The Future of Zen: Four Experts on How Zen is Evolving in the West

　　Interviews with Sojun Mel Weitsman, Steve Hagen, Jiko Linda Cutts, & John Tarrant

　　Sojun Mel Weitsman

　　is the abbot of the Berkley Zen Center.

　　In your experience, is Zen changing in the West

　　Mel Weitsman: Everything is changing. Zen came to us through our Japanese and Korean teachers mostly. So we inherited a Japanese style of Zen practice that is very formal. On its other side it”s informal. So we have both sides. I think when most Americans learn the formal side of practice, they become overly strict. The informal side provides a balance, and the mature person knows how to act in the informal way. The immature student acts only in the formal way. These two sides, the formal and informal, are always there. If the practice is too formal, the people revolt and they want to get rid of the formality. So the tendency for change is towards the informal.

　　If you look at the Vipassana people, they”ve got the informal side down pretty well. The Zens tend to retain the formal side of practice. I think formality is important, but informality is also important. This balance will actually create the foundation for how Zen progresses.

　　What is informality in Zen

　　The informality is that you just act like a human being. You”re not trying to get everybody to toe some kind of line. You”re not sitting in full lotus every time you talk to somebody. You act in a very informal manner and you put people at ease. You don”t stand out in some way. When you”re in the zendo, there is a formality, but within that formality there”s also an informality. So you don”t feel that you are acting in a formal way; you are simply doing the practice. One of the problems of formality is that you get to where you want every action to be perfect and you get uptight. Formality has a tendency to become rigid, so you always have to be careful that you approach the practice with softness.

　　The real practice doesn”t depend on the formality. The formality is a way of maintaining an informal practice that helps people to know what they”re doing, and it has many purposes. When Tassajara had a big crisis in the early 1980”s and Zen Center was faced with near extinction, the formality of the practice at Tassajara kept everything going. Even though people had doubts, and there was anarchy, just following the formality helped make everything work and helped everybody through that.

　　I carry on the practice in a pretty formal way, but I see myself as a bridge between what my teacher brought and what I”m passing on.

　　Do you feel good about the way things are going

　　I feel that our Zen practice is alive and working. I feel that we have a lot of really dedicated Zen teachers and students. And the practice places are working. Each one is a little different, and nobody”s in a hurry to change things. But, little by little, things change. The Zen teachers are in communication with each other, for the most part, and that will happen more in the future, as we have a Soto Zen Buddhist Association that is coming together pretty well.

　　Is it meant to keep each other honest

　　Well, we try to do that. Most everybody is honest. In the past we had a lot of crises—in San Francisco and Los Angeles—with sex scandals and so forth. I think that really helped to put everybody on their best behavior.

　　Steve Hagen

　　is the head teacher at the Dharma Field Meditation and Learning Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His most recent book is Buddhism Is Not What You Think.

　　Can you tell me how Zen has changed since it left Japan, and how it”s continuing to change in the West

　　 Do you have a sense of how Zen has been changed by being in this culture

　　Steve Hagen: It”s changed quite a bit, but there”s still an attempt to co…

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