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You are here: Experts > Homework Help > Buddhism > Buddhists > Zen Buddhism
Expert: Joe McSorley - 10/21/2009
Question
I have to write a paper on any area of Zen Buddhism. For this class, I usually like to compare the topic to Christianity, but since Zen Buddhism is not related at all this topic will be hard. My questions: "Is Zen Buddhism related to any philosophical doctrines or historical periods. What is the significance of Zen Buddhism. Lastly, does Catholic prayer have any similarities to Zen Buddhism
Answer
Dear Nicholas,
There are quite a few people that think there is a commonality between Zen and Christianity though I do not agree with them. I googled ‘Zen and Christianity’ and came up with several posts on this topic. When I was in Catholic school I knew a priest named Silvio Fittipaldi PhD. and he introduced me to Eastern thought. He went on to write his dissertation on “Zen and Roman Catholicism”. You can google him and find it. I believe there is a copy of it in Temple University’s library in Philadelphia. That is where he presented his dissertation and I was there for his defense of it. Basically there are enough of those that do claim a similarity between the two that you could write a paper using their works if you wanted to do so. I know that Dr. DeMartino, my teacher, helped collaborate on an article comparing the two at the request of a Christian writer. (Perspectives on Self-Emptying: A Zen-Catholic Dialogue between Dr. Richard DeMartino and Ken Kramer) Also, Dr. Masao Abe did write a lot of ecumenical articles based on interfaith dialogue that you might also want to read. ( Abe, Masao and Christopher Ives. Divine Emptiness and Historical Fullness : A Buddhist-Jewish-Christian Conversation With Masao Abe. Trinity Press International, 1995.
Abe, Masao. Buddhism and Interfaith Dialogue. Edited by Steven Heine. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1995.
Abe, Masao. Zen and Western Thought. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1985.)
This is a topic I have written on for years and have my own rant on it having been raised Catholic and spent years around Jesuit philosophy. The problem comes from the definition of Christianity that different people use. There is often an extreme cherry picking of Biblical quotes to make these arguments while leaving out lines like “no one comes to the father but through me”( John 14:6) which is completely incompatible with Buddhism as it is the religion of self-awakening. Most often today’s authors use a very malleable definition of it so you can’t argue effectively with them because they don’t adhere to the traditional tenants of the faith. I constantly hear a reinterpretation of Christianity that is molded to fit into Buddhism but really has little to do with what is traditionally understood as the roots of that faith. Here’s a bit of my thoughts on this topic from a past letter on this site:
“Let me explain the crux of the problem as I see it. Christianity is fundamentally based on several dogmas. Some of them are: the divinity of Christ, the death and resurrection of Christ, Christ as savior to humanity, God as father and separate from man his creation, man is fallen from God and that’s his sin, faith in God is essential and redemption is only through the Christ and or the Father. Now Buddhism: it is non-theistic, the problem is man’s ignorance, man and nature are equal, redemption/enlightenment can only come through one’s own effort, Buddha is the same as any other man, and life and death ultimately are non-dual. I cannot see how people can integrate these two systems. One is a religion based in faith in a Supreme Being and the other is an attempt to have an existential and thoroughgoing experience whereby one’s essential foundation of self is overturned and awakened to a new way of ‘seeing’. There are many appealing aspects to Buddhism that many Christians try to incorporate but you cannot grasp the marrow of Zen while hanging onto a belief system that is based on the duality of man and God. In Buddhism there is the quote “ If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him!” Can there be a parallel of this in Christianity? When the Zen master Shin ichi Hisamatsu died he proclaimed, “Killing the Buddha, killing God!” Where is there a biblical basis to support this?”
There are definitely cultural influences on Zen and from Zen on culture which is clearly evident in Japanese history. There have definitely been golden ages of Zen in Japan as there have been Chan in China but Zen is not confined or defined by those times. It is trans-historical and trans-cultural; the Zen realization has nothing to do with culture or history. Zen is not and should not be merely a philosophical system; Zen not self- actualized is worthless. It might be explained philosophically as the Kyoto School of Zen and Dr. Abe do but this is meant to make it better understood in today’s world. They do not mean for it to be something you follow. It is commonly called ‘that which does not rely on words or letters’ or, in other words, it is not a belief or doctrinal system and can only be self realized and never understood or captured in words or cognition. The basis of Zen is to know the person that wants to know what the basis of Zen is, in other words, who are you? This is approached from a fundamental existential viewpoint and not a philosophical or doctrinal viewpoint. When someone says “I suffer”, Zen asks, “Who is it that suffers”? When someone asks “What happens when I die”, Zen asks, “ Who is it that was born and who is it that dies”? It does not offer conjecture on these topics but to face this immediately, here and now.
There is definitely a correlation between the Vedas/Vedanta school of Hinduism and Zen and it is clear if you read authors like Ramana Maharishi or Sri Nisargadatta that they are communicating the same thing as Zen, that being, deep self inquiry. You could easily write a paper on this topic.
I have no idea what you mean when you ask “What is the significance of Zen”. I need you to explain this question to me.
From my standpoint I do not see a similarity between Catholic prayer and Zen though Silvio might argue otherwise. In prayer there is a subject/object dichotomy between the prayer and that which is prayed to. In Zen the crux is to break through the subject/object dichotomy of dualistic consciousness completely and thoroughly. To maintain this dualism is the basic problem of human/ego consciousness for Buddhism. That which seeks to solve the problem is itself the problem; it is the act of separating itself from the universe. In prayer you are praying to that which is not you to help you. This will always maintain a separation between God and man; it is a self-perpetuating dichotomy.
I don’t know if this has helped you at all but I hope it has. Please write back if you need more information.
Joe
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