Zen Morality - Who are you kidding?

Zen as it has been popularly portrayed in the west for the last 30 years might be listed in Webster’s as a synonym for Ambiguity. We love ambiguity. In Fact we thrive upon it. Popular teachers and popular culture has established a stereotype of Zen as an “anything goes” philosophy. And what is more ambiguous than the word Morality.


Even Philosophers have struggled to distinguish between morality and etiquette, law, and religion. It’s just not polite to reach over and grab a bite off the plate of the person next to you but is it immoral? Spitting on the big guy in line of front of you may not be immoral but reframing from doing so may save you a severe lesson in manners. It isn’t really immoral to run a red light but the law will make you pay a fine. But if you break into a house and steal a big screen TV it is probably both immoral and against the law. In religion we have morality usually in the form of a set of rules like the law but it’s usually God who will punish your transgressions and God who has made the rules he is imposing upon you.

In Buddhism the underlying principle of Mahayana Buddhist morality is to help others or at least to reframe from harming other sentient beings. The word most used to describe this morality is compassion. In most Mahayana schools of Buddhism you are taught that this morality, this great compassion, is the foundation of everything else you will do as a Buddhist. This compassion you are taught is what drove the Buddha to turn the wheel of the dharma. This great compassion is the reason why they believe in the Bodhisattva ideal.

Now we come to Zen. In the west people have heard of Zen and often don’t even know it is a form of Buddhism. But in modern western Zen we seem to have little practice or even discussion of Morality. Teachers believe that no one wants to be preached to about being moral. Many people who come to the Zendo don’t see Zen as a religion and they see morality as “religious stuff”. They want to be less stressed out and want to be more relaxed. Others want to become enlightened or liberated nursing a preconceived idea of how the whole world will become warm and fuzzy when they “see the light”.

There are of course two ways to look at Zen morality. You can take the high road espoused by Zen scholars like D.T. Suzuki and look at the “Mystical Zen” as an ideal. Like Suzuki you can talk about what Zen” is and means. Then there is the “Historical Approach” in which you examine what Zen practitioners have done over the years. You can discuss the “morality” of samara cutting off heads and committing suicide. We could discuss those Japanese Zen masters that supported wars and talked about compassionate killing.

But, who are you kidding? The ability to know right from wrong is innate in you. No one knows the huge amount of room to move within the ambiguous word or phrase more than a lawyer we make our living off of it. And no one knows more about spiritual ambiguity than a Zen practitioner. As a Lawyer who practices Zen I make claim to being an expert in ambiguity.

I am going to write another Blog entry on Soto Zen and morality that will follow this one.

But as you close the door and slip into bed with your neighbor’s wife, don’t stop to blow smoke up your own ass. Who are you kidding?