Chants
People think of Zen as just sitting and meditating. Zen is after all the Japanese pronunciation of a Chinese word, ch'an, which comes from a Sanskrit root meaning "absorption" or "meditation." And it is true that meditation is at the heart of Zen, or at least it is in the Soto Zen tradition that I practice.
However, there are other important aspects of Zen too such as studying traditional texts, soji (practice through work), ceremonies which usually revolve around chants, practice discussions with a teacher, and aspects of communal living such as eating together.
At the San Francisco Zen Center where I practice I’ve noticed that a lot of new people will join for meditation, which happens first in the morning, but then leave before the service where we chant. I think this is because meditation has become common and accepted in popular culture but chanting can feel weird and culty to Westerners who did not grow up with Zen. But that’s a shame as there is a lot of power in chanting too.
In today’s lesson I hope to introduce chanting. In future lessons I will dive into specific chants to make them more accessible. I’m only going to talk about what I know from the San Francisco Zen Center, but I think this is more or less the same in any Soto Zen Center you go to in the West.
The basics of chants:
Firstly, let me say that chanting can be quite confusing at first:
Chants can be quite short of quite long, ranging for 20 or so words to several pages of text
Chants can be in Japanese, English or in some language that no one understands anymore (forrealzies)
Some chants you receive a book to follow along, others you don’t
Some are accompanied by a drum, others are not
Some you bow during, others you do not
But the important thing is that you are always chanting in a group, and if you get lost you can either just follow along with the group or just stop chanting until you catch up and that’s fine. If you decide to join in for chanting just do your best and everyone appreciates it, even if it isn’t perfect.
So, if you decide to go to a Zen Center for meditation, I hope you will consider staying on for service some time and joining in the chanting. Of course, it’s totally fine not to, but I think you might surprise yourself if you do.
Next lesson I will cover the basic types of chants.
For further reference, Zen priest, teacher, and scholar Charlie Pokorny, has an essay titled"On Soto Zen Liturgy as Practiced at Tassajara" that dives deeper into this topic. Tassajara is a sister practice community to San Francisco City Center (where I practice) and the service is longer than the one offered at City Center, but the majority of its components are similar.
