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Among the recently increasing number of publications on Buddhism in France, Eric Rommeluere's Guide du Zen has a very particular place. It is neither a sympathetic general presentation of Buddhism for a wide audience, like Jean-Claude Carrière's best selling La Force du Bouddhisme (Press Pocket, Paris, 1996, first edition in 1994), nor one of the few attempts to analyze the diffusion of Buddhism in contemporary France, like Raphael Liogier and Bruno Detienne's Etre Bouddhiste en France Aujourd'hui (Hachette Littératures, Paris, 1997; see also Dennis Gira's article in Esprit, June, 1997). Eric Rommeluere has previously published an anthology of Chinese and Japanese classical Zen texts, Les Fleurs du Vide (Grasset, Paris, 1995). In the present work, he has written an introduction to Zen practices.
Le Guide du Zen aims at being a repertory of the main Zen centers in the world and a practical guide to Zen-related practices, from Duerckheim's Japanese Sootoo or Rinzai's Zen, to Chinese Ch'an or Korean Zen. It also includes less famous groups related, institutionally or not, to Zen Buddhism. The foreword states quite clearly, "Ce guide ne prétend nullement a l'éxhaustivité," and warns that "il n'appartient pas a l'auteur de décider (quel centre) dispense oû non un enseignement conforme a un Zen authentique qu'il ne saurait ici définir." So this guide does not claim to be exhaustive, nor does it try to define "authentic" Zen or form any judgment on the practices of the centers. Neither is the purpose to provide a directory of all existing centers — however useful that could be — but to give an introduction to Zen practice and centers to Westerners interested in Zen who do not necessarily know much about it.
In less than 300 pages, 247 Zen centers are reviewed, with information provided on their exact location, how to get there, and whom to contact in order to be accepted as a practitioner. The author emphasizes centers where Westerners can practice: almost 80% of those mentioned are in Europe or the United States. Le Guide also includes centers in Asian countries, mainly in Korea and Japan, with a note regarding when one can meditate or just pay a tourist visit.
For each location, there is a short profile of the center explaining its lineage or affiliation, the time of meditations and retreats, and a list of affiliated centers. Illustrated with photos of centers and a few portraits, these profiles are very informative and give a vivid impression of daily life in these various Zen institutions. Inserts on themes like "Zen and Christianity," "the Zen monastic experience," or biographies of the influential Zen teachers give historical or contextual information. Whenever possible, there are bibliographic references about the centers or themes.
At the end of the book, the reader will find a glossary of more frequently used Japanese or Chinese Zen terms. The guide is indeed very handy for anyone wishing to experience Zen meditation, whether in Europe, America, Asia or Oceania. The information provided here may be found elsewhere, but scattered in various sources like specialized sites on the Internet or in the literature of each center.
Due to its format and purpose, this book unfortunately does not explain the author's reasons for choosing the centers listed, leaving the reader to decide whether the omitted centers were forgotten or deliberately excluded. Also from a sociological point of view, the rapidly changing context and diffusion of Zen may necessitate a second edition quite soon. Nevertheless, the Guide is still useful for sociological analysis. For example, even a quick glance at the list gives empirical evidence of the preeminence of Sootoo among the various Zen centers in the West. Part of this may be explained by the Sootoo School's effort to organize training for priests to serve as missionaries outside of Japan. However, the preeminence of the Sootoo tradition in the West seen in the Guide also may reflect the fact that the author, an ordained Sootoo monk since 1981, may have easier access to information about Sootoo schools than to Rinzai centers.
For example, this emphasis may appear in his reference to the prominent Rinzai teacher, Ven. Gesshin Myoko Prabhadasadharma Roshi, who has gained a following in the US and Europe in recent years. Le Guide mentions her American center (International Zen Institute of America, no. 159). Although the commentary points out that "there are other affiliated centers in Germany, Holland and Spain," it gives neither phone numbers nor addresses of those centers. Such information would have provided a better idea of the sociological importance of this lineage, whose followers have grown rapidly (in Germany, for example, some twenty groups and centers have arisen in the five years since their inception).
Again from a sociological perspective, Le Guide may provide a helpful view of the diversity represented in Western Zen schools. For instance, the American list, consisting mainly of the most famous centers, reveals a greater diversity of Zen practices in the UṢ. than elsewhere. Zen practices in the United States range from strict adherence to orthodox Asian methods to the rejection of the label 'Zen'. This diversity may reflect a longer history of interest in Zen practice in North America.
Such history, however, has long needed further elaboration. For example, Soen Shaku (1859-1919), who took part in the World Parliament of Religion in 1893, was the first Japanese Master to teach in America. An historical perspective of this sort has not been discussed in the literature to date. Such a socio-historical work would find Le Guide du Zen, with its landscape of Zen practice in the West, a useful starting point, yet by itself Le Guide would not be sufficient. A deeper effort to gain an analytic understanding of Zen practice in a Western context requires more than Le Guide du Zen's straightforward collection and dissemination of information, valuable as that may be.
