zen monks

fltnr1

Can zen monks be married? Also,how does one become a zen monk?

Talisman

Some can marry. It depends on the tradition. Join a sangha and express your interest in ordination with the priest. Practice for many years.

Cloud

Marriage and being a monk are opposing goals. Marriages are all about forming and maintaining attachments, from emotional to physical. Being a monk is all about shedding attachments and wrong views.

I suppose a married man could become a monk, but you couldn't be physical with your wife. It's against the monastic rules to have sex and would mean immediate expulsion, I think.

So the short answer is no.

To become a Zen monk, go find a Zen monastery and ask them how.

Hawkins

san fransico zen center has tons o sex

Cloud

If monks or nuns have sex, they're not following anything resembling what the Buddha taught or set up for monastics (even though it's Zen, it would still inherent the major rules), and that form of Zen would be woefully inefficient for the purpose of unbinding.

If they aren't monks or nuns though, and are rather practitioners of another type, that would be something different. That's probably what it is, non-monks/non-nuns that are somewhere between lay Buddhists and monastic Buddhists.

From their website:

Zen Center is a practice place for a diverse population of students, visitors, lay people, priests, and monks guided by teachers who follow in Suzuki Roshi's style of warm hand and heart to warm hand and heart. All are welcome.

That would explain it. I highly doubt the monks have any sexual contact.

seeker242

Some Japanese Zen Monks are allowed to be married, have jobs etc and they are still considered "monks" in that tradition. Monastic rules are different in Japanese Zen and unique to Japanese zen.

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cclergy/documents/rc_con_cclergy_doc_01011993_zen_en.html

Ch-an_noob

Agrees with what cloud said

Can zen monks be married? Also,how does one become a zen monk?

Monks shouldn't be married and still be called monks. Just because they do it in Japan doesn't mean it's right. However, Chinese Ch'an school (original school that later transmitted to Japan) kept authentic Monastic Vinayas.

Like they say, "Precepts are your teacher." Anyway, don't follow what monks are doing, what rules for Monastics did Buddha prescribe?

Do you want to have drug counsellers who uses cocaine regularly?

Shutoku

If monks or nuns have sex, they're not following anything resembling what the Buddha taught or set up for monastics (even though it's Zen, it would still inherent the major rules), and that form of Zen would be woefully inefficient for the purpose of unbinding.

If they aren't monks or nuns though, and are rather practitioners of another type, that would be something different. That's probably what it is, non-monks/non-nuns that are somewhere between lay Buddhists and monastic Buddhists.

From their website:

Zen Center is a practice place for a diverse population of students, visitors, lay people, priests, and monks guided by teachers who follow in Suzuki Roshi's style of warm hand and heart to warm hand and heart. All are welcome.

That would explain it. I highly doubt the monks have any sexual contact.

Suzuki himself was married.
From the introduction to Zen Mind Beginners mind:
" When, four months before his death, I had the opportunity to ask him why satori didn't figure in his book, his wife leaned toward me and whispered impishly "It's because he hasn't had it" ; whereupon the Roshi batted his fan at her in mock consternation and with his finger to his lips hissed "Shhh don't tell him!"

In Japan Zen monks can marry, and so I would think most western Zen monasteries with a Japanese lineage would also allow marriage.

Another example would be Jundo Roshi with Tree leaf, who is married and has a child.

I guess you choose your attachments...and feeling one must be celibate could certainly be seen as an attachment, as could marriage and parenthood. Of course so is yearning for enlightenment.

Cinorjer

Can zen monks be married? Also,how does one become a zen monk?

First, let's talk about what a monk is. We know monks when we see them, because they've got on identical robes and shaved their heads. This is their uniform, an outward sign that they have taken residence and placed themselves under the authority of a temple, joined a brotherhood (and sisterhood) of fellow monks and nuns and taken a more extensive set of vows than the usual lay person.

The exact qualifications, training and duties of the monks differ between orders. The ones I know of have a trial period of maybe 6 months, then again a year or so of intensive schooling and on the job training, and regular evaluations to see if the person is suited for a monk's life. The potential monk might be an older man and already be a husband and father, but if so, the temple would look very hard at the situation before agreeing to accept the man.

A monk's life is really designed for a person unencombered by the responsibility of family. The Sangha is supposed to be their family, where they live and sleep and eat and spend all their energy. Even orders that allow monks to marry still have celebate, active monks and the married monk is sort of semi-retired to taking care of some local temple so he can be with his family.

Some Zen orders now have other offices in the organization instead of the traditional monk, and even the Masters might not be monks. They are more like ordained Priests and Pastors and Teachers. We have to go that route, in the West. For one thing, monks are expensive to keep on top of trying to pay the mortgage and bills to set up a temple. You can't just send them out in the streets to get their food bowls filled with rice anymore.

Also, married monks have another big problem. A temple controls every aspect of a traditional monk's life, but a married monk has two separate roles and the family life is private. Even if all he's doing is running some little local shrine or temple, he and his family might be engaging in conduct the order would find offensive, and they'd never know. For instance, just recently a Buddhist Monk and his family (including his sons and daughters) were accused of sneaking a Korea woman into the US and keeping her as a slave housekeeper, even having her clean the little temple the monk had set up to service the Korean community where they lived in New York. It seems to be from the Jogye order, and those monks have to be dismayed at what was going on without their knowledge.

Here's one link, because I know everyone wants details. Sorry it's so long.

http://www.lhrtimes.com/oak-jin-oh-housekeeper-has-accused-korean-buddhist-monk-kept-as-slave-for-12-years-under-the-threat-of-death.html

Dakini

Zen does allow "monks" to marry, but I agree that they shouldn't be called "monks", which implies renunciation. A new word should be coined for that type of "monkhood". There are sects is Tibetan Buddhism that allow monks to marry. After marriage, they either give back their robes, or wear a variation of the maroon robes that indicate a married state, and they're called "lay lamas".

Cinorjer

In Kwan Um we went through various titles, although we still have the Bhikshu or fully ordained monk. Right now they're using the rather ungainly title of Ji Do Poep Sa Nim for authorized dharma teachers, a lay position.