Bret W. Davis > Quotes

“The Japanese word zen in fact means "meditation" or "state of meditative concentration." In Chinese, zen is pronounced chan. Chan is short for channa, which is how the CHinese pronounced dhyana, the Sanskrit word used in India for practices or rarified states of meditative concentration.”
― Bret W Davis, Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism

“Zen is not, in the end, a Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, or Indian path. It is a path for all human beings who are sincerely interested in coming to know themselves.”
― Bret W Davis, Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism

“It is true that, as contemporary critics are fond of pointing out, there is much magic and mischief to be found in the history and lore of the Zen tradition, just as there is in all religious traditions. As we attempt to figure out what Zen has meant for others and what it can mean for us, we have to constantly ask ourselves: What is the vital core, the beating heart of the teachings and practices of Zen? What are the teachings and practices that may well challenge and change the way we think and live? And what are the extrinsic limbs that happen to have grown out of, or been attached to, Zen in particular times and places? What aspects of the tradition may need to be altered, or even amputated, in order to fruitfully realize Zen here and now?”
― Bret W Davis, Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism

“The question is not whether but how Buddhism will change as it enters further into Western societies.”
― Bret W Davis, Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism

“Faith does play an important role in Buddhism, including in Zen: faith as preliminary trust and ultimately faith as true self-confidence.”
― Bret W Davis, Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism

“The teachings of Zen have been deployed in opposition to both religious fundamentalism and anti religious secularism. They have also been used to critique consumerism, technological destruction of and alienation from nature, and other perceived ills of the dominant and domineering worldviews and lifestyles of the modern West. All of this is now part of the ongoing development of Zen as a living and increasingly cross-cultural tradition.”
― Bret W Davis, Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism

“Our society has largely forgotten the importance of bodily posture for alertness, for digestion, and most importantly for one's psychophysical disposition. Zazen reminds the body, as well as the mind, of the beneficial effects of good posture. Moreover, zazen increases physical as well as mental flexibility, and in general it attunes our minds to the needs of the body, allowing the body to mindfully retune itself.”
― Bret W Davis, Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism

“Buddhism was first introduced to China around the first century ce, yet it took many centuries before it was not only properly understood but also creatively appropriated. Even if the speed and ease of transferring information and engaging in intercultural exchange have been greatly enhanced by modern technology, an "appropriate appropriation" of a deep and vast tradition like Zen Buddhism takes at least several generations.”
― Bret W Davis, Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism

“The injunction to know oneself can be found in many traditions, including the Western philosophical tradition that goes back to Socrates. According to Zen, however, to truly discover what the self is, we need a more direct path than mere intellectual reasoning.”
― Bret W Davis, Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism

“Analogously, the cultural appropriation of "Zen" in the popular culture of the West has often been as superficial as it has been enthusiastic. However, in Western universities these days the pendulum has swung in the other direction; the current academic trend is to use historical and philological scholarship to criticize the idealized spiritual and romantic image of Zen fashioned by earlier generations of writers. In erudite books with clever titles like Chan Insights and Oversights and Seeing Through Zen this this critical—and sometimes polemical—debunking is aimed not only at the ways in which authors like D. T. Suzuki and Alan Watts have presented Zen to Westerners; it is also aimed at the traditional self conceptions and self-presentations of the Zen tradition throughout its fifteen-hundred-year history in Asia.”
― Bret W Davis, Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism

“Another classic case in point is the reconstructive origins of the canonical Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, which is attributed to the seventh-century Chinese Zen master Huineng but in fact seems to have first appeared around 780 ce, "over a century after the events it describes were supposed to have taken place." The earliest versions of the autobiography and teachings of Huineng included in this text were in fact composed by Shenhui and other purported successors in the Southern School in order to differentiate their teachings from, and elevate them over, those of Shenxiu and other teachers of the rival Northern School. While the teachings
presented in the Platform Sutra— the only Zen text to be audaciously designated a "sutra"—are indeed a "brilliant consummation" and "wonderful mélange of early Chan [i.e., Chinese Zen] teachings," they can hardly be attributed verbatim to the historical person Huineng. However spiritually inspiring and philosophically rich such classical texts of the Zen tradition may be, we cannot read them as unbiased and unembellished historical records or as innocent of sectarian politics and other mundane motives.”
― Bret W Davis, Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism

“Even if Zen is not currently undergoing the same kind of core doctrinal crisis as Christianity is for some, we should pay attention to suspicious critiques as well as to sympathetic interpretations of the Zen tradition.”
― Bret W Davis, Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism

“Zazen is by no means a "quick fix" panacea for all psychological ailments. While it does aim to uproot the core causes of our "normal" human spiritual dis-ease, any "abnormal" mental health issues should be addressed before one is ready to engage in the austere rigors of this spiritual discipline.”
― Bret W Davis, Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism

“For Zen Buddhism, historical narratives do matter; stories of the "transmission of the lamp" of the awakened mind down through the ages constitute the narrative thread that holds the history of Zen together, supporting the continuity and authority of its institutional tradition. But what matters most to many sincere Zen practitioners, especially today, is how the teachings and practices embedded in those stories can illuminate and change our lives-not when, where, and by whom they were first taught and written down.”
― Bret W Davis, Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism

“Keep in mind that meditation is a holistic discipline, and you are rehabilitating your posture and flexibility at the same time as you are training your mind—and, moreover, you are realizing how interconnected body and mind actually are.”
― Bret W Davis, Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism

“In the beginning, you will likely experience meditation as a struggle. It is a very odd struggle, since it is a struggle with yourself, a struggle between different parts of yourself, between the part of you that wants to meditate and the part of you that does not.”
― Bret W Davis, Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism

“Meditation is, to begin with, a practice of emptying the mind of this conceit that our own edited version of reality is the only unbiased and therefore valid one. It is a matter of recognizing that we are always, more or less, caught up in the reels of karmic editing.”
― Bret W Davis, Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism

“Once, a philosophy student from Kyoto University visited the famous modern Rinzai Zen master Yamada Mumon. At first, they just sat silently looking at each other for about twenty minutes. Then Yamada Rōshi suddenly shouted, "Aren't you going to say something?" To which the student blurted out, "What happens when someone dies?" Yamada Rōshi replied, "His body gets cold." Student: "What happens after that?" Yamada: "It probably gets cremated." Student: "What then?" To this last question Yamada Rōshi simply said: "I don't know what happens after that.”
― Bret W Davis, Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism

“I study and practice Zen Buddhism because I experience it as illuminating and liberating. I remain personally engaged with this tradition because I continue to experience it as capable of leading me to truth and liberation, rather than, for example, because it is the tradition that I happen to have been raised in or the one that is most socially convenient for me to adhere to.”
― Bret W Davis, Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism

“Despite all the challenges and opportunities Zen Buddhism has faced in the modern era—including the rise of a more socially conscious and committed Engaged Buddhism, the breakdown of a clear distinction between monastics and lay practitioners, and the dissolution of gender discrimination in Western adaptations of Zen institutions (see Chapters 14, 16, and 18)—arguably there have not been any fundamental doctrinal challenges on a level comparable to the contemporary questioning of the very meaning of "God" by many progressive Christian theologians and philosophers. A possible exception is a preference for metaphorical-psychological over literal-cosmological interpretations of Buddhist doctrines such as the Six Realms of Rebirth and the Pure Land by many modern Zen teachers, but even this is hardly without traditional precedent (see
Chapters 12 and 23).”
― Bret W Davis, Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism

“It is also true that, quite literally, death is the business of Buddhist temples in Japan, including Zen temples. Most of their income comes from conducting funerals and memorial services. Yet, while the term "funerary Buddhism" (sōshiki bukkyo) is usually used in a pejorative sense, by sincere Buddhists as well as by secular critics, these services undoubtedly do provide real comfort and community to grieving families. Doctrinally speaking, they are thought to transfer karmic merit to the departed person so that he or she goes to a better place.”
― Bret W Davis, Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism

“Don't flee from boredom. Go all the way into it; go all the way through the bottom of boredom!”
― Bret W Davis, Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism

“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." According to Dante, these lines are written over the gates of Hell. Zen masters, by contrast, have high hopes for going to Hell. For them, out of bottomless compassion, we should want to go to Hell. When asked by a college student in America if he thought people go to Heaven after they die, the modern Rinzai Zen master Fukushima Keidō replied: "Only the ego wants to go to Heaven!”
― Bret W Davis, Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism

“Many religions tend to have an otherworldly orientation; they tend to value the afterlife in heaven even more than this life on earth. Not so with Zen Buddhism. In fact, all schools of Mahayana Buddhism call for a return to this world. Even those Pure Land Buddhists who focus their attention on "going forth" (Jp. ōsō) to be reborn after death in the Pure Land understand the Pure Land to be a place where one can quickly and easily become a Buddha. And one becomes a Buddha not merely for one's own sake, but so that one can "return" (gensō) to work on behalf of liberating all sentient beings from suffering.”
― Bret W Davis, Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism

“If the average American were to jump right into week long retreat in a Zen monastery, it would certainly feel like an excruciatingly painful practice of extreme asceticism—but so would trying to run a full marathon on the first day one decides to take up jogging. It may be the case that many Zen monasteries tilt too far in the direction of asceticism, even more than is necessary as a corrective to our more hedonistic lifestyle. But it is no doubt true that many of our lifestyles tilt too far in the direction of indulging various desires, an indulgence that multiplies and distorts our natural desires into unnatural cravings.”
― Bret W Davis, Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism

“Taking Zen's lessons seriously need not entail taking Zen's lore literally. After all, the texts of the Zen tradition were not written as academic history books. John Maraldo's judicious and insightful The Saga of Zen History and the Power of Legend makes a compelling case for treating the traditional chronicles and lore of Zen as I do in this book—namely, as soteriological or liberating "legends" rather than as literal accounts of "history" in the modern academic sense uncritically assumed by many modern scholars "who seek only the facts behind the texts and devious motives behind the facts.”
― Bret W Davis, Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism

“Although transmission lineages in Zen begin with the Seven Buddhas of Antiquity, the seventh of which is Shakyamuni Buddha, many Zen practitioners do not understand the core of their practice to depend on the historical existence of even Shakyamuni Buddha, much less the six mythical Buddhas that are said to have preceded him. If historical scholarship were to one day prove that Jesus was a fictional character made up by the authors of the New Testament, that would be doctrinally devastating to Christianity. Christians would have to fundamentally rethink their understanding of the Incarnation as a unique historical event. By contrast, many Zen Buddhists have said that even were it to be revealed someday that Shakyamuni Buddha did not exist as a historical person, the core teachings and practices of Zen Buddhism would remain unaffected.”
― Bret W Davis, Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism

“Applying the historical-critical methods of modern biblical studies, scholars of Buddhism—buddhologists—have shown that canonical Zen texts were in fact written down and revised by later generations of monks and literati rather than being literal transcripts of the words of the masters. To begin with, the story of Bodhidharma, who is said to have brought Zen from India to China sometime around 500 ce, has been revealed to be largely a symbolic fabrication by later generations, even if in part based on an actual historical person. Moreover, much of the foundational Zen lore regarding the words and acts of the golden age of Zen masters in the Tang Dynasty (618–906 ce), it turns out, was edited and embellished by masters and other monks and literati in the Song Dynasty
(960–1279). The narratives and teachings recorded in the Transmission of the Lamp [of Enlightenment] literature—from which the episodes and encounter dialogues that appear in the kōan collections were drawn—were subjected to revision not only for pedagogical purposes but also for the sake of pious hagiography and sectarian polemics.”
― Bret W Davis, Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism

“Difficult as it may be, I think it is not impossible for the same person to be a scrupulous scholar and dedicated practitioner of Zen, and to let these two disciplines fruitfully supplement and constructively critique each other.”
― Bret W Davis, Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism

“Inspired by Zen, the avant-garde composer John Cage shocked the music world in 1952 when he composed a piece that entailed just sitting in silence at a piano or other instrument(s) without playing a single note for 4 minutes and 33 seconds. He wanted the audience to hear the music that is going on around us all the time.”
― Bret W Davis, Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism