Abstract
This paper explores the contribution of Zen storytelling to moral education. First, an understanding of Zen practice, what it is and how it is achieved, is established. Second, the connection between Zen practice and ethics is shown in terms of the former’s ability to cultivate moral emotions and actions. It is shown that Zen practice works at the roots of consciousness where, according to the fundamental tenets of Buddhism, the possibility of human goodness, known as bodhicitta (awakened heartmind), lies. Third, it is suggested that storytelling is a viable and desirable means of moral education. Two examples of Zen stories are introduced, and interpretive commentaries are offered in the service of illustrating the major points made in this article.
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Notes
The literature and scholarship concerning the nature of Zen and related non-ordinary consciousnesses is vast and extremely complex, and lies outside the purview of the present paper. For the purpose of this paper, the authors of this paper will abide by the practice-based teachings and elucidations concerning Zen consciousness by such modern Zen teachers as Thich Nhat Hahn (1998), Sekkei Harada (2008), and Seung Sahn (1982).
The Third Noble Truth states that suffering can cease when the origin of suffering is addressed; and the Fourth Noble Truth states that there is the way to the cessation of suffering.
In Japanese, as in Chinese and Korean, ‘mind’ (心) refers to the integrated ‘mind’ and ‘heart’, thinking and feeling. A better translation of 心 would be ‘mind-heart’ or ‘heart-mind’.
Please read the Parable of the Arrow at http://www.sln.org.uk/storyboard/stories/b13.htm.
Often the examples of Imperial Japanese Army soldiers and officers who were trained in some kind of Zen meditation technique and who committed atrocities and war crimes during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II are mentioned to question Zen Buddhism’s claims to non-violence and compassion. In response, we wish to point out, first of all, that it is erroneous to equate Zen Buddhist cultivation with the concentration technique in Zen meditation, and secondly that, to cite Robert Thurman, Buddhism is ‘a system of education’ whereby humans can become truly and deeply compassionate (Public lecture, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, 2008). We can be sure that the Imperial Japanese Army was not receiving a Buddhist education and training.
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Bai, H., Cohen, A. Zen and the Art of Storytelling. Stud Philos Educ 33, 597–608 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-014-9413-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-014-9413-8