There is something missing in American Zen

There is something missing in American Zen, and I think it's symbol is the kyōsaku.

My first stay in a monastery was the fall of 1984, the fall practice period just after Zentatsu Richard Baker left the San Francisco Zen Center. I was went to Tassajara Zen Mountain Monastery from the Santa Cruz Zen Center and at the age of 26 I was quite clueless in just about everything. I recall very many community meetings, with lots of strong emotions and lots of tears. One small little bit on the emotional landscape was the rejection of the kyosaku. I was still trained to carry it, but it seems that over the years it's role has diminished to an ornament in the zendo and it's rarely now seen in community zendos.

The kyōsaku is a hardwood stick, about 3 feet long, rather round on one end and more flatish on the other, and quite sturdy. It's carried buy a student who walks slowly inside the meditation hall. Basically, if a student looks sleepy the kyosaku is placed on the meditators shoulder to wake them, then they both bow, and then the meditator gets struck on the back/shoulder. WACK! Everyone wakes up!

I was told that Suzuki Roshi, the founder of the San Francisco Zen Center would send kyoskus that had broken in use back to the Japanese Soto Zen Organization to prove to them that authentic Zen was being practiced here. "Look! Very strong practice!"

I think of it as a symbol of the Japanese physical approach to practice. Apparently, their monasteries are very physically arduous with malnutrition, frostbite, injuries and extensive, very strict ways to do everything ("the forms").

An attempt was made to import some aspects of this spirit into the US but with the breakdown of the authoritarian abbot it rapidly became watered down.

That Fall, my first practice period at Tassajara, many things changed and it was the beginning of the end of the for the kyōsaku. In a more democratic, inclusive, feminized (is that OK to say?) American Zen practice there is no place to hit one another.

It should be said that the kyōsaku is not a punitive tool. It is usually referred to as an expression of compassion: it helps everyone wake up and can lossen up tight shoulders. But modern american Zen aims to be widely inclusive and supportive of even the more sensitive individuals who may have been physically abused in the past. So the kyōsaku is rarely seen. It is a symbol of changes from a quite physically challenging environment to one that is supportive of even the most delicate members.

I want to be quite clear that I am all for these changes and do not advocate going back.

But there is now something missing.

The west is contributing so much to Zen: 'humanizing' everything from the administrative structure of the sangha to what one does on the cushion: If shikantaza seems difficult then try counting your breaths. Full lotus hurts? Try half lotus, or the seza bench, or a chair or even lie down. And the intellectuals are also working hard: the bookstore shelfs are taken up with zen and psychology/gender/emotions/eating/punk/women etc. I'm all for a big tent and making new gates to Zen practice. But look at old zen literature: There is a lot of hitting and yelling. We don't do that. Is there something missing?

What is it exactly that is now missing? It is the flavors of physicality and immediacy, a "Just this! Right now!". A smack up side the head. A yell at a funeral service. A fully alive energetic state. The explosive rejection of delusion. It seems to me that this immediate physicality is a defining characterization of Zen practice. We sit physically upright, facing reality and express enlightenment in this very moment.

With the fall of the kyōsaku we have rejected the Eastern expression if it, but how do American zen teachers and students express it?

I think the Alexander Technique can play a role here.

The practice of the AT is actually pretty simple: it has only two parts and first part is "Stop". Just stop. "Stop end-gaining" is pure Zen. American Zen needs to embrace "Stop!". Stop with your end-gaining. Stop with your bullshit. Stop running away, stop hurting yourself. Stop being afraid.

Is "Stop!" is the Western kyōsaku? What do you think?