The Sanbôkyôdan (Three Treasures Association) is a contemporary Zen movement that was founded by Yasutani Hakuun (1885-1973) in 1954. The style of Zen propagated by Sanbôkyôdan teachers, noteworthy for its single-minded emphasis on the experience of kenshô, diverges markedly from more traditional models found in Sôtô, Rinzai, or Oobaku training halls. ... There is little in Kapleau's book to suggest that his teachers were anything but respected members of orthodox Zen monastic orders. Yet such was not the case, for in 1954 Yasutani Hakuun (1885-1973), the Zen priest whose teachings are featured in The Three Pillars of Zen, severed his formal ties to the Sôtô school in order to establish an independent Zen organization called the Sanbôkyôdan, or "Three Treasures Association." The influence exerted by this contemporary lay reform movement on American Zen is out of proportion to its relatively marginal status in Japan: modern Rinzai and Sôtô monks are generally unaware of, or indifferent to, the polemical attacks that Yasutani and his followers direct against the Zen priesthood. Orthodox priests are similarly unmoved by claims to the effect that the Sanbôkyôdan alone preserves the authentic teachings of Zen. ...
The only acceptable "solution" to the mu kôan in the Sanbôkyôdan is a credible report of a kenshô experience, and beginning students are subject to intense pressure during sesshin -- including the generous application of the "warning stick" (kyôsaku or keisaku) -- in order to expedite this experience. The unrelenting emphasis on kenshô and the vigorous tactics used to bring it about constitute the single most distinctive (and controversial) feature of the Sanbôkyôdan method. Eido Shimano, recalling Yasutani's first sesshin in Hawaii in 1962, writes:
The night before sesshin started, Yasutani Roshi said to the participants, "To experience kensho is crucial, but we are so lazy. Therefore, during sesshin we have to set up a special atmosphere so that all participants can go straight ahead toward the goal. First, absolute silence should be observed. Second, you must not look around. Third, forget about the usual courtesies and etiquette" . . . He also told the participants, and later told me privately as well, of the need for frequent use of the keisaku. That five-day sesshin was as hysterical as it was historical. It ended with what Yasutani Roshi considered five kenshô experiences.
(Nyogen et al. 1976, pp. 184-85)[28]
While Yasutani's successors are considerably more reserved in their use of the kyôsaku, the emphasis on kenshô has not diminished, prompting one student of Yamada to refer to the San'un Zendô as a "kenshô machine" (Levine 1992, p. 72).
Students who do succeed in passing mu, along with a number of kôans used specifically to test the veracity of the experience (such as the "sound of one hand"), are publicly recognized in a jahai ceremony -- an offering of thanks to the congregation. This rite, which is performed at the end of a sesshin or other group gathering, begins with everyone formally seated in the zendô. A senior member leads the celebrant(s) to the altar, where each is handed a stick of incense. The celebrants make individual offerings of incense and bow three times to the altar, whereupon they walk to the opposite end of the hall and bow three times to the rôshi. They then circumambulate the zendô, hands folded in gasshô (palms pressed reverentially together), and each seated member of the assembly bows as they pass by. The celebrants make a final bow at the altar, and a group recitation of the Heart Sutra concludes this otherwise silent ceremony.[29]
Upon passing mu the practitioner receives a booklet containing the collection of "miscellaneous" kôans that immediately follow mu. And last but not least, the student is presented with a sort of "diploma," consisting of a shikishi [5] -- (a square card used for formal calligraphy) with the character mu brushed in the center, signed and dated by the rôshi.
The rôshi will remind the student, both in private interviews and in public talks, that kenshô is only the first small step along the path to full awakening. Be that as it may, the Sanbôkyôdan treats kenshô as a significant achievement. Upon attaining kenshô students are publicly lauded in the jahai ceremony, and encouraged to write a report of their experience for publication in Kyôshô. The names of post-kenshô students are clearly marked with a circle on sesshin seating plans, and as mentioned above, a second zendô may be provided allowing the post-kenshô group to practice apart from the others. Finally, pre- and post-kenshô students are often listed separately in the sesshin reports that appear in Kyôshô. (Note that each of these practices are Sanbôkyôdan innovations -- there are no public rites of passage marking the attainment of kenshô in Sôtô or Rinzai monasteries.)
Following the teacher's authentication of kenshô, Sanbôkyôdan students move through a program of 600 to 700 kôans following a format set by Harada based in part on traditional Rinzai models. The practitioner first tackles the "miscellaneous kôans," which consist of approximately twenty-two kôans in fifty-seven parts. He or she then moves through the Mumonkan, Hekiganroku, Shôyôroku, and Denkôroku [?MÆ] kôans, followed by Tôzan's five ranks (Tôzan goi), and three sets of precepts.[30]
Whereas passage through mu requires nothing short of kenshô, passage through the remaining kôans is relatively straightforward. After formally approaching and bowing to the rôshi the Sanbôkyôdan student recites his or her kôan, and then presents (or "demonstrates") his or her understanding. If the answer is deemed satisfactory, the teacher himself may supply a more "traditional" response. All of this is more-or-less typical of Rinzai practice today. However, Sanbôkyôdan teachers do not use jakugo (capping phrases) -- set phrases culled from classical Chinese literature used to test and refine a monk's understanding of a kôan.[31] Moreover, unlike Rinzai monks, Sanbôkyôdan practitioners are not required to compose written expositions of the kôans in the latter stages of their training.[32] The Sanbôkyôdan has, in short, sharply curtailed the explicitly "literary" aspects of kôan training.
As a result, once they have passed mu Sanbôkyôdan students tend to move through the remaining kôans at a relatively rapid pace, often completing one kôan per interview. With regular access to a teacher and frequent participation in sesshin, a practitioner can complete the entire course of post-kenshô kôans in approximately five years. At the same time, if the rôshi feels that there are inadequacies in the student's training, he may reassign certain kôans in dokusan (including mu), and Yamada led periodic study groups (kenshukai) for advanced students in which he reviewed the kôans in a more seminar-like setting.
Once the kôans are complete, students proceed through a series of higher certifications that allow them to teach and may eventually result in Dharma transmission. There is considerable ambiguity in this regard, however, in part because the Sanbôkyôdan draws simultaneously from Sôtô and Rinzai conceptions of transmission -- conceptions that are not always compatible with one another. This is responsible in part for the controversy over the teaching authority of Yamada's senior disciples that emerged following his death, an issue to which I will return below.
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