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Chapter 1 The Transmission of Zen as Dual Discourse Shaku Soen and Okakura Kakuzo Jane Falk The seemingly widespread awareness of Zen Buddhism in American culture today is evident from the use of Zen as a catchword in everything from beauty advertisements to self-help manuals. A recent edition of Books in Print lists approximately 450 titles under the subject of Zen, although many of these books deal with the arts and self-help rather than with religion. Zen and the Art of Modern Eastern Cooking and Zen Key to Your Undiscovered Happiness are prime examples of this phenomenon. Whether writers or readers of such texts have a firm grasp of Zen as spiritual practice is questionable. To gain a better understanding of how Zen is understood, the Oxford Dictionary of World Religions provides a general definition, beginning with a summary of Zen tenets in the four lines attributed to Bodhidharma, Zen’s first patriarch: “A special transmission outside the scriptures / Not founded on words and letters / By pointing directly to mind / It allows one to penetrate the nature of things to attain the Buddha nature.” It concludes by emphasizing “the immense cultural consequences of Zen” (Bowker 1066). Although one might find variations on this definition in other Western reference books, Zen usually is understood as having both a spiritual and a cultural dimension. Transmission of Zen to the United States in the 1950s, for example, relied heavily on a Zen of dual dimension , with an emphasis on Zen and the arts. It is the transmission of what I have termed this dual discourse of Zen to America and the privileging of the aesthetic that is the particular subject of this chapter. Such an understanding of Zen has its originary moment in the Columbian Exposition of 1893 and its World’s Parliament of Religions with two Japanese figures, Rinzai Zen priest Shaku Soen and art historian Okakura Kakuzo, instrumental in this process. 19 20 Writing as Enlightenment Shaku Soen is best known as the first Zen teacher to visit the United States as delegate to the Parliament, whereas Okakura Kakuzo most often is associated with his 1906 work, The Book of Tea, a key text for the understanding of an aestheticized Zen. This work strongly influenced American perceptions of Zen and Japanese culture in the early twentieth century, is still in print, and is widely read today. Zen in America Before the Columbian Exposition To better understand why Zen was introduced and presented as dual discourse by the Japanese, it is necessary to go back to the 1880s. As might be expected, early interest in Zen at this time came from the religious community of ministers and educators brought in by the Meiji government to help modernize Japan. They most often saw Zen as a curious and problematic spiritual practice especially in regard to Christianity.1 Their commentary ranges from the objective , interested, and informational to the more subjective and judgmental, the latter view of Zen predominating. Zen’s practices are often disparaged and seen as contradictory and flawed in comparison with Christianity, especially in relation to Zen’s claim for transmission without words or the aid of scriptures. Additionally, some commentators use the somewhat esoteric Zen as a form of cultural capital and a way to prove their ability to speak about and for Japanese culture and religion. Hence, their information about Zen is often presented without acknowledging Japanese informants by name. Typical of a somewhat negative presentation of Zen is M. L. Gordon’s article of 1886 published in the The Andover Review, a periodical with a strong theological purpose. Although Gordon’s treatment appears to be straightforward, he has a hidden agenda directed toward missionary types who need information about Buddhism in order to gain an advantage in proselytizing. As he puts it, a better understanding of Japanese Buddhism will give us less of a “disadvantage” (310). Gordon emphasizes the authenticity of his information while downplaying his source and his own interest in Buddhism, characterizing his nameless informant as a “disciple of the sect employed recently to teach the essentials of their belief” to “an unpromising pupil,” implying Gordon himself. Zen is described as the “Dhyana” or a contemplative school introduced into China from India by Bodhidharma, characterized by its claims to be “sutra-less.” Gordon contrasts this with Zen’s inconsistencies in its use of certain sutras as aids to “contemplation.” He also points out incongruities in Zen’s use of images in its temples for...

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