JMJM

With palms together,

Good Evening Everyone,

On the Zen Living list, Ch’an Master Jue Miao Jing Ming , asked me a question the other day. “Dear Sensei, Do you consider Zen a Mahayana practice? If so, what does Mahayana actually do?”



While Zen is within the Mahayana tradition, it is not a Mahayana practice as I understand it. Student Rev. Shoji and I were discussing this question today and Rev. Shoji brought up an interesting distinction. He argued that Mahayana Buddhists aim at the Bodhisattva ideal to free all beings before they, themselves, enter nirvana. He points out that from a Zen point of view, self and other are one, therefore there is no one, but oneself, to free.



Zen Master Seung Sahn argues in his Compass, that both Theravadan and Mahayane traditions have “roads,” but that Zen has not only no road, but no map, as well. The practice is practice realization as one. Path and destination are not two.



These beg the question, however, “What does Mahayana actually do?”



Mahayana does nothing. Mahayana is just a word. And we can see from the question that such things as words and concepts can create a hindrance. We could ask a better question, “What is Mahayana practice and what does it do?” The aim of the practice is to free beings, but how?



Again, Master Sahn offers the Six Paramitas as “practice guides.” They are rather like the manifest value in the nexus between idea and behavior, rather like the term “Quality” as used in Pirsig’s “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.” A Mahayana practitioner practices to make manifest the six aspects of our true nature in the hope that to do so will free suffering beings.



A Zen practitioner, however realizes practice and life are one, that everything is already free, perfect as it is, but that we jail ourselves with our thoughts. A Zen practitioner notices and ceases all grasping: no attachment to ideas, desires, things, feelings, etc.

A Zen practitioner is free and easy in the everyday world. His mind is free and his heart limitless. He recognizes all beings are likewise like this.



Be well.