Young Japanese find their footings
Finding their way / Young Japanese discover Zen in unlikely corners
TOKYO:….Atsumi Osaka, 20, a sophomore at Doshisha University, will change her major from commerce to religion…partly out of her discussions about Zen with foreign travelers during a month-long trip in Southeast Asia this summer. At a guesthouse in Malaysia, Osaka met an Australian man, who told her how interesting it had been for him to stay at a Zen school in Kyoto.
She was surprised to learn that the school, Kyoto International Zendo, was under the supervision of Gensho Hozumi…Hozumi says about 40 percent of the school’s visitors are Japanese, but the presence of young students has become conspicuous, especially during summer and spring vacations. …”I get the impression that many of them learned about Zen when they were traveling overseas and were shocked at how little they knew,” Hozumi said. …more…
Ok, ok. You might as well relax, take a deep breath, exhale and GROAN right now for what I’m gonna say.
Foreign Zen is purer than Japanese.
Whine all you want but it’s true.
The nature of Japanese Zen is poluted by the Japanese needs for hierarchy and male control. Zen-for-men-removed-from-reality in Japan is ruined by male-dominated, hierarchical and overly monastic traditions that bascally suck all the joy out it. Foreign zen has a broad participation lay people, female leadership positions and a social conscious. Japanese Zen has zen.
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