The brief answer is: it depends on what you mean by ‘religious’. If we see ‘being religious’ as believing in a set of religious doctrines that define belonging to a particular religion, then I would say the answer is ‘no’.¹ If by being religious we are implying that we would have faith in something more than just what we know now, I would have to say ‘yes’.

There are two reasons why faith cannot be left out of Zen practice. Firstly, I don’t believe that the Sōtō Zen tradition can be separated from the Buddhist tradition as a whole. And despite attempts from some to be selective and create a western form of ‘secular Buddhism’, the Buddhist tradition usually implies some form of faith in its various forms.²  This is especially true in terms of actual Buddhist practice. It is just about possible to write an academic book about Buddhism and say its doctrines are ‘secular’ in many ways. But this leaves out the important fact that Buddhism is actually practiced by living people. Who, in whatever tradition, regularly make devotional offerings, follow various forms or preceptual guidelines and practice some form of meditation.

The second reason is that faith in the Buddhist practice in the tradition I know (Sōtō Zen) is inseparable from its main practice of zazen or meditation. Zazen is an expression of faith. We meditate facing a blank wall, and just sit, neither following thoughts or rejecting them. We don’t do anything else. If we already knew everything, if we were satisfied with our lives as they are, there would be no reason to do zazen. And if Zen was solely a form of mindfulness training, designed to enhance our health or wellbeing, then the meditation would be guided in some way, and there would be a definite aim. But the practice is formless: we sit with an open mind, without expectation. In the end there are no techniques, or ways of getting somewhere. We even have to give up the idea of the self as a separate being that must achieve something.  If practicing this doesn’t imply a faith, I don’t know what does.

What this ‘something’ is, Zen teachers are very cagey about pinning down with words. Perhaps because it sets up an expectation in our minds, and that is precisely what we want to avoid. But in one famous poem by a Zen master, it is called ‘Faith in mind’. The ‘mind’ in this case being represented by the Chinese ‘Shin’ character – meaning ‘heart-mind’. This is broader than the intellectual mind (although it includes it), and implies that the wish for understanding is itself already an expression of ‘mind’.

For me, this is the basic faith that if I drop my judgements and opinions, I will come to know a truth that will help overcome the sense of separation and dissatisfaction that seems to rule my life at times. It is faith because the very simplicity of the practice implies that what I will ‘gain’ is not the addition of another set of beliefs and doctrines to prop me up; it is rather that by dropping everything, what I actually need will be revealed. As Dōgen puts it “All you have to do is cease from erudition, withdraw within and reflect upon yourself. Should you be able to drop off body and mind naturally, the Buddha mind will immediately manifest itself.”³

My first encounter with Sōtō Zen and meditation was with a Zen monk in a library near Leeds where evening meditation instruction was being offered by a small local group. I remember my first words to the monk as something like: “I only want to learn meditation, I’m not interested in being a Buddhist … etc”. I was somewhat defensive, looking back on it. How then did I end up becoming a Buddhist monk and Abbot of a Buddhist Monastery? Other people see me as a religious person, and according to some definitions, I have to admit I probably am. But I haven’t undergone any subtle mind control to disable my rational faculties, (as far as I know!) In some ways I recognize in myself the same skeptical mind that I displayed in my first encounter with Zen practice.

So I know from my own life experience that ‘faith in mind’ does not mean a rejection of the intellectual faculties that enable us to make rational choices. It does not involve an unquestioning devotion to a historical person or living person. It does not involve a blinkered adherence to a set of religious doctrines either.

It is not surprising that I was somewhat afraid of some aspects of religion in my 20s when I started meditating, and wanted to distance myself from them. In Bradford in the late 1980s, I witnessed Salman Rushdie’s book The Satanic Verses being publicly burnt in a square in the centre of the Town. Windows of bookshops were smashed. It seemed violence was being justified in the name of religious beliefs. (Although I hasten to add, this violence was carried out by a very small minority. I knew a lot of ordinary Muslims in Bradford, as I taught English to them as a volunteer at the time, and like me, they were shocked and dismayed at what happened).

I am still skeptical about religious claims of absolute truth, but what has remained after thirty or so years of practice is a sense of the value of faith, or trust. And according to many definitions, faith is one important aspect of ‘being religious’. There are many accounts of the value of religion, but this is one I can relate to:

Religion is at its best when it helps us to ask questions and holds us in a state of wonder – and arguable at its worst when it tries to answer them authoritatively and dogmatically.⁴

The wonder Karen Armstrong talks about is an aspect of faith. Many of the overtly ‘religious’ aspects of Zen are ways of expressing and showing gratitude for this wonder. Bowing is one example, and making various offerings in ceremonies such as memorials is another. They express and confirm something. But these aspects of Zen practice such as bowing, that we can call ‘devotional’ are not done out of fear or as some means of subservience. I’ve come to see how they arise out of the basic faith. I have to admit I don’t know everything. In fact I often don’t even know what to do next. Bowing seems to be a physical acknowledgement of this recognition of some basic humility and realism. It is not anti-rational. More and more it seems that it is the subtle forms of hubris that are obviously irrational and destructive.

I need to work on my tendency to see myself as a separate being that is in control all the time. Bowing has become part of the recognition of connection and dependence on everything around me. It now seems both devotional and realistic and rational to acknowledge these connections and work within them. Is there a hard and fast separation between what we call devotion and reason? Is it not sometimes ‘reasonable’ to feel gratitude and wish to express it?

Another aspect of ‘being religious’ is sometimes seen as following religious observances or practices.  I have met many people who are attracted to Zen because it doesn’t seem to emphasize elaborate ceremonies or rituals. There is a spectrum even within Sōtō Zen, but most Sōtō Zen temples and monasteries, including Throssel Hole Buddhist Abbey, do some kind of chanting after meditation in the morning, and have other Scriptures that are recited during mealtimes and other daily activities.

‘Rituals’⁵ were one of the things I was afraid of when I first asked a monk about zazen. I think the fear came from a sense that I would be required to do something that made no sense at all. That I would have to suspend belief indefinitely and my basic autonomy would be undermined. My early experience of local meditation groups affiliated to the OBC helped me to approach formal ceremonies with an open mind. I was encouraged to just try practices like bowing, and leave any final decision ‘on the back burner’. This was different from telling me I had to destroy my doubts, and reassured me that I wasn’t just being asked to take part in a kind of ‘magic’. Engaging with what was going on in a ceremony brought about change. It was not a matter of doing some esoteric actions to manipulate the world in some way, but choosing to change my own mind by taking part.

One of the verses we learn at Throssel is the mealtime verse, which goes:

We must think deeply of the ways and means by which this food has come, we must consider our merit when accepting it. We must protect ourselves from error by excluding greed from our minds. We will eat lest we become lean and die. We accept this food so that we may become enlightened.

To say this verse, either aloud or to yourself, is not just a formal ritual in the sense that it must be done in the same way in the same particular situation to make something spiritual happen. When I travel on the train and eat some sandwiches I’ve made, I just say the verse to myself. Its ‘efficacy’ is in reminding myself of where the food came from and all that was involved in making it, and in some ways what my purpose is. It’s just a pointer back, a reminder that I don’t exist just to consume. In this way, traditional forms can be very helpful, but they cannot be imposed upon us, nor are they required to define us. I choose to say the verse because it helps. Although some ceremonies are more formalized than this, the principle is the same.

There is another aspect of faith that seems critical in our current times when the climate emergency is all too apparent. In the face of seemingly continuous ‘bad news’, it is easier to despair, and I’ve read recent reports about the prevalence of ‘doomscrolling’ or ‘doomsurfing’, defined as “the act of spending an excessive amount of time reading large quantities of negative news online.”⁶

Religious beliefs can often be equated with an unrealistic optimism in the future: that regardless of anyone’s actions all will somehow be resolved in some future divine intervention. Or that the worthy will be saved and reborn in a version of heaven.  But what I call faith does not need to take this form.

Several authors have made a distinction between a kind of false hope that just ignores difficult trends and a hope that emphasizes the value of our actions in the present. I like the way some Buddhist-inspired authors have distinguished between artificial optimism and ‘active hope’. Active hope is “as a state of being in the present in which one acts regardless of outcome”.⁷ To act with the intention to ‘do only good’, but at the same time to relinquish expectations about outcome, does seem to be a useful definition of active hope – a hope that to me implies faith.

We are faced with choices every day, and the goals we have and the values that come from faith are important. They can help motivate us and give coherence to our actions. For example if we aim to move towards carbon neutral it provides a framework for action that can be followed through by reducing the use of particular fuels. At the Abbey we have recently installed 24 solar photo-voltaic panels that reduces our reliance on fossil fuels. We may not know for sure what the outcome of such actions will be; but there is nothing wrong with hoping we make a contribution.

The problem is more the grasping onto definite results, and then the tendency to measure our achievements in a way that can be artificial. I believe that many of these problems arise because of a false sense of separation that we must then overcome.

We have an underlying sense that we are separate beings that have to move through time to achieve some goal in the future. That we are individual beings going from A to B. Things that stop us doing this become obstacles to be overcome, and if we overcome many obstacles we can perhaps feel heroic about it. Zen practice is a practice of faith because it allows us to act towards goals but without this framework of a separate ‘me’ that goes from A to B. In Buddhism, giving, or ‘dana’, for example, is seen as good in itself, and the founder of Sōtō Zen, Dōgen commented on this:

If you are to practice giving to yourself, how much more so to your parents, wife, and children. Therefore you should know that to give to yourself is a part of giving. To give to your family is also giving. Even when you give a particle of dust, you should rejoice in your own act, because you correctly transmit the merit of all buddhas, and for the first time practice an act of a bodhisattva. The mind of a sentient being is difficult to change. You should keep on changing the minds of sentient beings, from the first moment that they have one particle, to the moment that they attain the way.

This should be started by giving. For this reason giving is the first of the six paramitas. Mind is beyond measure. Things given are beyond measure. Moreover, in giving, mind transforms the gift and the gift transforms mind.⁸

The value of actions like giving cannot be proven in the same way that a scientific experiment can prove something, so there is faith involved here. This faith, for me, is based on the experience of meditation. Zazen has shown me that each moment is complete, and that concerns about how I will be seen in the future are just additional thoughts.  This applies to the moment of giving as well. There is no need to measure ourselves in terms of something we can count and assess. Just doing our best to improve things, is the demonstration and activity of faith that does not require an external measurement to justify itself.

So, Zen practice does not require the suspension of our critical faculties or rigid adherence to a fixed set of doctrines and rituals, or a forced kind of optimism that ignores disturbing facts. If these are what puts you off religion, then you don’t need to worry. In my own experience none of these are required.  My fear that they may be required was based on a false view of the role of faith in religion.

Zen practice does require a certain kind of faith. This faith is open-ended. It does not need to be ‘faith in a particular thing’. But it does need the willingness to sit down, face a wall, calm your mind and be open. This is not easy, and I found it very difficult as a beginner and still do. So I am not trying to make religion or faith ‘easy’. It was, and still is, one of the most difficult things I know, and also the most rewarding.

For example, this morning when I sat in meditation, I found it difficult to face the anger and confusion that was swirling around my head as a result of some events of the previous day. I had to just keep sitting in the midst of it all, resisting the temptation to get up and just pace around. It sometimes seems that I will do almost anything but face up to things and acknowledge my mistakes. This radical honesty seems to be what makes zazen difficult at times.

The ‘reward’ from zazen is harder to define. Sometimes it is just a subtle sense of there being ‘more’. That what is here and now, is not only my confusion, there is more. Sometimes there is a more concrete sense that I am being helped, but by what, I don’t know. I don’t feel I need to call this a transcendent being or bodhisattva, or even something internal I could call ‘buddha nature’. ‘It’ somehow does not require definition. This lack of definition at first seems just frightening. As I’ve gone on it sometimes still appears frightening, but also awe-inspiring. I’m not sure if it will ever be ‘easy’, but there can be no wonder without risk. This open-ended faith just keeps opening out, past any comfortable definitions we may construct.

On this level the practice perhaps goes past definitions of what it means to be ‘religious’ or not. All attempts to define the truth in relation to externals have to be abandoned. However, if we reject all aspects of the religious life before we even begin, we cannot get to this place.

When I first asked for instruction from a Zen monk, I said I only wanted to learn meditation. But that first step seemed to lead to a shift in perspective. We can only take one step at a time. But looking back on my own practice I can now see that faith was always there.

Notes

1. See definitions of religion that often refer to beliefs: “a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.” (Dictionary.com). Others are religion noun: “[uncountable] the belief in the existence of a god or gods, and the activities that are connected with the worship of them, or in the teachings of a spiritual leader.” (Oxford Learner Dictionary).
2. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_Buddhism. Stephen Batchelor’s two works are representative: Buddhism Without Beliefs and Confession of a Buddhist Atheist.
3. From Great Master Dōgen, Rules for Meditation.
4. Karen Armstrong, Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life (New York: Anchor Books, 2010), 118.
5 I.e. Brittanica.com definition: 1: a formal ceremony or series of acts that is always performed in the same way [count] a religious ritual an ancient fertility ritual The priest will perform the ritual. [noncount] He was buried simply, without ceremony or ritual. 2 : an act or series of acts done in a particular situation and in the same way each time [count]
6. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomscrolling
7. In Macy, Joanna: Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in without Going Crazy, for example.
8. Kazuaki Tanahashi (ed). The Treasury of the True Dharma Eye, Zen Master Dōgen’s Shōbō Genzō, (Shambhala, 2012) 474.