In my life, I have both studied and practiced a variety of “organized spiritualities” (i.e., religions or other tradition-based spiritual group practices). I grew up as a Roman Catholic, and while in my 30’s and 40’s I was involved with various Episcopalian and Quaker congregations. Over the past 4 years, however, I have committed myself to a local Zen sangha. So, I’ve tasted a bit of both the western and eastern approaches to spirituality. (I’ve tasted more western than eastern, admittedly; but nonetheless I do actually sit zazen at least once a week with a group; Zen has become more than a handful of interesting books or magazine articles for me).
But then again, a lot of other modern Americans have similarly jumped ship. A lot of zen sanghas, my group not excluded, are comprised mainly of “refugees” from Judaism and Christianity. A lot of people, especially Baby Boomers (given our narcissistic tendencies), want to keep some sort of group-based spiritual practice going in their life, but don’t want all the doctrines, rules and ultimate judgment and other such baggage that the western “Abrahamic” religions usually require. The natural place for such people to go is to an eastern practice, be it Zen, Vedantic yoga (I’m thinking about the more spiritually expansive version of yoga, not your common stretching routines), other Hindu ashrams, Nichiren Buddhism, Bahai, etc. More accurately, they wind up in an American adaptation of an eastern tradition, which is not exactly what the old-school eastern practices were really like. More on that in a second.
From what I can see, most people who leave the church, temple or even mosque for the eastern ways never look back. They warmly embrace their new tradition, study it in detail, learn its every little rubric, and » continue reading …
