I don't know Rev. Thew-Forrester. I don't know anything about changing
the liturgy, or reading from the Quran, or the literal existence of
Satan. I know even less about electoral procedures for selecting a bishop. But I have spent a good deal of time reading & thinking
about Zen, and Buddhism, and the Episcopal church in which I was raised. I'm not an expert. I'm not a practitioner. But I've think I know enough to offer 2 cents worth.
Zen isn't a religion. It's a practice. Firstly, it's a way of stilling yourself -- physically, mentally, and emotionally. Practice enough, and one can get one's conscious mind to quit yammering, if only briefly. Why bother? So you can devote the time and effort that was going to yammering, into something useful. Maybe what you devote it to is prayer. Maybe it's self-examination. Maybe it's playing saxophone, or raking gravel, or scrubbing toilets. Doesn't matter, because you're doing it with your full attention. If you play music, and practice enough, you might have had the experience of performing something and being completely subsumed in it. You weren't consciously playing your instrument, or thinking about the music -- you just played, and music emerged. Zen meditation is like that. Instead of practicing an instrument so that it no longer "gets in the way of making music," you practice stilling yourself so that you no longer "get in the way" of whatever you're doing.
Secondly, (and this is mostly my personal opinion, but I think it reasonably accurate) Zen is a way of gaining access to alternate means of apprehension. Humans, unlike any (other) animal, have that constantly yammering forebrain. It's normal for us. In fact, it's so deeply normal that we don't question it anymore than we think about not having fingers that curl in both directions. It just is. So, to get to a point where you can still the yammering, you have to learn to think in a radically different manner. In fact, I suspect "think" is the wrong word. Regardless, you can't get there without challenging assumptions that are fundamental to our common understanding of how humans work. Lacking a Vulcan Mind-Meld, your teacher can't just tell you how to think in this radically different manner. All he can do is give you problems that are designed to constrain your "normal" thinking, to put your understanding into a place where it doesn't work, forcing your unconscious assumptions into view. You have to actually recognize that your understanding doesn't work, then notice the subtle shadows cast by your assumptions, recognize your assumptions, then overcome them. If you do that, then you will immediately apprehend that the lessons your teacher gave you were "false" (that is, constructed to disagree with your normal worldview in such a way to encourage you to examine that worldview). But, you didn't go to your teacher to learn the "false" lesson. He couldn't give you a "true" lesson, so he gave you the means to construct the "true" lesson for yourself. You gained the thing you sought from your teacher, without him ever communicating it to you directly. You now have access to the alternate means of apprehension. You can now act from that apprehension.
I think it's this second point that gets Rev. Thew-Forrester in difficulty. A Buddhist might call that moment of apprehension, "Enlightenment." Or, "recognition of the buddha-nature in the self." A Christian might call it "Communion." Or, "recognizing the unity of God and receiving unity with God." A "Zen Episcopalian," then, isn't someone trying to think "What Would Jesus Do?" He isn't even someone trying to know what Jesus would do. He's trying to become someone who simply does what Jesus would do. Becoming that someone forces him, or anyone, to treat the lessons he receives from his teachers as deeply (I want to say "deep, before the Dawn of Time" in an Aslan voice) questionable. That's going to make people uncomfortable. I not an Episcopalian, so I can't say if his path to God is acceptable for a priest or bishop under Episcopalian rules. But I thought I might be able to contribute a perspective that would allow Episcopalians a better-informed conversation about that decision.
Zen isn't a religion. It's a practice. Firstly, it's a way of stilling yourself -- physically, mentally, and emotionally. Practice enough, and one can get one's conscious mind to quit yammering, if only briefly. Why bother? So you can devote the time and effort that was going to yammering, into something useful. Maybe what you devote it to is prayer. Maybe it's self-examination. Maybe it's playing saxophone, or raking gravel, or scrubbing toilets. Doesn't matter, because you're doing it with your full attention. If you play music, and practice enough, you might have had the experience of performing something and being completely subsumed in it. You weren't consciously playing your instrument, or thinking about the music -- you just played, and music emerged. Zen meditation is like that. Instead of practicing an instrument so that it no longer "gets in the way of making music," you practice stilling yourself so that you no longer "get in the way" of whatever you're doing.
Secondly, (and this is mostly my personal opinion, but I think it reasonably accurate) Zen is a way of gaining access to alternate means of apprehension. Humans, unlike any (other) animal, have that constantly yammering forebrain. It's normal for us. In fact, it's so deeply normal that we don't question it anymore than we think about not having fingers that curl in both directions. It just is. So, to get to a point where you can still the yammering, you have to learn to think in a radically different manner. In fact, I suspect "think" is the wrong word. Regardless, you can't get there without challenging assumptions that are fundamental to our common understanding of how humans work. Lacking a Vulcan Mind-Meld, your teacher can't just tell you how to think in this radically different manner. All he can do is give you problems that are designed to constrain your "normal" thinking, to put your understanding into a place where it doesn't work, forcing your unconscious assumptions into view. You have to actually recognize that your understanding doesn't work, then notice the subtle shadows cast by your assumptions, recognize your assumptions, then overcome them. If you do that, then you will immediately apprehend that the lessons your teacher gave you were "false" (that is, constructed to disagree with your normal worldview in such a way to encourage you to examine that worldview). But, you didn't go to your teacher to learn the "false" lesson. He couldn't give you a "true" lesson, so he gave you the means to construct the "true" lesson for yourself. You gained the thing you sought from your teacher, without him ever communicating it to you directly. You now have access to the alternate means of apprehension. You can now act from that apprehension.
I think it's this second point that gets Rev. Thew-Forrester in difficulty. A Buddhist might call that moment of apprehension, "Enlightenment." Or, "recognition of the buddha-nature in the self." A Christian might call it "Communion." Or, "recognizing the unity of God and receiving unity with God." A "Zen Episcopalian," then, isn't someone trying to think "What Would Jesus Do?" He isn't even someone trying to know what Jesus would do. He's trying to become someone who simply does what Jesus would do. Becoming that someone forces him, or anyone, to treat the lessons he receives from his teachers as deeply (I want to say "deep, before the Dawn of Time" in an Aslan voice) questionable. That's going to make people uncomfortable. I not an Episcopalian, so I can't say if his path to God is acceptable for a priest or bishop under Episcopalian rules. But I thought I might be able to contribute a perspective that would allow Episcopalians a better-informed conversation about that decision.
