The Zen Mindset for Home Practice

While continuing my research into Buddhist home practice in Japanese Buddhism, I found this neat excerpt online from a Rinzai Zen booklet (I don’t have a copy, so I am just transcribing here).

This is my amateur translation, by the way:

勤行の内容は座禅、礼拝、読経でありますが、この三つがぴたっと一つになってこそ本当の勤行ということができます。先ず体を端正に調え懇ろに礼拝をし、厳かにお経を読むこれがそのまま座禅でなくてはなりません。

The contents of home practice are zazen [zen meditation], veneration [of the buddha], and the reading of sutras, and yet only when these are seen as one can we truly call it “Home practice”. First, by freshening ourselves up, then warmly venerating the Buddha, and reading sutras solemnly, how can this be anything other than Zazen!

I think what the author is trying to say here is that when people think of Zen, they naturally think of meditation (e.g. zazen, 座禅), but it’s more than the physical act of sitting on a cushion, it’s also an attitude: a reverence toward the Buddha, the sutras (e.g. the Buddha’s teachings), and personal conduct both through sitting meditation, but also through life.

In an old post, I stated that expectations for lay followers to keep up a consistent meditation practice as monks and nuns do is a bit unrealistic for most people. Try doing this if you’re a working-class single mom, for example. On the other hand, Buddhism is a religion focused more on practice than faith, yet for lay-followers the practice has to be somehow reasonable and sustainable, while still retaining the essence of the Buddha’s teachings.

This is probably how the common practice of home services (otsutomé お勤め, or gongyō 勤行) evolved over time in Japan. Western Zen communities tend to emphasize zazen as in the physical act, which isn’t necessarily wrong (it is after all the central practice of Zen), but it’s a somewhat narrow interpretation.

Further, other Buddhist sects encourage their practices with a similar attitude too. One can follow this advice above in a Pure Land context, Vajrayana (Shingon) context, Nichiren context, or Tendai context with only minor adjustments. Whatever sect or practice one is inclined towards, and regardless of background, it is definitely possible maintain a healthy, sustainable Buddhist practice if one approaches it with reverence, and with sincerity.

If you’re already a Buddhist, then this is just a fancy way of saying that whatever practice you’re doing right now is probably just right for you.

Namu Shakamuni Butsu