

A Report on Lay Dharma Transmission in North American Soto Zen

18 September 2006

Prepared by

James Myoun Ford, chair

Taitaku Pat Phelan

Elihu Genmyo Smith

(While written in 2006, this study has not had wide distribution. As I feel it is an important reflection on an interesting and compelling aspect of the development of Western Zen, I’m re-publishing it here…)

Rosai Takashima Roshi gave Dharma transmission to Shinkaku Hunt in May, 1953, in Hawai’i. Ernest Shinkaku Hunt appears to be the first North American of European descent (actually he was born in England) to be fully ordained a Soto Zen priest. In the subsequent fifty-three years Soto Zen has gradually established itself in North America and the West. Today there are well over one hundred priests in America who are culturally and usually ethnically “Western” who can claim Soto lineages, nearly ninety now gathered together to form the Soto Zen Buddhist Association.

Once the SZBA was established in 1996 it became apparent there were both deep commonalities and emerging differences among the American Zen lineages, and between North American Soto Zen lineages and the Japanese Sotoshu. Chief among the differences between the emerging American Soto institution and the Japanese were the number of women ordained priests (roughly half of all ordained American Soto priests) and the inclusion of women as central leaders of the organization. Possibly related was the inclusion of openly homosexual persons in both theory and fact as leaders within American Soto sanghas.

Also possibly related to these other shifts, there has been an emergence of lay teachers standing in Soto lineages. There are various ways to count but by definitions established below, there are at least nine lay Dharma teachers that consider themselves and are considered by their transmitting teachers to stand within the Soto stream. That’s about ten percent of Soto Zen teachers in the America. There are many more lay teachers with Soto lineage charts who do not currently consider themselves within the Soto stream.

This report focuses on the emergent phenomenon of lay teachers who have received Dharma transmission within Soto Zen lineages and who consider themselves Soto Zen practitioners and teachers. Addressing this situation is important to the survival of a broad-based American Soto institution. It appears at this writing the majority of North American Soto Zen priests have reservations, many with serious reservations about including lay teachers within the Soto Zen Buddhist Association. This position cannot simply be dismissed as prejudice. There is no history of lay teachers within the Japanese tradition to which the Soto Zen Buddhist Association is heir. The other critical point is that it seems those priests who have embraced lay teachers are unlikely to continue in an organization that does not allow for lay teachers, and specifically lay teachers as equal participants with other teachers.

This report will explore the history that has allowed this phenomenon to emerge. It will also explore what seems to distinguish lay and ordained teachers, as well as what they have in common. Finally it will explore the questions of preparation and expectation for teachers, lay and ordained, as things currently stand in what is a dynamic phenomena.

At the beginning there are two statements of fact that must inform any consideration of lay Dharma transmission in North American Soto Zen. First, Dharma transmission in itself is not ordination; however, in some lineages Dharma transmission is seen as a completion of shukke tokudo. Second, until the twentieth century there appears never to have been an independent “lay” lineage within any Zen school. These two statements of fact sit uncomfortably side by side, and any decisions about incorporating lay Dharma teachers in the Soto Zen Buddhist Association must be informed by both facts.

The history of Zen lineage emerges as an historical phenomenon with the story of Dajian Huineng, the Sixth Ancestor of Chinese Zen. Dharma transmission as Zen’s unique claim of authority appears to emerge in 689 C.E. when Master Heze Shenhui, a successor to Huineng began a polemical attack on Master Yuquan Shenxiu, another successor to Daman Hongreng, Huineng’s teacher. At that point Shenxiu was the most famous Zen teacher in China. The Empress Wu acknowledged him as her personal teacher, and he was similarly honored by subsequent emperors.

However, Shenhui asserted the only true heir to Hongren was his teacher Huineng. The most important document to come out of that controversy was the putative autobiography of Huineng, the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Ancestor. In the wake of the controversy regarding who was a true heir to Hongren, how that would be established and what it meant became the tradition of Zen’s Dharma transmission. Here transmission describes an unbroken line of teachers that stretches back to the Buddha himself. While there is no reason to think Zen’s lineage traces back any farther than the end of the sixth century or the beginning of the seventh century in China, and that from time to time, there does appear to have been breaks in the lineage of one line or another, there is no doubt Dharma transmission has become an essential mark of the Zen Way.

Originally it appears Dharma transmission was an acknowledgement of realization. It also carried at least implicitly an authorization to teach which became explicit in the controversies initiated by Shenhui. And it is clearly distinct from ordination. When one examines the Platform Sutra it is important to note Huineng’s Dharma transmission was received years before he was ordained as a monk. At the same time there is no record of his giving Dharma transmission until after he was ordained. On a similar note three generations after Huineng there is at least one instance of a layman receiving Dharma transmission. Still, while the great Layman Pang is generally acknowledged as a Dharma successor to Master Ma-tsu Tao-i, there is no evidence he himself gave Dharma transmission to anyone.

So, while Dharma transmission is not ordination and lay people have from time to time received Dharma transmission, there is no ancient tradition of formal lay leadership, nor lines of lay Dharma heirs. Of course much the same may be said about women, Dharma transmission and formal leadership. The omission of women in traditional lineage charts has been a subject of concern for contemporary Western Zen practitioners and has led to various responses. There is arguably a similar impulse among lay practitioners today. Certainly there are now lay lineages, which will be explored a little later in this report.

Another important consideration is the shift in understanding of the nature of ordination within the Japanese Zen inheritance. It is unclear by what formula Eihei Dogen was ordained. As a Tiendai priest he was probably ordained with the fifty-eight Bodhisattva precepts used at the Ordination Platform at Mt Hiei. But whether he was ordained with the two hundred and fifty Vinaya precepts, with the fifty-eight Bodhisattva precepts, or with another number, it seems clear he chose to ordain his disciples with sixteen Bodhisattva precepts. It is also clear he considered himself a monk and those he ordained as monks to be monastics in a sense commonly understood around the world as celibates living under rule.

However from early on, traditional understandings of monastic life were challenged in Japanese culture. Among other things the establishment of many thousands of Soto Zen temples led to a situation where one or two monks were left alone in charge of institutions that were increasingly meant to meet the spiritual needs of local populations. A form of priesthood quickly began to emerge. There are many reports from institutional centers of the difficulties in managing these monk/priests. Most significant of these complaints was how so many seemed to take on concubines and sometimes more or less openly established families is a matter of historical record.

With the inauguration of the Meiji period in 1868, for many complex and sometimes political reasons, the traditional legal prohibitions on Soto Zen clerics marrying, growing one’s hair and eating meat were abolished. However complicated the reasons this occurred, since that time the larger majority of Soto Zen priests have married. A similar pattern was followed by the Japanese Rinzai school and apparently most other Japanese Buddhist schools.

Returning to the Soto school, although it also appears to have been true for other schools as well, these married monks, or an increasingly preferred term, priests continued to use traditional Japanese monastic terminology to name their clerical state. This led to considerable confusion when Japanese Zen institutions and clerics started teaching Westerners and began themselves coming to North America.

Even more confusing was the presence of lay figures at the center of a nascent Western Zen. In addition to the importance of Daisetsu Suzuki, a lay scholar who first attempted to systematically present Zen, one of the first Zen teachers to live and teach in America was a lay master. Shigetsu Sasaki Roshi, better known as Sokei-an, represented another reforming trend in the Meiji. Lay Dharma transmission is a feature of Japanese Rinzai. Although even here lay teachers are not part of the normative leadership, and we are unaware of any lay teachers establishing independent lineages within the ten denominations of Japanese Rinzai. That said at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries at least two Rinzai masters attempted to establish lay lineages. Sokei-an’s teacher Shaku Sokatsu wanted to establish a lay line, and while Sokatsu appears to have ordained Sokei-an at the time he gave him Dharma transmission, he wanted Sokei-an to teach as a layman. Sokei-an did not leave any Dharma heirs—formal, designated successors. Another lay lineage was established by Joko Roshi, whose lay heir Osaka Koryu Roshi would influence Taizan Maezumi.

Of even greater influence on the West was a Soto reform movement established by a prominent priest Daiun Harada Roshi’s Dharma heir Hakuun Yasutani Roshi. The Sanbo Kyodan (Society of the Three Treasures) established by Yasutani has become successful in Japan, albeit a tiny institution there but a major influence in Western Zen. It passes on a Soto lineage chart, but uses an adaptation of the Takuju Rinzai curriculum as its primary form of training. At this point the majority of Westerners who practice koan introspection Zen are guided by teachers trained in this school.

This school is ultimately the source of the many lay teachers in the West, all of whom could argue they are Soto; however, very few do. (There are also an increasingly substantial number of Christians who stand in this lineage. Some may consider themselves part of the Soto stream, as well. This subject is not addressed in this report.) Most directly germane is the White Plum lineage established by Taizan Maezumi Roshi, who received Dharma transmission from Yasutani Roshi as well as from Koryu Roshi in addition to his Soto lineage. Maezumi used the Harada/Yasutani koan system as an important part of his teaching, and the majority of lay teachers (for whom koan introspection was their major Zen training) who see themselves as belonging to the Soto school stand in his lineage. There are other Soto lines that have lay successors, but this remains the overwhelming source.

One other feature of preparation for Soto lay Zen teachers and some priests must be mentioned. In addition to the normative Soto training which centers on shikantaza and includes a substantial monastic experience and the newer introduction of koan introspection curricula training, some Soto teachers have emphasized a third discipline that might best be called “inquiry.” This practice is closely related to shikantaza but is also inspired by more traditional Theravadan practices often as modified by the emerging Western Vipassana Sangha. This broad adaptation to Zen training is most closely associated with the Ordinary Mind School established by one of Maezumi’s heirs, Zen master Joko Beck, although this discipline is used to some degree by other, possibly a majority of Western Soto teachers, as well. At least one of the lay Soto identified teachers considered here was trained mostly in this discipline.

With this background the Committee attempted to identify those American Soto priests who have given Dharma transmission to lay people and who their heirs are. We also attempted to narrow the universe of such people to those who identify as Buddhists practicing within the Soto stream. This meant we did not seek to identify teachers within the Soto-derived Harada/Yasutani lineages except for those within the White Plum line (although not all of these consider themselves White Plum) who self-identified as Soto. While there may be individual teachers within the Harada/Yasutani lay lineage extant in America (Sanbo Kyodan, Diamond Sangha and Pacific Zen Institute) who consider themselves Soto, none of these organizations self-identify with the Soto stream and therefore have not been part of this study. For various reasons the Kapleau lineage has not been part of this study. Should there be a formal recognition of lay Soto teachers, some of these teachers may wish to align (or perhaps more properly re-align) with a North American Soto institution. But, again, that has not been explored.

We also arbitrarily excluded the non-Buddhist identified lay teachers of the White Plum. Again, there are an increasing number of Christian Zen teachers, some of whom might identify as Soto, if not Buddhist. But what this might mean and whether there could be a place for such teachers was not explored here. Both these categories, particularly the Buddhist lay teachers standing in the Harada/Yasutani line might profitably be investigated at a later time. We have also run into the situation where the preceptor may no longer consider herself or himself Soto, but where the lay Dharma heir does. We have chosen to accept anyone’s self-declaration of being both Buddhist and considering themselves part of the Soto tradition as sufficient for this study.

There is another area of confusion. Several categories of lay authorization have arisen within the Soto stream, without a full acknowledgment of transmission and authorization to teach and confirm other’s understanding/realization and ability to teach, the primary object of this study. For instance Kyogen Carlson Roshi has given Dharma transmission to several people clearly not intended to be independent teachers. Mel Sojun Weitsman Roshi and Norman Fischer Roshi have given authorizations called Lay Entrustment which seem to be in the same spirit as those authorizations conferred by Kyogen Carlson. Chozen Bays Roshi has designated one lay person a “Dharma Holder,” in what also seems a similar spirit to these other authorizations.

We have chosen for this study to focus only on Soto identified lay Buddhists who have received Dharma transmission and teach independently, and the priests who have given those Dharma transmissions. We have done this as this is the area of greatest immediate concern.

With these parameters we have identified seven Soto priests who have given Dharma transmission to nine lay people. Reb Tenshin Anderson Roshi gave Dharma transmission to Leslie James Sensei. Zen master Charlotte Joko Beck gave Dharma transmission to Zen teacher Barry Magid, Anna Christensen, Gregg Howard, and Geoff Dawson. Charles Tenshin Fletcher Roshi has given Dharma transmission to Barry Kaigen McMahon Sensei. Bernie Tetsugen Glassman Roshi has given Dharma transmission to Nancy Mujo Baker Sensei, Grover Genro Gaunt Sensei and Eve Myonen Marko Sensei. And Shishin Wick Roshi gave Dharma transmission to Ilia Perez Sensei.

In addition Alfred Jitsudo Ancheta Sensei gave Dharma transmission to Sydney Musai Walter Sensei, who later received priestly (Denkai) Dharma transmission from Dennis Genpo Merzel Roshi. Stefano Mui Barragato Sensei gave Dharma transmission to Margaret Nikay Barragato Sensei, and later gave her priestly (Denkai) Dharma transmission.

We prepared two questionnaires:

For a transmitting priest:

1. How do you understand the phrase “Dharma transmission?”

2. What are the authorizations given with Dharma transmission to lay people?

3. Is a transmitted lay teacher different from a transmitted priest? If yes, how?

a) Can a transmitted lay teacher give precepts? 5, 10, 16? Are there any limits?

b) Can a transmitted lay teacher give Dharma transmission?

4. How is one prepared to become a lay teacher? Please be as detailed as possible?

For a lay Dharma heir:

1. How do you understand the phrase “Dharma transmission?”

2. What authorizations do you possess?

3. Is a transmitted lay teacher different from a transmitted priest?

a) Can a transmitted lay teacher give precepts? 5, 10, 16? Are there any limits?

b) Can a transmitted lay teacher give Dharma transmission?

4. How is one prepared to become a lay teacher? Please be as detailed as possible.

We received responses from most of these teachers, lay and clerical, and we felt we did arrive at a sense of what both priestly transmitters and lay teachers felt happened with Dharma transmission. All who responded agreed that lay Dharma heirs were full Dharma heirs, spiritual directors who could teach and give Dharma transmission. All agreed lay teachers do not perform traditional clerical functions, at least as generally understood in the West, such as officiating at weddings or funerals. They were divided on whether a lay Dharma heir could preside at Jukai or other precepts ceremonies. There were two opinions regarding lay presidency at precepts ceremonies. One was the precepts are a part of the ordained function. The other was one may pass on what one has received.

The forms of acknowledgment for lay teachers are obviously not settled. Sometimes there is a public ceremony while sometimes the ceremonial acknowledgment follows more traditional Soto forms. Most, although not all, lay Soto teachers receive Daiji and Shisho documents but not the Ketchimyaku or any of the Kirigami. Some receive a document designed by the teacher rather than one or more of the Sanmatsu. At least one teacher, Robert Aitken, who does not consider himself in the Soto stream, received all three of the Sanmatsu documents.

The two questions that probably need to be most deeply reflected upon regard training and the purpose of lay transmission.

The lay teachers considered in this report have all had extensive training over many years. The Guidelines for Training Soto Zen Priests in the West discusses two primary models for Zen training one more “structured” and the other more “intuitive.” It seems the majority of lay teachers have trained more in the structured model, but not necessarily. Barry Magid observed “My sense is that Joko didn’t train teachers at all, but when someone’s practice matured to the point that it was consistently dedicated to serving the lives of those around them, she recognized them as teachers.” He added, “This was always a matter of decades.” Most of those involved in this study appear to be comfortable with the more formal term “training” to describe their experience.

It appears the primary form of training does appear to have been koan introspection either directly following the Harada/Yasutani curriculum, or if not, considerable use of it. Genpo Merzel comments “I think the usual way (to train lay teachers) has been koan study and this is probably why lay teachers exist in the Rinzai school and not in the Soto school. It is my opinion that in the Soto school, what is required (is) a full relinquishment of the self if it is to be done properly, whereas in (the) Rinzai tradition, it is more based on understanding and the passing of koans. So it would be my sense a lay teacher would have gone through the koan system.” At the same time nearly all these current lay teachers have also had monastic experiences ranging from a single ango to spending several years in cloistered community.

While some teachers have said their training of lay and priest is “exactly the same,” there do appear to be differences in the spirit of the training. Genpo Merzel observed “One of the differences that I have found over the years is that those who choose to remain as lay practitioners tend not to go through the same kind of submission practice as those who take the vows of Shukke Tokudo.” Perhaps this is connected to the different emphasis in training, and the focus for most lay teachers so far in following a koan curriculum rather than focusing on an extended monastic experience.

And then the last question is “to what purpose?” The question of what a priest might be in the West is open. The SZBA list serve has provided some interesting comments. As the list is “confidential,” we only cite some observations without naming the sources. One priest observed the work of priests might be “ministers or Zen adepts or artists or hermits or scholars,” and then impishly, “or undertakers.” The Soto list generated a lively debate over whether Zen priests should be considered “professionals.” In response to that another priest suggested the work of a Zen priest is similar to a “trade.” He added how “of course it is also a profession, a craft,” then he shifted in the sentence, adding question marks, “a calling?, a vocation?, an art?”

The Guidelines for Training Soto Zen Priests in the West states the “purpose of priest training is to prepare individuals for a life dedicated to exemplifying the dharma with integrity by empowering them to extend Buddhist teachings and Soto Zen practice in the West.” They go on to outline seven principles of training: 1) zazen, 2) mindfulness, 3) deepening understanding through personal effort, 4) self-reflection, 5) working with a teacher, 6) studying Buddhist literature, and 7) sustained effort. It seems the expectations for a lay teacher in the Soto tradition should be much the same.

This has led to much of the confusion and questioning of the need for a separate lay teacher category. One of the signers of this report, Taitaku Phelan Sensei, observed “Personally, I am confused by the idea of Lay Transmission since if in Japanese Soto Zen priests can marry and have families and live the life of a householder, what further laization is needed?” This may well represent the majority opinion among Western Soto Zen priests.

But there does appear to be a difference. A priest does exercise a unique function. A priest is called upon to serve in some unique ways, in the West these are most obviously marked by presiding at major rites of passage, particularly officiating at weddings and funerals. Even though any individual priest may or may not take any or all of these functions, or others such as guiding a residential center or monastery, there does seem to be a real distinction. Sometimes it falls into the “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it” category, but most people have little difficulty in identifying the ordained and distinguishing them from those who are not. However defined, all this takes place in addition to guiding people in their practice.

What this study suggests is that the lay teacher takes on a single function, of guiding people in their practice. The context of this guiding may be the same as for a priest, but it is often different. So far no lay teachers within the Western Soto stream guide residential centers or monasteries. Instead they guide smaller groups of people in similar situations to their own.

The authors of this report are reluctant to make specific recommendations. Instead we conclude with a concern. It seems that the Soto Zen Buddhist Association faces a decision. In our opinion, it will either be a somewhat messy organization with indefinite boundaries that accepts lay Dharma heirs as fully acknowledged teachers, or it will be a more traditional, purer and, likely, a much smaller institution. It is unlikely that any structure that does not include lay teachers fully as teachers and does not include them in the central counsels of the organization will be able to continue as the sole representative of the Soto stream in North America.