Domestic Zen: Laywomen's Household Practices in Contemporary Japan

Paula Arai

In this paper, I will present some of my ethnographic findings on the broad array of concerns and practices that characterize the domain of domestic Zen. This research is based on consultation with 12 elderly Japanese Buddhist women who practice Zen in Japan. Zen in the daily life of a family is creative and flexible, not regimented and exacting like its monastic counterpart. This sphere of Zen, however, has not received much scholarly attention. One reason is that researchers can gain reasonably ready access to Zen texts and monastic institutions, whereas the practices done by individuals and families in their homes are by their very nature hidden from public view. Moreover, domestic Zen practices are transmitted orally through largely informal networks of personal relationships. Thus, they are not recorded in the written documents that researchers typically examine. As a result, the private Zen observances performed in the home setting have escaped scholarly notice until quite recently.

I will highlight five real life situations that include a range of rituals and practices that my consultants employed as they faced difficulties. These up-close and personal images of Zen demonstrate that family practices of Zen are complex, ritualistic, led by women, and focused on the health and well-being of family members.

The dynamics and contours of domestic Zen are driven and shaped by the circumstances and needs of the family. Highlighting the activities and experiences of women takes us to the core of domestic Zen, for oftentimes women are the center of the family, especially when it comes to daily life tasks, crises, healing, and ritual practices. Their ingenuity is evident in the fact that these practices are rarely dictated from above by Buddhist institutions. The practices women adopt or create are based on the necessities of their lives and do not reflect a concern for observing or maintaining the doctrinal and institutional boundaries of Zen or even of Mahayana Buddhism. It is unsurprising then, that Zen in a domestic context includes rituals and practices from a spectrum of sources.

Rituals serve as conduits for keeping women in touch with the interrelated nature of existence and provide a foundation of stability and clarity that enables them to experience joy, even in the midst of constant change. In their homes, women report that rituals help them when they serve on the frontlines of depression, dementia, and death. Because these practices are woven into the demands of daily family life, they are practical and effective. My consultants’ practices unfold within a Zen Buddhist worldview, but their interest is rarely philosophical. It is practical. Practices need be simple, accessible, inexpensive, portable, direct, and immediate. The most important thing to these women is that the effects of a practice are immediate and direct. From calming down in a moment of crisis, to being compassionately embraced despite an avalanche of tragedy, to being cured after a terminal diagnosis, these women have found empowerment for themselves and their families in their domestic practices.