..续本文上一页ntinue to express the kind of forms we inherited from the East. I”ve allowed many of the traditional forms to drop away at our center, though I think we may be atypical of most places in the country. We don”t have a Buddha statue here, for example. We have a stone. It conveys the same sense of stability, calmness, patience—all of the qualities you would get from a humanoid Buddha figure sitting there. But without any added connotation that”s going disturb people.

　　I”m just looking at what is helpful for people to find the way of awakening, rather than leave things in that are distracting and disturbing for people: they might get captivated by these forms, and then they miss the point.

　　Is something like attachment to a Buddha statue more of an obstacle in the West than it would be in Japan

　　Probably. The West is predominantly a Christian culture, and most of us who”ve been exposed to Christianity believe there”s a notion of idol worship and that kind of thing. That”s a problem you wouldn”t find in Japan, I suspect.

　　Are there other ways in which you”ve changed or not changed the form because of the times and culture we”re in

　　I”ve done very little in terms of changing any forms. Mostly I”ve allowed different forms to drop away. When I spent time in Japan, I had a chance to witness some Shinto ceremonies, and I was amazed how many elements in the Shinto ceremony were in the Buddhist ceremonies that we trained in here. It”s not that any of these things are bad or wrong, but you start to wonder why we”re doing them. While the Shinto elements may be fascinating, they”re clutter and they just get in the way. But I don”t want to fight with any of these things; I just want to get a sense of how they shake out.

　　My teacher, Katagiri Roshi, once said to me, “I”m Japanese, I can only show you our way. You”re American, you have to find your own way. Find your own way to dress, find your own way to do these ceremonies.” He conveyed a sense that you shouldn”t deliberately try to change or shape things, but as you”re working with them, just let them shake out and they”ll establish themselves. I”m not trying to make it Western; I”m not trying to avoid anything that looks Eastern. I”m letting it find its own expression in a way that resonates with people. There are large numbers of people here in the West who are hungry to embrace different forms of Buddhist practices, but they find it difficult to embrace things that smack of being too foreign.

　　But can you get to the same place

　　There”s no place to go. It”s always right here. All it is really is a matter of waking up to what”s happening here. I would say you can do that more easily here if there isn”t too much clutter and distraction. Because we become fascinated by the wrong things. I saw how my own teacher had this mystique about him—it wasn”t his fault, he was just Japanese. But people would become fascinated by that alone, and they wouldn”t actually hear what he was saying. They would gaze in wonder at him. I think he felt it was kind of a barrier. The human mind is incredible in its ability to put stuff up there and then get attached to that. So you”re not really seeing what”s happening, or what”s being presented to you.

　　Jiko Linda Cutts

　　is co-abbess of the San Francisco Zen Center.

　　How is Zen evolving in the West

　　Linda Cutts: I think when Zen and Buddhism came to the West it met feminism and psychology. So one of the things that leaps out for me in terms of how Zen is evolving is the equal inclusion of women: women”s practice, women teachers, and so forth. We”ve been including women for a while now—so much so that the newer students don”t think twice about it. Whereas those of us who started practicing in the 1960”s and 1970”s still feel the change. For example, par…

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