6/24 - Father Robert Kennedy

                When I was working in International Development with the YMCA, I used to subscribe to the National Catholic Reporter, in part because it had a leftist slant on the Catholic Church—my birth heritage—with which I was comfortable, but largely because it was one of the best sources I could find for hard news coverage of events in Latin America. It covered other stories of interest to Catholics as well, of course.

                I first learned of Father Robert Kennedy—a Dharma heir of Bernie Glassman—in an NCR article in which it was announced that Kennedy, a Jesuit priest as well as an authorized Zen teacher, had recently given transmission to a Trappist monk, Kevin Hunt [see photo]. If I remember the article correctly, Father Hunt, when asked what a Trappist Zen Master did, replied that he wasn’t sure but suspected he was going to find out.

                Robert Kennedy maintains the Morning Star Zendo in Jersey City. I was unable to meet him face-to-face—he has a heavy travel schedule, trying to be available to people who invite him to lead retreats wherever in the world that invitation comes—so we had a conversation by Skype in which he explained that the Zendo is really a one bedroom apartment in which a room has been set up as a meditation hall.

                Kennedy had spent several years in Japan in the 60s, was ordained a Catholic priest in Japan, without having any interest in Zen at all. After he returned to complete his graduate studies in America in the early ‘70s, however, he was driving his car one day and heard Alan Watts on the radio pointing out that “nothing in nature is symmetrical.” “I don’t know why that statement hit me with the strength that it did, but I had to stop the car and think. It was an extraordinary moment.”

                He went back to his rooms, took a blanket off the bed, folded it to make a cushion, and began sitting. His Zen practice had begun. “Something in my spirit said I had to stop doing theology and turn to experience. Turn away from theory and learn from my own doing.”

                Eventually he realized he needed to work with a formal teacher. He had a sabbatical in 1976 and went back to Japan—“not as a teacher this time, but as a pilgrim.” The Jesuit order, which was committed to understanding other cultures and faith systems, supported his desire to undertake Zen training and arranged for him to meet Yamada Koun Roshi, the same teacher with whom Sister Elaine MacInnes had worked.

                Father Kennedy remembers the first time he saw Yamada Roshi walk into the zendo. “I was sitting in the back, up against the back wall, and I remember he walked in to light the incense and to begin the day of sitting. I remember it vividly. Again, I cannot explain it. The very sight of him walking into the zendo was life changing.”

                When the sabbatical year was up, Kennedy continued training in the United States, at Yamada Roshi’s suggestion, with Taizan Maezumi in Los Angeles. I mention that in my interview with Jan Chozen Bays, she described the Los Angeles center as half hippie-commune, half Zen temple. Kennedy pointed out that he didn’t live at the center but had rooms in the Jesuit House so missed the hippie part of the experience.

                He met Bernie Glassman in Los Angeles, and when Glassman received inka from Maezumi and returned to New York, Kennedy became his student. Glassman’s approach to Zen training was very different from that of Kennedy’s first two teachers. He had a strong sense of social responsibility and, at one point, had his students living on the streets with the homeless, having to beg for money if they wanted to buy a cup of coffee. “Glassman Roshi said that a lot of people like Zen because they like to sit in a zendo and be quiet and there’s a certain artistic flavor. The last time I saw him, a few weeks ago, he said to me, ‘Some people like Zen clubs were they can sit together with like-minded people.’ But he brought us out onto the street.”

                After Glassman acknowledged Kennedy as a Dharma heir, Kennedy’s first inclination was to continue to sit by himself for a while in order to allow his practice to mature, but Glassman immediately assigned him a student, a Catholic nun, whose training he was put in charge of. Then other students began to appear. At first they were Catholics, but then people from other—or no—traditions came.

                He has now acknowledged several Dharma heirs of his own, including the Trappist Father Hunt. Hunt remains cloistered but, Kennedy informs me, meets with lay students who come to him.

                From the first days that Zen began to be practiced in North America, there have been Catholics who remained faithful to the church but were also drawn to Zen. Another Trappist, Thomas Merton, was one well known contemplative who had an interest in Zen. Apparently that interest continues. We probably still don’t know what a Zen Catholicism would be like, but, with some luck, we might find out.

[Note: In May of 2014, I had an opportunity to visit and interview Kevin Hunt. See entry for 5/28.]

Cypress Trees in the Garden:

Kennedy, Father Robert – 134, 303-10, 318-19, 468, 469

6/20 - The Rochester Zen Center

                I have been told several times on this journey that the majority of Zen practitioners in North America today are still baby-boomers, people—like me—who became interested in the 1960s. There have been young people at many of the centers I’ve visited, but there are other centers—including my own sangha in Montreal—where a young member means someone in their 40s.

                A good number of baby-boomers came to Zen, of course, through drugs. I tell Bodhin Kjolhede that my short answer when people ask how I got involved is, “Mescaline.” “Me too!” he says. “Mescaline was my drug of choice as well!” Well, drugs may have been the first step, then came the books, of which there were two in particular. The people who read Shunryu Suzuki’s Zen Mind, Beginners Mind made their way to San Francisco. Those who read Philip Kapleau’s The Three Pillars of Zen came here—to Rochester, New York. I read Kapleau and wrote a letter to the Zen Center in 1971, to inquire if there were any place to practice in Canada, because, at the time, I was unable to return to the US. Their reply didn’t show much sympathy for my situation, basically stating that if I were serious, I would figure out a way to get to Rochester. So I didn’t expect a particularly warm reception on this visit. Things have mellowed here, however, since the '70s.

                The Zen Center is on Arnold Park, another fairly ritzy neighborhood; two adjacent houses linked by a passageway. The grounds and structures are impressive and maybe a little daunting. I am early for my 9:00 appointment with Bodhin Kjolhede and am told I can wait on a sofa in the foyer outside what appears to be the administrative offices. Young people dressed in dark navy short-sleeve shirts and matching loose pants hurry about their business—men and women barefoot and with close-cropped, but not shaved, heads. I’m reminded of what someone had said about the San Francisco Zen Center in the days before Blanche Hartman became abbess: “Well, they’re not unfriendly.”

                However, as in other centers I’ve visited, if there is a certain stiffness among the students (or perhaps they are just focused on carrying out their duties), the teachers have all been very easy to talk to. Bodhin is relaxed, humorous, and capable of putting others at ease. It’s that “man of no rank” with which I associated Taigen Henderson. Every single one of them has been someone you could imagine you’d enjoy having a beer with and discussing something other than Zen.

                Rochester—when Philip Kapleau was in charge—had a reputation for a very strict regime. It has been called “boot camp” or “samurai” Zen. “I thrived in that atmosphere,” Bodhin tells me. Others did not, which was surely a factor in Toni Packer’s defection along with 200 members of the center.

                This is clearly a Buddhist center—the decorations make that obvious. But it is also American. Even the navy shirts and pants which identifies the individual as a priest (Bodhin wears them as well) is something that could be worn on the street without attracting attention. “Kapleau Roshi was committed to developing an American style Zen,” the new roshi tells me.  And in his own tenure as “abbot” he has maintained and furthered that. Although he considers himself conservative, in retaining the teaching he received, he has also loosened some of the structures.

                There is a Zendo in the Center on Arnold Park where morning and evening sitting takes place, but for the past ten years all sesshin have taken place at their practice center—but not a monastery—at Chapin Mill, thirty-five minutes outside the city. We drive there because Bodhin is rehearsing, with the participants, a wedding he will be supervising for two members later in the week.

                The Chapin Mill center is four lengthy corridors surrounding an inner courtyard, where the wedding ceremony will take place. The zendo is light and airy and seats up to sixty participants. One of the staff tells me that they can house up to seventy people here. The building is occasionally rented to other groups (“Of like mind,” Bodhin points out), as is the Buddha Hall at the Arnold Park address. These rentals are a significant source of income.

                Chapin Mill is a lovely rural retreat with a bit more than 100 acres. Philip Kapleau’s grave is here, marked by the mill stone from the original mill. As I wait for Bodhin to complete his business, I do the tai-chi form by Kapleau's grave, then place a pebble on the mill stone.  And I am glad to have had the opportunity to do so.

                This is a strong community of between 400 and 500 members. While they might not be called monks, there a number of young, committed, ordained persons. One feels that this is all evidence that Zen is safely rooted in North America. But there is one thing I can’t help noticing. Rochester has a large African-American population; that’s evident from walking around downtown. But there are only a very few black practitioners here, at one of the oldest and most well-established centers in the country.

                Zen practice may be secure, but, in general, it still only draws people from a fairly narrow segment of the general population.
                 As I am walking to my car at Arnold Park after taking Roshi Kjolhede's photo, I see a line of Zen students come down the street, with bags for picking up litter. I ask,  "Are these guys yours?" "Takahatsu," he tells me. "But don't try talking to them," he warns. They are focused on carrying out their duties.

Cypress Trees in the Garden:

Kjolhede, Bodhin – 146, 204, 321-336, 340, 342, 344, 345, 346, 374, 375, 388, 402, 420, 468

6/18 - The Springwater Center for Meditative Inquiry

                Another county road in New York state, this one in what appears to be primarily an agricultural region. I miss the side road to the Springwater Center on my first pass, come to a dead end, turn around, and watch more closely on the way back. Even when I pull onto the gravel road indicated, I’m not entirely sure I’m in the right place until I see a bench set up by a stream in the forested area which I drive through very slowly and carefully. In the reception area at the main building there is a notice that a black bear has been seen in the vicinity of the parking lot. Visitors are warned not to stare at it but to turn and go the other way.

                The full name of the Center is The Springwater Center for Meditative Inquiry. Toni Packer established it in 1981, after leaving the Rochester Zen Center. Philip Kapleau had identified her as his successor at the Center, but, after a period of overseeing it during one of his absences, she decided she could no longer practice as a Buddhist. The question she found herself facing was whether or not the type of work that took place within the Zen tradition could be done without all the trappings—without identifying it as Buddhist or even calling it meditation. It was a brave decision on her part, but I suspect if she had not already been identified as Kapleau’s heir, she would not have drawn away as many followers as she did.

                When I wrote to ask permission to come here, I said that I was aware the center was not directly affiliated with the Zen. Wayne Coger wrote back to me and said: “While we are not a Buddhist Center we are incorporated as a Zen Center. The late Roshi Kapleau once wrote that the ‘spirit of Zen is all pervading.’ So legally, and perhaps in spirit, we are in the Zen tradition.”

                It is a very informal atmosphere here. There is no religious imagery of any type, although the “sitting room” looks pretty much like a zendo without an altar. The rules are all optional—save for two: Everyone takes on a one hour work period each day, and when silence in called for, people are silent. Other than that, even during retreats, one may choose to sit or not as one wishes. “You can go for a walk if you want,” Sandra Gonzáles [photo above] tells me. Then adds, “But they don’t. They follow the schedule.”

                Sandra is from Nicaragua and has a charming Latin accent. She had studied with Eido Shimano and then Joshu Sasaki before learning about Toni Packer in a book and coming here in 1988.

                After lunch—the best vegetarian lasagne I’ve ever had!—Sandra leads a discussion circle. It reminds me of a cross between a Quaker meeting and a group therapy session. People sit in silence for a while and then someone brings up a topic which people are free to respond to in any way they wish. The topic that comes up is “authority”—the authority that teachers have or are given.

                Sandra is a “retreat leader” here—she is identified as such in the pamphlet—but she is hesitant to claim to be an authority, or even a teacher. When I push her, she reluctantly agrees to the term “facilitator.”

                She had gone to her first face-to-face meeting with Toni Packer with some anxiety. The format was much what she was used to in Zen, seated on a cushion before the “teacher,” and she began by explaining that her work until then had been largely with koans. Toni asked her why she had come to Springwater, and Sandra said, “I don’t know.” “Then that,” Toni told her, “is your koan.” To sit and to wonder—no other practice. That is meditative inquiry.

                Wayne Coger, another “retreat facilitator,” had been with Toni at the Rochester Zen Center and was one of the nearly 200 students who left to join her when she withdrew. Both he and Sandra have this habit of closing their eyes and reflecting in silence on a question before answering it. I timed one pause at 41 seconds; several were almost as long. I wonder if it is something Toni Packer did as well.

                There is minimal teaching here, so it is difficult to get a handle on what is being done. I suggest to Wayne that they’ve created a supportive environment in which people are able to pursue their own inquiry. He agrees but stresses that this is often easier to do in the company of others.

                So there is sitting; there are talks (one of the guests refers to them as Dharma Talks, but I suspect the “facilitators” just think of them as talks); and there are face-to-face meetings. Not the few seconds or minutes associated with dokusan or sanzen; face-to-face interviews can be half an hour long.

                It is intriguing and attractive, but one cannot help wondering how sustainable it will be without an identified resident teacher. Toni Packer is still alive but is not physically well and has diminished mobility; she no longer has much to do with the operations here. There are questions about the future that need to be addressed. Wayne suggests that the best way to deal with them is to just allow the situation to unfold. Maybe he’s right. I hope he is.
               [On August 23--slightly more than two months after my visit--Toni Packer died. I sincerely wish the staff and members of Springwater well and hope they find a way to continue into the future.]

Cypress Trees in the Garden: pp. 385-408
 

6/17 - The Toronto Zen Centre

             The Toronto Zen Centre is on High Park Gardens, a well-to-do neighborhood on the west side of the city. I follow a stone path around the house to the back entrance, passing carefully cultivated and maintained flower beds adorned with elegant Bodhisattva statues. Downstairs, there is a Zendo (with about twenty-six places) and a Buddha Hall opposite. A student takes me up to a sun-room on the second floor where I meet Taigen Henderson (his students call him Sensei Henderson). “It looks like the property taxes might be a bit steep here,” I say. He nods his head.

                Taigen is a dharma heir of Sunyana Graef, who had expressed surprise that I had not included him on the original list of teachers I had intended to visit. She had been right. It was a major oversight on my part.

                The Toronto Zen Centre, the first affiliate center of the Rochester Zen Center, is also the first official Zen practice center to be established in Canada, and Taigen is the first Canadian teacher to be trained in Canada. “He wouldn’t tell you that,” one of his students informs me, “because he’s so humble.” I was aware of that humilty while I talked with him, but I was also aware of his self-confidence. He’s a man with a lot of life experience who is very much at ease with where he is at this moment.

                When I ask the two students I met afterwards to describe him, the first thing they both noted was that he was inspiring. “You think, wow, if I could be like that.” They tell me that he embodies the teaching.

                I’ve heard other students describe their teachers in similar terms. Zen training does—if one persists in it—form people of strong character. I suspect that, at least in part, it’s because these are people who know themselves deeply and have nothing to prove to anyone else. They are the “true man of no rank.”

                I remark on his sense of humor. “He has a great sense of humor,” the students tell me, and has the ability to use that humor to lighten tension when things become challenging or difficult.

                He has a very expressive face and is a wonderful story-teller. And he has some pretty amazing stories to tell: The story of spending several years in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) when a young boy, at which time he got his first taste of Buddhism. “Somebody showed me a high school year book in which I said I wanted to be a Buddha when I grew up. I was just being a smart-alec at the time.” A story of spending months deep in the British Columbia interior, 200 miles from the nearest road, with two other young men. “We didn’t see one other human being in that time.” A story of working in an asbestos mine. “They were just realizing how dangerous this stuff was. In Toronto they were worried about brake-linings, and here I was sweeping asbestos dust half an inch thick up off the floor.” A story of waking up and seeing smoke pouring through a vent and realizing that the house next door was on fire. “The firemen came and broke the windows, and the house went up just like that. It made me aware just how impermanent life is, and I thought if I didn’t start doing something now, then when?” A similar sentiment is inscribed on the han outside the zendo.

                He went to Rochester to do a workshop with Philip Kapleau and told Kapleau that he would like to train there for a while. Kapleau told him to stay in Canada. So he returned to Toronto and joined the affiliate branch here. He found work in the construction trades, doing house renovations. Eventually, he worked on providing low-income housing as well as training to homeless people. He also helped build some women’s shelters, including one called “Women in Transition.” “They gave me a t-shirt with their name on it, but a friend of mine suggested I might want to think twice about wearing it.”

                Sunyana Graef by this time had become the teacher in Toronto, while also maintaining centers in  Vermont and Costa Rica. Taigen expressed an interest in living a life more fully committed to practice, and she told him that it wasn’t time yet. His work with the homeless and women’s shelters was, after all, an example of Right Livelihood—the fifth step in the Eightfold Path. Eventually difficulties with a sub-contractor resulted in him leaving the trade, and then the time was right for ordination.

                The Centre had been at another location, in a neighborhood where prices were low because of fears an expressway was going to be built alongside. When the expressway plans were withdrawn, house prices jumped. The Centre was able to sell its place for $400,000, and purchase its current property for $350,000. At the time, it was also considered a less desirable neighborhood because of the occasional stench drifting in from nearby stock yards. When the stock yards were closed, house values went up. “The property is now probably worth $2,000,000,” Taigen admits.

                It is axiomatic that when one enters the path, opportunities arise. At times, events occur which even appear to support that axiom. What else would one expect for a True Man of No Rank?

Cypress Trees in the Garden:

Henderson, Taigen – 346, 353-67, 369, 387, 389