Adapting to Organizational Challenges in American Zen Buddhist Communities

Even though 26% of Americans reporting familiarity with Buddhism and at least 25 to 30 million Americans reporting having contact with Buddhists by 2002, little is known about Buddhist communities in the United States aside from a handful of ethnographies (Wuthnow & Cadge 2004).  Most of our knowledge about Buddhism in America came from accounts of well-known native-born Buddhist teachers (Furlong 1986; Tworkov 1989; Chadwick 1999) or analysis of Buddhist traditions practiced by immigrants and nonimmigrants (Prebish & Tanaka 1998; Cadge 2005).  Survey data tell us about the demographic and social characteristics of Americans who self-identify as Buddhists (Wuthnow & Hackett 2003; Cadge & Ecklund 2006). Scholars of religion surveyed the state of American Buddhism, an emerging subfield in religious studies, examining Buddhist traditions, teachers, practices, and institutions in the United States (McMahan 2008; Prebish & Baumann 2002; Seager 2012).  These studies focus on Buddhist teachings, teachers and practitioners but leave unanswered the question of why some Buddhist communities are doing better at adapting to the rapidly changing landscape of American religion than others and how these organizations evolved to meet the challenge. This study on Zen Buddhist organizations in the United States aims to fill this gap.  

Cadge (2005) started to fill this gap with her ethnographic study of two Theravada Buddhist communities by comparing how the same tradition was practiced in two drastically different ways by focusing her analysis at the organizational level.  Her work points to the importance of each community’s demographic characteristic, organizational structure, and presence of potential competitors (other Theravada Buddhist organizations) nearby in shaping the choices made by each community for it to adapt to its environment and flourish. This study will build on these findings to investigate the ways in which Buddhist communities adapt to the changing characteristics of their members and evolving landscape of American religion over the decades. Specifically, the focus is on the Zen Buddhist communities in the U.S.

Zen is the oldest convert tradition in American Buddhism when their communities were established in the 1960s and 70s as the first generation of native-born Zen practitioners were authorized by their Japanese teachers to be teachers of their Zen communities (Seager 2002).  Since then, Zen has grown into a major part of American Buddhism with teachers from various Zen lineages consistently outnumbering those from other traditions in Buddhist teachers’ conferences.  While Zen is well-known in American popular culture, especially through many accessible accounts of its teachers and what happens in Zen centers (Tworkov 1989; Goldberg 1993; Furlong 1986; Chadwick 1999; Downing 2001), few systematic comparative sociological studies of American Zen have been done.  Preston’s (1988) participant observation of Zen retreat practice provides an in-depth sociological analysis of the social construction of religious experience in and the organizational setting of one Zen center in the 1980s.  Much has changed in the world of Zen Buddhism in the U.S. since then.  How have Zen communities in the United States responded to the changing religious needs of Americans?  In this study, I embark on an in-depth comparative study of the established Zen institutions to help us answer this question.  

I have collected data to provide a systematic account of the changing characteristics of leaders and members, organizational structure and priorities, and culture of four Zen institutions in the U.S. Published works have focused on one of these institutions in northern California which is considered one of the Flagship institutions (Seager 2002), and they were written by admiring students (Chadwick 1999; Goldberg 1993) or investigative journalist on misconducts (Downing 2001) and they are not systematic account tracing that changes over the decades.  No in-depth scholarly research has been conducted on other important Zen institutions established in upstate New York, southern California, and in Oregon. My study will contribute to the literature by filling this gap.  

A mixed method approach is applied starting with participant observation by residing at these Zen centers and following their daily schedule of Zen practice, immersing myself in their ceremonies and work practice and community activities. I spent time at these centers living among their members and attending events and meetings to collect data on the community’s culture and organizational structure and strategies to adapt and flourish. Besides familiarizing myself with the daily operating and culture of each Zen center, I interview current residents and long-time members of the community occupying various roles. To examine organizational change, interviews of long-time members are supplemented by analysis of archival materials such as board minutes, task force reports, financial statements, email exchanges, old programs collected on site. To construct a systematic account, I dive into the archival records kept by these organizations by visiting these centers on the west coast and in upstate New York.  

In this paper, I would like to focus on role played by clergy training in the organizational development in Zen communities. I argue that the decline in the number of people committed to serving as Zen priests in these communities is one of the key factors in shaping the organizational changes in these communities. I will use the four cases I have studied in-depth to examine the changes brought by the organization’s attempts to cope with its clergy shortage and the implications of these changes for their future development.

Wuthnow (1988:28) observed a clergy shortage in Christian churches in the United States during the post-WWII years and the corresponding rise in lay ministers. It appears that American Zen Buddhism is undergoing a similar transition in some communities. To keep the community’s administrative apparatus operating and maintain its financial viability as the number of Zen students entering priesthood declines, changes were made that resulted in the erosion in the distinctiveness of Zen priest’s role in the spiritual life of the community. The experience of the four cases studied here shed light on the multiple paths through which this transition can take place. They represent the continued effort made by Zen communities in the United States to experiment with ways to survive and thrive as Buddhism continues to Americanize and the first generation of native-born Zen Buddhist teachers retire.