Sitting with the Death of a (Cherry) Tree

Abstract

Abstract Making use of a case study in the contemporary deployment of Zen Buddhism as a framework for environmental activism and chaplaincy, this article considers the cultural politics and philosophical importance of ‘how Chan became Zen,’ revealing some tendencies towards the hegemony of Japanese cultural preferences in the representation and practice of Zen today. Concretely, it explores the significance of cherry trees as emblems of this tendency. Rather than simply reflecting a cultural or aesthetic preference for cherry blossom in Japanese culture, this article goes further to suggest that exhibiting a preference for any particular species of tree at all might be a distinctive feature of the development of Chan into Zen in the Japanese context, and that this actually represents a philosophical and doctrinal shift in the content of the paired traditions. If true, this observation suggests that the contemporary move to return Chan (rather than Zen) to the center of scholarly and practical attention is more than a correction of names in the international marketplace, but it also has some concrete implications for Buddhist practice today, including in the practice of eco-chaplaincy. Does the (re)turn to Chan mean that we have to give up the privileging of cherry trees? Even more provocatively, if it is necessary to surrender this privilege, might it also be necessary to re-cast Dōgen, the founder of Sōtō Zen in Japan, as Chan descendant rather than primarily a Zen ancestor? Along the way, this article considers the challenges encountered by Zen as a global presence, especially as it encounters indigenous cultures outside Asia. The rapid spread of Zen in North America has created some complicated dilemmas in settler politics and decolonial practice. Once again, the cherry tree emerges as an emblem of these issues.