The Social Organization of Zen Practice
Constructing Transcultural Reality

This book, first published in 1998, provides both a first-hand account and a theoretical analysis of the way an American Zen community works.

David L. Preston (Author)

9780521350006, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 24 June 1988

190 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.452 kg

This book, first published in 1998, provides both a first-hand account and a theoretical analysis of the way an American Zen community works. The form Zen practice takes in the United States is described in detail through close study of two Zen groups in southern California. Preston leads readers through the buildings and grounds of a Zen residential community and introduces them to the main forms of Zen practice, paying special attention to the styles and implications of meditation. The book's second half develops a theory of the nature of religious reality as it is shared by Zen practitioners. Preston attempts to explain how this reality - based on a group's ethnography yet at the same time transcending it - relates to meditation and other elements of Zen practice by drawing on the notions of ritual, practice, emotions, and the unconscious found in the writings of Pierre Bourdieu, Randall Collins, Erving Goffman and Emile Durkheim.

Foreword Randall Collins
Preface
Part I. A Sociological View of Zen: 1. Approaching the study of religion
2. On going native
Part II. A Profile of Zen Membership and Formal Orgainzation in Southern California: 3. A profile of Zen membership
4. The physical layout of a Zen center
5. Formal organization and staff
Part III. The Zen Teacher: 6. The teacher
7. Daily schedule
8. Interaction with students
Part IV. What is Zen?: 9. Learning about Zen
10. Varieties of Zen practice
11. Zen viewed sociologically
12. Zen practice
Part V. Meditation as a Social Phenomenon: I: 13. Becoming a Zen practitioner
14. Consequences of meditative practice
15. Becker's model
Part VI. Meditation as a Social Phenomenon II: 16. The social constructionist view
17. Meditation defined
18. Some consequences of meditative practice
Part VII. Doing Zen Meditation: 19. Sudnow's view of improvised conduct
20. Using Sudnow to see Zen practice sociologically
21. The social organization of Zen meditation
22. Problems in Zen practice
23. An experience of sitting meditation
Part VIII. The Social Organization of Zen Meditative Ritual Practice and its Consequences: 24. Bourdieu's concept of habitus
25. Ritual, self-transformation, and reality construction
Part IX. The Meanings of Zen Practice: 26. Subjective (conscious) meaning
27. Objective (unconscious) meaning
Part X. Summary and Conclusions
Appendix
Notes
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Buddhism [HRE]