Young Sherry Chayat This is Me

Education

 Web References

1. 1. International Campaign for Tibet Current News

   www.savetibet.org/news/oct98/1 - [Cached]

   Published on: 10/23/1998   Last Visited: 9/29/2000

   Young Sherry Chayat began finding solace and salvation from troubled times in quiet introspection.
   
   It be not until she was older that she learned there was a name for such a spiritual exercise.
   
   ``I began practicing Buddhism without knowing what it was, ' said Chayat, now an adjunct art instructor at Syracuse University.
   
   ``I was suffering through a very difficult time with a lot of confusion about suffering, and pain, and justice, ' she said. ``It made me start just sitting quietly in nature. I do not know there was an actual practice called Zen until I was in eighth grade and picked up a world civilization culture book.''.
   
   Today, after more than three decades of practice, Chayat is intimately familiar with her chosen path. She has been accorded the highest honor in Buddhist religious life.
   
   Last Sunday, she became one of the first American women to receive official ``transmission'' in the Rinzai Zen sect. That makes Chayat her teacher's spiritual heir and links her over the centuries to Buddha Siddhartha Gautama himself, the religion's founder.
   
   In accordance with the Buddhist religious philosophy, Chayat is humble about her achievement, saying it will have little bearing on her everyday life.
   
   ``It is an acknowledgment of a meeting of minds between teacher and student, ' Chayat said. ``But the path itself is endless, and understanding is boundless. And i have just begun.''.
   
   According to the 1998 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, there are about 565, 000 Buddhists in the United States. Worldwide, there are more than 325 million Buddhists. Zen is a branch of Buddhism that focuses on enlightenment through self-examination rather than through Pali scripture.
   ...
   After graduating from Vassar College in 1965, Chayat moved to New York City where she met her teacher, Eido Tai Shimano Roshi. Chayat began practicing formally in 1967.
   
   She came to Syracuse in 1976 after two years at Eido Roshi's monastery in the Catskill Mountains. In Syracuse, Chayat became an affiliate Buddhist chaplain at the university and the abbot at the Syracuse Zen Center, which has about 60 regularly practicing members and another 800 people on its mailing list.
   
   ``Zen is growing, ' Chayat said. ``I think the success of materialism has brought us to a recognition of a deep failure. there be a lot of searching going on.''.
   
   Chayat's students said she deserves the honor she received.
   
   Bonnie Shoultz, a research policy director at Syracuse's Center on Human Policy, started meditating with Chayat during weekly sessions on campus.
   ...
   In the first part of the two-hour ceremony, Chayat entered the Zen Center's renovated carriage house dressed as a pilgrim monk. She faced four barriers, represented by four people who posed one unscripted question each. Next, she moved to a fifth barrier, Eido Roshi himself. After she answered a question from him, he declared her to be his heir by handing her his staff. At most, Zen teachers name only a handful of heirs.
   
   In the second part of the ceremony, Chayat, wearing a ceremonial robe given to her by Eido Roshi, recited an original verse and then gave her first talk as a roshi.
   
   Chayat saw the ceremony not as a personal achievement but as ``an opening up to the truth in the universe.''.
   
   She added : ``It's true that being a dharma heir is a high rank, but the true achievement is to understand that there is nothing to achieve.''.