the doctrine that the Buddha taught, essentially misses the fact that humanity is inherently social. As science writer John Horgan noted, Siddhārtha Gautama’s first step toward enlightenment was the abandonment of his wife and child. Also, classic Buddhism still exalts male monasticism as the center of its spirituality and practice. Of course, what is presented today as Buddhism (including the Zen practice that I engage in) has been “retrofitted” and re-interpreted over the centuries so as to offer more social involvement. Thus its spread throughout Asia, and its growing hybridization and popularity in modern America and Europe.

But despite that hybridization and adaptation to our world, Buddhism still exhibits its inherent sins. In our Zen practice, we are are sometimes discouraged from undertaking an intellectual study of Zen; such study would uncover Zen’s closeness with the warrior culture of Japan; the Zen temple-masters actively supported Japan’s war effort in WW2. (There’s a book on this, Zen at War.) Since the 1960’s, a wide variety of “master teachers” have come to the US from Asia to engage in the spread of “Americanized Buddhism”. Many of them have done this with good intent, but others have turned it into a lucrative enterprise. Probably the most famous charlatan was Trungpa Rinpoche, a Tibetan master who came to the US in 1970 and developed a liking for alcohol, cocaine, fancy cars and young women. He died in 1987 of an alcohol-related illness.

Then there was various craziness emanating from the San Francisco Zen Center, including a 1983 incident where the leader, Tenshin Reb Anderson, came across the body of a dead man in an urban park, a victim of suicide. Instead of calling the police, Anderson decided a few times to meditate over the body. He also took and kept the gun which the victim used, and made an interesting use of it five years later. After becoming the victim of a mugging, Anderson, now the leader of the Center, decided to search for his assailant at a local housing project, and was arrested there for brandishing the weapon. Ah, the return of the Zen warrior!

Well, I don’t expect to encounter anything nearly so pernicious at my local zendo. About the worst I expect is some psycho-babble about “feeling versus thinking”, given that both the local teacher and the guiding teacher are professional psychotherapists. But ultimately, I still like Jesus; and I still hope that he’s right about the God whom he preached and believed in. As to the religious institution (Christianity) that emerged from the inspiration of Jesus and his (Jewish) followers, I would officially be branded as a heretic and an outcast. But I see myself as more of an undercover Jesus-follower, a rouge ex-Christian who is still working in an unstructured manner for the ultimate cause (i.e., God’s “King”-dom). My religious status is akin to Jack Bauer’s conflicted, unofficial relationship with CTU during 24’s final season (but my methods are much more . . . well, more Buddhist than Jack’s). I’m one of Jesus’ “black ops” guys.

I don’t know if Father Roshi Kennedy could give me his blessing in that (although he might be walking on eggs with the Church himself, given his Pope’s attitude about Buddhism). But still, I’m glad to be on his team; there are a lot of good things about Buddhism and Zen, especially their focus on the quiet experience of meditation, and their wisdom about taming the raging ego. But I don’t plan to ever get down on the floor before the zendo Buddha. Because, in a metaphorical sense, I am as ready as Jack Bauer to kill any Buddha that I come across along the road! (This of course is a Zen saying that warns against idolization of the Buddha).