To Believe This or That or No-Thing

Buddhism started not when Shakyamuni had his great revelation by himself. Lots of people had done that before. It began when he made his first efforts to transform that into a communal practice. Buddhism, then, is not something you do by yourself. A few years ago several people sent me emails asking advice about doing solitary retreats. It's odd how this happens. Things like this seem to come in groups, and I never know why. Anyway, four or five people in the span of a month or two came to me with more or less the same question about how to do solitary retreats.

I remember sort of scratching my heard because I really had no idea. None of my teachers ever did that. Dogen never wrote about it. I couldn't think of anything in the Zen tradition that addressed that question. That's when it occurred to me that this is a communal practice. Although you can — and I think you should — do zazen by yourself, that larger thing we call Zen Buddhism is not something you do by yourself. You can do zazen by yourself. You do Zen Buddhism with other people.

And yet Zen Buddhists have no doctrines and no belief system. That's kind of weird. Every church I've ever visited was all about doctrines and belief systems. As far as I'm aware pretty much all mosques and synagogues are too. The Hindu temples that I know of also spend a lot of time and energy making sure that everyone understands their doctrines and believes the same things. In fact, in may forms of Buddhism they do this too and are very concerned all members share a common set of beliefs about the universe and can recite the basic doctrines of their form of Buddhism when asked.

But my teachers never cared if I believed what they believed. They never made any effort to get me to memorize any doctrines or creeds. Dogen in his writings sometimes indicates what he believes about stuff, but he never insists his readers share his beliefs.

---Brad Warner, in Don't Be a Jerk---