Meditation: Practice

As noted in the previous post, meditation has not traditionally associated with Shin Buddhist practice in this country, but is beginning to be incorporated into some temple practices, including ours. 
Socho Ogui, retired bishop of the Buddhist Churches of America gave his thoughts on meditation in Shin Buddhism as well as other experiences of Zen and Shin Buddhist ways of thoughts.  “Having done the Zen style of practice and the Jodo Shinshu style of living,” he said, “they just seem to meld together so that I don’t see any conflict.”

When he was a Shin Buddhist minister in Cleveland, he remembers:  “six out of every ten people who telephoned the temple inquired about learning to meditate.  At first I was a little hesitant.  I didn’t have experience teaching meditation.”  So he would express his regrets and suggest they try someplace else.  Eventually he realized:  “if you keep going like this, losing six out of ten people interested in Buddhism, you’ll bankrupt your store.”  If meditation was the door people wanted to use to explore Buddhism, why not? 

Socho Ogui had been born the son of a Jodo Shinshu priest in Japan, but his father was very good friends with the local Zen priest and they both went around the local village to request donations for the poor.  His father sent him to the Zen temple to live for a summer, perhaps to expose him to the zen life.  And when he visited Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, the zen priest said, “You know, there’s nothing wrong with coming to practice meditation.”  So he did, and it felt like recalling his childhood. 


While Shin Buddhism in this country hasn’t traditionally included meditation practice, in Japan Shin and Zen are sometimes considered different sides of the same coin.  Some Zen masters die with the words Namu Amida Butsu on their lips.  Some Shin Buddhist ministers and temple members sit and meditate at temple weekly or monthly.  Socho Ogui feels that the founders of the various Japanese schools of Buddhism had to identify their uniqueness in order to be recognized by the government in medieval days.  So they made a special effort to establish unique traditions.  But for us, a zen style of practice and a Jodo Shinshu style of living just seem to meld together.