Research on the Transformation of Zen in the West

2013 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 23652009
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Religious studies
• Research Institution: Rikkyo University
• Principal Investigator: SATO Migaku 立教大学, 文学部, 教授 (00187238)
• Project Period (FY): 2011 – 2013
• Keywords: 坐禅 / 公案 / 在家 / 臨済宗 / 曹洞宗 / 修行 / 禅キリスト教 / 禅

Research Abstract

How Zen has changed in the West is not monolithic, but different from Zen school to Zen school. The Soto School, as it is in Japan, concentrates itself upon "just sitting," while installing a certain number of priests in the West. It can be described as creating a secondary stream after the main stream in Japan. Also, the Rinzai School has not fully developed its independent activities in the West, mainly because of the difficulties to translate its koan education system in Western languages. In this context, the Sanbo-Kyodan Line, a lay organization, is unique in its experiment of creating a universal Zen, including Christian practitioners, through full translation of its koan system as well as through focusing on the discovery of one's "true self" in Zen practice. How dramatically Zen could be transformed in the future in the West could be best observed, as it seems, when one closely follows the development of the Sanbo-Kyodan Line from now on.