This isn't really about Zen, though, right? This is about how communities of intent (as opposed to communities of geography or family or common experience) function, or not, what the norms and standards are, etc.
My father was raised a Baptist. He went to church two or three times a week into his late teens. He stopped going because one week a pig farmer came to Sunday service and the smell was so bad that the farmer was asked not to come back. My father decided that the church had violated the intention around which the community was built.
So the question might be, "What is the intention around which this community is built?"
I asked myself what the answer was. This is what I came up with:
My guess is that it comes down to Ask and Answer. I haven't found much in the way of teaching about this, maybe because it isn't really that important.
No matter how many peaceful nature walks you take, no matter how many books you read, no matter how you pass the time on your cushion, regardless, you will have to come back to society some time, and someone will ask you what it is that you've been doing. Someone will have a question for you about this Zen business, or you will find yourself with questions, or answers or something.
Then comes Ask and Answer. It is inevitable for students and Masters and fools and Emperors even. Quickly! Quickly!
Zen is about you seeing for yourself, whatever. But talking about Zen, that is the community of Zen, is likely about no more than Ask and Answer. Picnics and barbecues movie or beer night, Zen lunch or Zen dinner, all of this is window dressing. No one is desperate to see a movie or attend a picnic Absolute Freedom of Mind does not depend on lunches or dinners. Between any two people who are concerned with Zen there is only Ask and Answer.
I enjoy talking about Zen more than most, but nevertheless I feel the inevitability of Ask and Answer in every conversation. I want to see the Zen! Show me the Zen!
Joshu and Baso and Amban and Ummon, Nansen, Hyakujo, Eno and Mumon. We did not come for the barbecue! Ask and Answer!
Community members who make pronouncements but don't answer questions about their pronouncements and those that do not bring questions to the discussion want a different kind of community then the one I've outlined. My experience is they want a hierarchy with an authority and minimal communal tolerance and very little free-for-all discussion. There is no showing your Zen without Asking and Answering and when people don't want discussion my guess is that they don't want to wrestle this question of Who Has Zen.
Whatever else we say about the Zen tradition, there were lots of questions, a dedication to Answering, and a tolerance for even the most offending viewpoints. Shit-stick anyone?
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