The Thai Forest Tradition and Ch’an/Zen present themselves as reactions against Buddhist formalism and scholasticism. Along with generating innovative forms, they position themselves, at least initially, as revivalist sects, returning to or continuing the Buddha ’s core teaching through their rigorous practices . Their revolt against mainstream Buddhism shapes their narratives and identity. The Thai Forest Tradition should be understood as a specific movement within a broader tendency, or general social movement , that has flowed through the Buddhist world since its earliest period. This general social movement, the forest tradition, has stood in contrast and some tension with the scholar monk establishment. The polarity has been at play in Buddhist lands other than Thailand, most notably Sri Lanka . Even during the lifetime of the Buddha, a division appeared between those monks who found a comfortable home in urban centers and their often royally funded parks and those who gravitated toward the rigors of life in the forest. By the time Buddhism was fully established in Sri Lanka, the polarity of scholar and forest monk was set.

The affinities that Ch’an/Zen and the Thai Forest Movement display are not explained through the categories of denomination, culture, or historical epoch. Rather it is a shared stance toward mainstream Buddhism, their revival of enlightenment as a living experience, the demand for self-cultivation , and the role of charismatic masters that form a social crucible cooking up surprising similar fare. The teacher student relationship is the dynamic center line that gives definition to both movements, and it is to this interplay that we turn in the following chapter.

Why a social movement ? The study of religious phenomena as social movements has a significant literature. Along with the study of cults and sects, observations of religion as process especially involving the routinization of social actions from an inchoate group to an established church invite a social movement perspective. Yet for intelligible reasons, social movements both in the mind of the scholar and the general public are associated with civil unrest, mass action, and political conflict. Even when the subject matter turns to religious sects and cults or new religious movements (NRMs), the other worldly, individualistic, and mystical groups have been the least studied. This tendency is understandable given the absence of mass constituencies, political programs, formal organization, and, at times, official documents. However, once we broaden the definition of social movement to include networks of relatively few individuals with a shared narrative or meaning system, we are able to approach monks of the forest and mountains as participants in social movements. Here are collectives whose goals and actions are the transformation of the human condition, Buddhist liberation.

The choice of a social movement perspective is based on more than Ch’an/Zen and the Thai Forest Tradition qualifying as social movements. Social Movement theory encourages an understanding of highly motivated agents generating social forms through action. Activity at the margins of the social order and intensely held narratives supersede formal organization and official doctrine . Ch’an/Zen and the Forest Tradition essentially grow from face-to-face interactions that have no official status but are based on choices by the actors. A social movement view brings into focus the telos , or ultimate goal and meaning of actions, and is therefore more suited to understanding individuals and small groups that are not simply replicating officially sanctioned patterns. Human activity is a seen as a project. This notion of project is critical for unpacking the dynamics of the mountain and forest monks. As we shall show, the shared features of the project of the two sects are what “drives” their independently emerging affinities.

The Thai Forest Movement and Ch’an/Zen understood as networks of action constituted by a share project bring into focus the non-institutional aspects, informality, fluidity of their social forms, as well as the vivid personalities that especially characterized the formative stages of the world of the monks and masters of the forests and mountains. Viewed as projects animated by strongly held goals, we can ask pertinent questions. What motivates the actors? What are the sources of legitimate authority? What is the manner of teaching and practice? What constitutes their social cohesion? What are their evolving social forms and doctrines? And as a comparative study, what are the affinities and differences between the Thai Forest Tradition and Ch’an/Zen and how can we account for them? A social movement perspective frames such questions and provides a paradigm for inquiry.

The mountain and forest sects are not only social movements but also revivalist social movements. In what sense can we label these two phenomena revivalist? In the popular imagination, revivalism conjures images of tents on the plains of the American Midwest packed with local enthusiasts, agitated preachers, and hysterical healings. What could be further from the Thai Forest Movement and Ch’an/Zen ? In contrast to the almost rowdy mass event of the American mid-lands, the forest monks offer a silent, solitary image. Ch’an/Zen contrasts with its inwardness and disciplined self-control. Whether in the monastery or their natural habitat, forests and mountains, they could not be further in outer form and tone from popular notions of revivalism.

Academic uses of the term, revivalist , are primarily found in conjunction with fundamentalist reactions to globalization, modernism , and secularism. Movements from the Islamic revival in Malaysia to the cults of the native people in North America have all been examined as efforts to revive a traditional culture facing disruption and domination by an alien power. Revivalism has a strong association in the literature, with fundamentalist responses to a loss of status and power in the globalizing process (Hannigan 1993, p. 2). So in what manner can we dub the Thai Forest Movement arising in a twentieth century expansionist Siam consolidating its control over a chunk of South East Asia and Ch’an/Zen waxing and waning in tandem with the dynasties and empires of the Far East as revivalist?

Like any phenomena, social movements can be labeled in a variety of ways with each designation delineating without necessarily denying other dimensions. Here the term “revivalist ” accentuates how both of these social movements imagined themselves in relationship to the larger Buddhist community and to the historical tradition. Turning to the word itself revivalism or its root to revive is to bring back to life or consciousness or in the case of insentient phenomena to return to existence or prominence anything from an industry to a mode of thought. The key is the word stem ‘re’ which indicates a prior condition being made contemporary.

Both the Thai Forest Movement and Ch’an/Zen understand their project as a continuation/restoration of the essence of Dharma/Dhamma in the face of what they considered to be a decayed and distorted Buddhism. In the context of popular and state supported Buddhism, their reactions seem radical. Therefore, we should not confuse them with revivalist impulses that are primarily concerned with the reinforcement of traditional social forms and norms. Revivalism is not necessarily social conservatism. Calls to practice the original message can be threatening to the status quo. Both mountain and forest monks can be seen as radical revivalists who distinguished themselves from their religious environments, albeit in some different ways, to actualize what they understood to be the original project of Buddhism.

The Ch’an/Zen sect is more complex in its revivalism than their forest brethren. The Thai Forest Movement is a recent twentieth century event whose brief history affords easier generalization and whose proximity to its founding impulse makes clearer its revivalists origins.

Ch’an/Zen on the other hand has a longer history draped over the entire Far East. Relations with the state and with the larger Buddhist sangha have varied. Both scholars and practitioner have labeled Ch’an/Zen as stagnant and degenerate in certain phases of its history including its contemporary condition. Nevertheless, the Ch’an/Zen School evidences an enduring self-presentation and raison d’etre as a revivalist sect. It is notable that the outstanding teachers of Japanese Zen all positioned themselves as reformers. Dogen , Bankie , and Hakuin all found the institution of Zen wanting and harkened back to the great ancestors of India and China as their true ancestors. Zen’s self-definition, despite its organizational collusion with Imperial Buddhism, remained that of a revivalist project bringing forward the essential practice/awakening of the Buddha .

The Thai Forest Tradition has battled accusations that it is a Trojan horse insinuating royal authority in to the restive regions of Lanna and Isan. Certainly after an initial phase of mutual suspicion, the forest monks and the Thammayut sect realized the mutual advantage of a royally supported mission. Forest masters were declared national saints. Major monastic centers were built in the North and North East. Nevertheless, an undercurrent of revivalist tension with the centers of power persists. Informants commented frequently on the debased condition of the sangha. One monk spoke of his distress over the state of the sangha as constituting a barrier to his practices. Others spoke of keeping a low profile with regard to the sangha hierarchy even as they spoke glowingly of teachers and centers that kept their distance from the corruption and maintained a rigorous, pristine practice in remote locales. With pride they noted either the hidden location of their collective boxes or their non-existence in contrast to the aggressive solicitation of funds at other temples. The forest monks continue to hold their revivalist, core values as counter-point to the mainstream, institutional Buddhism.

In labeling forest and mountain monks as revivalist, it is their soteriological project that is identified and chosen as their defining feature. As we shall see, it is this project that gives direction and shape to both movements. Their roughly shared goal and method of pursuit are the source of their remarkably similar features. An understanding of the praxis of these two movements requires recognition of their soteriological project not merely as a static classification or type but as a guiding and germinating dynamic. What drives the masters and the students in the forest and mountains is the thirst for the Buddha ’s one-taste-Dhamma: freedom. To understand the logic of the Thai Forest Movement and Ch’an/Zen is to acknowledge the paramount place of the soteriological quest, which, in their view, sustains and revives Buddhism’s original purpose.

Our study commences with a historical review of the Thai Forest Movement and Ch’an/Zen (Chap. 2). As a general trend within the sangha, the Forest Tradition dates to the time of the Buddha . The role of the aranyawaasii , the forest dwellers, will be traced from the jungles of Northeast India to Sri Lanka and then on to Siam and Southeast Asia. Ch’an/Zen will be discussed in its earliest coalescence in China. In reviewing their genesis stories, their self-view, especially with regards the larger Buddhist community and their primary orientation, will be determined. Both movements are shown to be revivalists with a soteriological-pragmatic project to be carried out through self-cultivation under the direction of charismatic teachers. Next, we examine the teaching tactics employed by the charismatic masters (Chap. 3). These teacher/disciple exchanges are the “living dharma” which constitute the key relationship of the Thai Forest Movement and Ch’an/Zen. The varieties of tactics employed are identified along with their functional consequences for the soteriological project .

The investigation broadens to review the practices and overall style of the two schools (Chap. 4). Core practices such as meditation, alms rounds, work , meals and diet, and the organization of temple life are compared. In style, Ch’an/Zen and the Kammatthana (literally a place of practice, but colloquially designating the Thai Forest Tradition ) are found to contrast along an individualist/collectivist dimension. What they share is a martial spirit and a framing of the spiritual path as a military campaign. The telos of both movements is awakening , enlightenment. In Chap. 5, accounts of awakening events are studied from a phenomenological perspective, that is for their descriptive content, and structurally, or changes reported in the forms and functioning of the mind. Finally, the role of awakening for the social movement is explored.

The theme of the charismatic teacher is approached in Chap. 6 from the records of the lives of the awakened, both auto and biographical. Universal patterns that replicate myths and rituals of passage and quest are identified along with variations within the genre. Ch’an/Zen and the Thai Forest Tradition are found to develop different templates. Sub-lineages of the Forest School also evidence shifts away from more classical hagiography to more modern, naturalistic renderings. Nevertheless, the value of the teacher’s story as critical to the imagined history of the school is affirmed.

Questions of doctrine are examined in the next two chapters. Chapter 7 focuses on the teaching of pure mind . The qualities of pure mind and its related designations as radiant mind, original mind, and natural mind are identified. In light of the controversy within the Theravada, textual sources and contemporary explanations and defenses are presented. In pure mind, mountain and forest monks find common ground. Chapter 8 examines different views of the “view” from the suttas to the recent teaching of the Thai Tradition and Ch’an/Zen . Both schools are found to hold an attachment/pragmatic position on right view underscoring the importance of the soteriological project over fixed dogma. Shifting interpretations of key Buddhist concepts by some forest teachers were also found to imply a reconfigured path and goal .

In Chaps. 9 and 10, our study comes full circle placing both movements back in their historical context. Chapter 9 explores the mix of Buddhist modernism and revivalism . The concept of modernism is clarified and applied. In this context, the controversy over female ordination is discussed. In the concluding chapter, findings are reviewed, and questions are raised about the paradigm of Buddhist studies . A final note offers some reflections on the Thai Forest Movement and Ch’an/Zen from the point of view of a practitioner gazing down two paths that repeatedly intersect and part ways yet seem to head in the same direction.

A question that lurks throughout this study is what is the perspective taken on the phenomenon under study. How are we approaching Ch’an/Zen ? What is meant by Ch’an/Zen and the Thai Forest Movement? More specifically are they an objective, historical social fact defined by demography, historical personages and verifiable behaviors, and institutional relations with other structures? In short, are we viewing Ch’an/Zen and the Forest Movements as “objects” in a social world much the way an outside observer of a plant or a building might analyze those “objects” or are we grasping them with regard to a different dimension? That alternative view is concerned with how the actors present/imagine themselves. The question and the choice between these two views is a classic concern of the human sciences.

The recognition that human beings act, at least ostensibly, on the basis of subjective meanings, both at the level of interaction and under the collective guidance of meaning systems, culture, and ideology, has been central to a view of social phenomena we can call “symbolic.” From this view, it is essential to understand meaning both in how it is articulated and how it shapes the behavior of actors. How do actors imagine themselves and invite others to imagine them. This tradition is a long and varied one reaching back, according to some, to Max Weber but moving forward through G.H. Meade (1967) and symbolic interactionism, Irving Goffman’s (1959) dramaturgical model, and numerous other formulations operating from the same premise: meanings are essential to action and are their own realities, sui generis. How actors, individual and collective, communicate themselves is critical. The relevance to social movements is obvious. Social movements call upon us to do more than identify their demographic and institutional structures. They ask that we enter the world of symbolic meanings that motivate the actors.

This study neither requires nor will attempt to resolve or advance the discussion on the relative value of each view. Both perspectives are involved. At times we will look, for example, at what “really” was the state of Zen as an objective institution, but at other times, the concern will be with how Zen presents itself. What is critical is which point of view predominates at different moments. Both the symbolic and the object perspectives are relevant to the inquiry, but it is the former, the symbolic, which is most often pertinent to this inquiry. In the final analysis, the focus is how Ch’an/Zen and the Thai Forest Movement present and understand themselves which in turn significantly shapes their actions.

Exploring the micro-interactions of teaching tactics , the phenomenology of awakening experiences and the constructed auto/b...