Because "a message which cannot find its institutional crystal will go up in smoke," (9) mediology studies the constraints exercised by media on messages and the affinities between messages and media. Debray, mediology is a field-and not a new discipline -devoted to the study of agents and processes of symbolic transmission through time and space. Debray's hypotheses might be fruitfully applied to Zen Buddhism in the West. Because the information transmitted is not independent of its double medium, technical or organic." (7) The parallel suggests that some of R. Debray's statement that "to transmit is to reinvent, hence modify. The transition from the East to the Western hemisphere, despite every effort to maintain continuity, inevitably required new versions of Zen." (6) This remark echoes R. Dumoulin's noting that "the Western reception of Zen inaugurated at the start of the century went far beyond the modifications and transformations of its centuries-long history in Asia. How can we make sense of the wide variety of current approaches to Zen Buddhism in a sociological perspective?Ī starting point could be provided by H. Differences in legal, cultural, and social settings in Europe, not to mention lineage specifics or personal characteristics, also challenge any generalization. The diversity of the historical schools and figures known today in Europe under the single term of "Zen" (5) shaped important differences in the "imported" beliefs and practices. Very diverse Zen transmissions were already taking place, so different in personal and cultural aspects that there was no common denomination." (4) It quickly appeared that there was no single European Zen identity. A group of long-time practitioners and teachers gathered to determine whether one could appraise the emergence of a distinctly European Zen practice, a "European Zen." (2) The questions announced in the program were: "What are the indispensable qualities of a genuine Zen, existing in Europe under Europeans conditions? What demands can and should be made on the mediators of a genuine Zen today? What are the forms and structures best suited for the transmission of Zen in Europe?" (3)Īccording to one of the participants, "none of those questions were discussed. It proposes an overview of European Zen organizations and argues that an institutional approach can highlight important aspects of the transplantation of Zen Buddhism into a new culture.Ī serious shortcoming of such an endeavor was pointed out in a 1993 conference held in Stockholm. (1) This paper aims at highlighting patterns of changes and adaptations of Zen Buddhism in Europe. While their American counterparts are well documented in the growing literature on the making of a Western Buddhism, the European groups are less known. Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese teachers have created European organizations in the past forty years, and some of their students have started teaching. Zen has been one of the most attractive Buddhist traditions among Westerners in the twentieth century.
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