Zen and the Cries of the World
part 1
Shakyamuni Buddha taught to never turn away from any suffering. But what does that look like?
by Jisho Siebert
Buddha talked about old age, sickness and death, which are timeless. But now human beings also know about climate change, racism, war, poverty, terrorism, and many other systemic forms of suffering.
When there are hungry children in our communities and around the world, what place is there for a monastery?
Just before I asked to become Akiba Roshi’s student, after the midnight ceremony closing a week-long meditation retreat, I asked him a similar question.
I had burned out again working on issues of domestic and sexual violence in my community. I told him I have a more difficult time dealing with the suffering that comes up in the world outside the meditation hall than that within it. I said something like: “I’m a decent person in here, but out there, there are things I have never seen a Zen priest respond to. Going into a monastery feels like a copout, an escape. So where should I practice?”
He said, “There is suffering inside the meditation hall. There is suffering outside the meditation hall. You can practice anywhere.”
I ordained, and two weeks later, accepted a job working with sexual violence survivors at the end of a 15-year long war in Liberia, West Africa. Maybe not what my teacher had in mind, but I spent the next decade going between visits to him and posts in various countries in Africa, the Middle East and, most recently, Haiti. I was blessed to mix in more Ango (3-month monastic practice) and retreats toward the latter years of that decade.
The world is our monastery and our practice place. And yet, in the next few issues I would like to explore what happens, from my experience, when our attempts to “not turn away from any suffering” are not grounded firmly in the practice of abandoning our egos. One of the key reasons Tenpyozan is relevant to our world and our own lives is precisely because of the monastic experience it can afford to a generation of priests and lay practitioners.
The Soto Zen Buddhist Association’s conference later this month will be on the theme “Regarding the Cries of the World,” and we invite anyone inspired by that theme to also submit articles to the Tenpyozan newsletter within this upcoming series.
Shakyamuni Buddha taught to never turn away from any suffering. But what does that look like?
Originally published at tenpyozan.org.
