Disingenuous Buddhist
By Kenny Tanemura
Recently I've been hearing stories about the Japanese Zen Master Joshu Sasaki Roshi, who is something of a
“rock star” in the world of Zen. These stories have caused me to reconsider the nature of my Asian American
Buddhist upbringing.
Evidently, people seeking enlightenment are seeking out Joshu Roshi at his Bodhi Manda Zen Center near
Santa Fe, NM. These seekers are striving to be more present in their lives. They want to wake up at 3 in the
morning and then meditate until 9 in the evening. They become vegans, eat in silence, chant and soak in hot
pools. Surely, these seekers can't be Asian American.
Imagine all your Asian American friends quitting graduate school or their careers to meditate for tw — count
them — two full-time work shifts. Imagine them waking in the middle of the night when there is no job or school
involved. What Asian American would eat vegetables in silence?
Am I the only one who believes that only White Americans would allow a 100- year-old Japanese guy to yell at
them in a lecturing, harsh tone? Imagine hearing this screamed at you repeatedly: "If you're attached to
American democracy, you'll never become the leaders of the free world again."
But what about those of us who don't identify ourselves as leaders of the free world, who in fact fear that this
country will continue to be "leaders of the free world"? And how about those of us who suffered and whose
families suffered because of America's megalomaniacal desire to dominate the world?
Joshu Roshi is famous for reprimanding Americans for being spoiled in their way of life. Can you imagine Asian
Americans heeding the Zen master's call, selling their Toyotas and giving up shopping at Banana Republic? Of
course not!
It takes someone who is in the center of the mainstream to prick their ears up when the word "American" is
uttered; it takes someone with a great deal of privilege to have the security and, perhaps, the luxury to renounce
(his/her way of life).
Asian Americans, especially in middle America, are walking a tenuous line to begin with; how much do we
really have to renounce? Don't we persistently feel that we want to gain, if only to experience some semblance of
equality, not to mention, safety? In our own country?
Joshu Roshi even has some academic backing. Mr. Foulk, a professor of religion at Sarah Lawrence University,
called Joshu Roshi a significant figure in Zen Buddhism. I can't imagine a professor saying anything like that
about Sensei Abiko, the man who gives all the talks at the Japanese American Buddhist Church I grew up in.
Admittedly, as a student of literature and not religion, I know more about one of Joshu Roshi's old students,
Leonard Cohen, than I do about the Zen master himself. Evidently, poet and songwriter Leonard Cohen spent
some time in seclusion at one of the master's enlightenment circles in the 1990s.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that Leonard Cohen survived Zen and became a more creative person. I wonder if
I would experience a similar creative awakening after shelling out $450 to attend a week of co-existing with
the Zen master and fellow seekers like myself.
After all, Leonard Cohen wrote some good stuff post-Joshu Roshi:
Confined to sex, we pressed against
The limits of the sea:
I saw there were no oceans left
For scavengers like me.
I made it to the forward deck.
I blessed our remnant fleet -
And then consented to be wrecked,
A Thousand Kisses Deep.
Sounds like a big Zen koan to me. I wonder what Joshu Roshi would think of the Japanese American Buddhist
Church I once belonged to.
Last month I re-visited the old Buddhist Church in Palo Alto of which my parents are still members. During the
Japanese half of the sensei's speech, the second section I couldn't understand, I wandered from the Hondo, and
left the rest of the Sangha there. Looking around the basketball court I once played in 30 years ago, I noticed the
curtains were dust-soaked, the scoreboard that never worked still hung from the wall.
I remembered the first generation Japanese men who used to set up folding tables on the sidelines to keep
score of our games. At least they took the time to hire referees who wore stripes. I thought, this is the only place in
the world where I can drift into a church's kitchen and make myself coffee, open all the cabinets, smoke out on
the parking lot, and walk up to the stage where, in my childhood, I frighted my way through skits.
I paced over the slick gym floor where the Junior Young Buddhist Association used to have potato sack races and
everyone knew my name. I thought, this is the only place I can open and close all the doors while the sensei talks
about compassion and the Dharma in the other room.
No one asked me what I was doing. They knew me as Kinu Tanemura's grandson, part of the family that has
been member four generations and 60 years. Even the newcomers who have missed my rare returns sensed that I
was rooted here like the sakura blooming by the Issei Hall.
I went outside and stood near the classrooms where Mrs. Tomita used to teach Dharma School, basic
principles, and wondered if I learned anything. She went to art school, then got a master’s in education. Before
job search time came around, she was suddenly a housewife, putting away palette and pedagogy.
I stood where Mr. Matsuda used to listen to the San Francisco 49ers games on a transistor radio while the kids
learned about chains of being and interdependence. I remembered the beautiful Nikkei girls in my classes. I
might have married one later, were I not romanced away from them by the tresses of assimilation.
I took my coffee cup outside and noticed that the others had come out. They were drinking coffee and tea from
styrofoam cups and eating slices of Danish and cubed green apples.
"Kenny," Mr. Kameda said, with a distance reserved for adults. Only when I was growing up, and only at the
Buddhist Church, was my name repeated over and over, forming the strongest part of me.
Hardly an enlightenment experience, or a manifestation of a zero Zen state. Hardly an abandonment of the ego
or an altered relationship with the universe. Yet I was taught by the Americanized Jodo Shinshu school of
inauthentic Buddhism that was so much a part of my upbringing: "all people should cultivate roots of virtue
according to their natures, their deeds, and their beliefs."
That is to say, I was the best disingenuous Buddhist I could be.
But I didn't come out of the experience with anything like Leonard Cohen's “A Thousand Kisses Deep.” I did
write some lyrics after to test my Dharma level:
Immersed in the bondage of desire,
the Buddha murmured
in a leathery voice, a parable
in a cleat cleared of heather,
in the bondage of tragic temp paralysis,
in the x-ray of a comic prop,
the Buddha taught aptitudes,
etudes, jumping to: navigation,
practice makes perfection,
she was wearing some white confection,
she was weariest at her most beautifying,
life is endless, a FICA that annotates
Buddha, who tea cozy and waddling
who simp and poinsettia,
demonstrates that isagogic loganberries
Isabella, is whatshername, whalebone.
Figure out what that means, and you will become more present in your life.
Recently I've been hearing stories about the Japanese Zen Master Joshu Sasaki Roshi, who is something of a
“rock star” in the world of Zen. These stories have caused me to reconsider the nature of my Asian American
Buddhist upbringing.
Evidently, people seeking enlightenment are seeking out Joshu Roshi at his Bodhi Manda Zen Center near
Santa Fe, NM. These seekers are striving to be more present in their lives. They want to wake up at 3 in the
morning and then meditate until 9 in the evening. They become vegans, eat in silence, chant and soak in hot
pools. Surely, these seekers can't be Asian American.
Imagine all your Asian American friends quitting graduate school or their careers to meditate for tw — count
them — two full-time work shifts. Imagine them waking in the middle of the night when there is no job or school
involved. What Asian American would eat vegetables in silence?
Am I the only one who believes that only White Americans would allow a 100- year-old Japanese guy to yell at
them in a lecturing, harsh tone? Imagine hearing this screamed at you repeatedly: "If you're attached to
American democracy, you'll never become the leaders of the free world again."
But what about those of us who don't identify ourselves as leaders of the free world, who in fact fear that this
country will continue to be "leaders of the free world"? And how about those of us who suffered and whose
families suffered because of America's megalomaniacal desire to dominate the world?
Joshu Roshi is famous for reprimanding Americans for being spoiled in their way of life. Can you imagine Asian
Americans heeding the Zen master's call, selling their Toyotas and giving up shopping at Banana Republic? Of
course not!
It takes someone who is in the center of the mainstream to prick their ears up when the word "American" is
uttered; it takes someone with a great deal of privilege to have the security and, perhaps, the luxury to renounce
(his/her way of life).
Asian Americans, especially in middle America, are walking a tenuous line to begin with; how much do we
really have to renounce? Don't we persistently feel that we want to gain, if only to experience some semblance of
equality, not to mention, safety? In our own country?
Joshu Roshi even has some academic backing. Mr. Foulk, a professor of religion at Sarah Lawrence University,
called Joshu Roshi a significant figure in Zen Buddhism. I can't imagine a professor saying anything like that
about Sensei Abiko, the man who gives all the talks at the Japanese American Buddhist Church I grew up in.
Admittedly, as a student of literature and not religion, I know more about one of Joshu Roshi's old students,
Leonard Cohen, than I do about the Zen master himself. Evidently, poet and songwriter Leonard Cohen spent
some time in seclusion at one of the master's enlightenment circles in the 1990s.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that Leonard Cohen survived Zen and became a more creative person. I wonder if
I would experience a similar creative awakening after shelling out $450 to attend a week of co-existing with
the Zen master and fellow seekers like myself.
After all, Leonard Cohen wrote some good stuff post-Joshu Roshi:
Confined to sex, we pressed against
The limits of the sea:
I saw there were no oceans left
For scavengers like me.
I made it to the forward deck.
I blessed our remnant fleet -
And then consented to be wrecked,
A Thousand Kisses Deep.
Sounds like a big Zen koan to me. I wonder what Joshu Roshi would think of the Japanese American Buddhist
Church I once belonged to.
Last month I re-visited the old Buddhist Church in Palo Alto of which my parents are still members. During the
Japanese half of the sensei's speech, the second section I couldn't understand, I wandered from the Hondo, and
left the rest of the Sangha there. Looking around the basketball court I once played in 30 years ago, I noticed the
curtains were dust-soaked, the scoreboard that never worked still hung from the wall.
I remembered the first generation Japanese men who used to set up folding tables on the sidelines to keep
score of our games. At least they took the time to hire referees who wore stripes. I thought, this is the only place in
the world where I can drift into a church's kitchen and make myself coffee, open all the cabinets, smoke out on
the parking lot, and walk up to the stage where, in my childhood, I frighted my way through skits.
I paced over the slick gym floor where the Junior Young Buddhist Association used to have potato sack races and
everyone knew my name. I thought, this is the only place I can open and close all the doors while the sensei talks
about compassion and the Dharma in the other room.
No one asked me what I was doing. They knew me as Kinu Tanemura's grandson, part of the family that has
been member four generations and 60 years. Even the newcomers who have missed my rare returns sensed that I
was rooted here like the sakura blooming by the Issei Hall.
I went outside and stood near the classrooms where Mrs. Tomita used to teach Dharma School, basic
principles, and wondered if I learned anything. She went to art school, then got a master’s in education. Before
job search time came around, she was suddenly a housewife, putting away palette and pedagogy.
I stood where Mr. Matsuda used to listen to the San Francisco 49ers games on a transistor radio while the kids
learned about chains of being and interdependence. I remembered the beautiful Nikkei girls in my classes. I
might have married one later, were I not romanced away from them by the tresses of assimilation.
I took my coffee cup outside and noticed that the others had come out. They were drinking coffee and tea from
styrofoam cups and eating slices of Danish and cubed green apples.
"Kenny," Mr. Kameda said, with a distance reserved for adults. Only when I was growing up, and only at the
Buddhist Church, was my name repeated over and over, forming the strongest part of me.
Hardly an enlightenment experience, or a manifestation of a zero Zen state. Hardly an abandonment of the ego
or an altered relationship with the universe. Yet I was taught by the Americanized Jodo Shinshu school of
inauthentic Buddhism that was so much a part of my upbringing: "all people should cultivate roots of virtue
according to their natures, their deeds, and their beliefs."
That is to say, I was the best disingenuous Buddhist I could be.
But I didn't come out of the experience with anything like Leonard Cohen's “A Thousand Kisses Deep.” I did
write some lyrics after to test my Dharma level:
Immersed in the bondage of desire,
the Buddha murmured
in a leathery voice, a parable
in a cleat cleared of heather,
in the bondage of tragic temp paralysis,
in the x-ray of a comic prop,
the Buddha taught aptitudes,
etudes, jumping to: navigation,
practice makes perfection,
she was wearing some white confection,
she was weariest at her most beautifying,
life is endless, a FICA that annotates
Buddha, who tea cozy and waddling
who simp and poinsettia,
demonstrates that isagogic loganberries
Isabella, is whatshername, whalebone.
Figure out what that means, and you will become more present in your life.