It’s hard work to lead a Zen-like life
A recent column by Joy Brennan, a PhD candidate at the University of Chicago Divinity School, takes on the subject of Zen. At the end of each episode of Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show,” there is a “Moment of Zen” — a clip of something restful and quiet, meant to give the listener a moment free of stress and distraction, suggesting our need to silence the many voices and noises that clamor for our attention in a hectic world. This is not a bad thing, because most of us need a few moments like that throughout the day. We need a good dose of inner peace.
However, suggests Brennan, this “Moment of Zen” reveals a general lack of understanding of what Zen really is.
“Zen appears to have a lot to do with spas, tea, yoga and the kind of physical beauty that is attributed to the radiation of inner peace,” she writes. Zen is portrayed as “formless, undemanding and perhaps even absurd.”
The problem Brennan has with this portrayal is that it is, to put it simply, just not accurate. Real Zen Buddhism is actually demanding and highly structured. Students of Zen commonly meditate for six hours or more, getting up in the wee hours of the morning to begin a disciplined schedule of meditation and work. It is a discipline far more demanding than most of us would feel comfortable with, and it is through this discipline that inner peace comes.
While I am not a Zen Buddhist, but a Presbyterian minister, I find an important message in Brennan’s reflections. Whatever our religious identity, so many of us want a religion that gives peace and tranquility without the discipline. Just as images of waterfalls and soft music do not do justice to the disciplines required of the real practitioners, our common religious practices do not do justice to faith’s demands. While I understand our need to find ways to stop, breathe and reflect, there is more to the life of faith than rest periods.
What wetend to forget in my tradition is that, along with inner peace, faith also demands attention to love and justice.We tend to forget that the same Jesus who reminded us to be like the lilies of the field also told a parable about separating the “sheep” from the “goats” — that is, those who served “the least of these” from those who didn’t. I find it fascinating that each group was unconscious of their actions. Those who served respond with, “When was that?” while those who ignored the plight of others asked the same question. In other words, people who care and people who don’t have one thing in common: They either served or failed to serve unconsciously.
Brennan concludes that faith — real faith — is “not a walk in the woods.” Yes, faith offers the gift of badly needed inner peace, but we often fail to realize that this peace comes as a result of a disciplined life of care and love for others.
