On Not Having To Be A Zen 'Class Act'.

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Image by Frettie: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

I was very lucky to fall in with a Zen grouping that emphasises lay practice - our teacher Nishijima Roshi and his students were/ are largely lay people living and working in the world and practicing and studying zazen mostly at home and at occasional retreats.

There wasn't a big emphasis on all the cultural trappings of Japanese Zen, although it was there for people to go into if they wanted to - the robe and the rakusu were considered important, as tangible expressions of the transmission of the practice-realisation of zazen, but you didn't have to dress like a Japanese monk if it didn't seem right. You can just wear the kesa or rakusu over everyday western clothes.

Some people will be more drawn to the rich forms and trappings of monastic or temple Zen of course, and that's fine, but in our lineage at least you don't have to be into that.

The practice is essentially about meeting our life directly and openly wherever we are, whatever we're doing, and whatever robe we're wearing be it the kesa or rakusu, or the robe of our own human skin just as it is here and now, the original buddha's robe.

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