Zen Buddhism and Hasidism: A Comparative Study (review)

Topical Book Reviews 121 Zen Buddhism and Hasidism: A Comparative Study, by Jacob Yuroh Teshima. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1995. 187 pp. $48.00 (c); $29.50 (p). The traditions of Zen Buddhism and Hasidism seem perfectly suited to a comparative study, though such an approach has for the most part been limited to brief comments by Zen scholars Heimich Dumoulin and Masao Abe or Hasidic interpreter Martin Buber. Zen was founded in early T'ang China largely by itinerant monks and hermits who felt a need to step outside the confmes of traditional forms of Buddhist monasticism that emphasized ritual or iconography as the key to religious pursuit. Centering on the role of the charismatic abbot who guided disciples with innovative pedagogical techniques including training in enigmatic spiritual dialogues or koans, Zen was primarily known for an emphasis on intensive, singleminded sitting-meditation or zazen lasting for prolonged periods of up to six, ten, or fourteen or more hours a day. Hasidism was founded a millennium later in Russia and Poland by Jews who, during a period of legalist control of religion after the disastrous messianic fervor of Zeviism, craved an experience of intense, personal enthusiasm. Led by Baal Shem Tov (Besht) and other charismatic rebbes who engaged in trance or glossolalia and were known as zaddiks or righteous souls, "Hasidism eventually created an unprecedented mass revival movement in Judaism" (p. 162). This was based on a continuing commitment to ecstatic prayer or devuquth realized in everyday activities. Both movements were based on a utopian vision and the development of an extreme form of religious praxis outside conventional boundaries leading to an experience of the stillness or nothingness of the annihilation of selfhood. Zen and Hasidism, whose origins depended on charismatic leaders who manifested an inexpressible spiritual power, suffered many difficulties in their formative periods, including attacks from rivals within their religions as well as periods of governmental suppression. Eventually both groups prevailed as eminently viable and influential movements, though of decidedly minority status. Yet, despite the fact that both are hermetic groups with strong esoteric components, a major difference is that Zen is a monastic, celibate, otherwordly . community, whereas Hasidism shares with mainstream Judaism an advocacy of family life and secular social responsibilities. Furthermore, as Teshima shows in this probing study, Hasidism remains grounded on a monotheistic goal of attaining a relation with God, while Zen has a monistic orientation based on the notion of the original purity of human nature which partakes of the universal Buddha-nature. In addition, Hasidism solves theoretical problems through metaphysical speculation, such as developing cosmological answers for the issue oftheodicy, while Zen is anti-conceptual and antispeculative , though this aspect of Zen ideology is somewhat overstated by Teshima, who appears more familiar with the Hasidic tradition and whose presentation at times does not deal fully with the complexities of Buddhist thought. 122 SHOFAR Spring 1999 Vol. 17, No.3 The main strengths ofTeshima's approach are a familiarity with original language sources and secondary materials for both traditions, as well as an unbiased, nonjudgmental standpoint that seeks access to the inner mysteries of religious life from a global, non-polemical perspective. After an introductory chapter that discusses the history of Zen and Hasidism, the next chapter focuses on the key issue of practice. It analyzes how zazen, which is not an ordinary method in the sense of a means to an end but is coterminous with ultimate reality, eliminates obstructions and allows a primordial awakening to unfold. Also devuquth, an old idea in Judaism which refers to cleaving to God and which in Kabbalah involved enormous concentration and devotion, was used in Hasidism in a simplified way as activities realized in daily community affairs. The main practices in Zen and Hasidism reduce the need or seek grounds for the dismissal of thought formation, though for different reasons. At the same time, both traditions must explain and try to eliminate distractions or "strange thoughts," the topic of the third chapter. For Zen self-power practice, which was somewhat influenced by Pure Land other-power religiosity, distractions are extinguished through perpetual devotion to the Buddhist path renewed in each and every eternal...