about Japanese Zen in Europe..

[icylake]

hi! everybody.

may i ask a question?
i'm serching for the information about zen centers in Europe for my Korean friend, who is going to france for his study for some years. he would choose Korean temple or Kwan um zen, i think. he's a ardent lay people practitoner of traditional Korean ganhwaseon, but, he is very intereted in other zen traditions also- so to speak japanese zen-, because in Korea, there is few opportunity to experince Japanese zen practice, so he wants to experience other traditions in the West. - it's funny to say, generally Asian pople only know their own traditions, the synthesis of all buddhist traditions is always in the West.
but i found that, almost all of Japanese zen centers in europe are soto zen center, so i became so curious about zen trend in Europe (or US). is Rinzai zen practitoners are much lesser than soto zen? (because when Koreans speak of Japanese zen, we always take Rinzai zen, few people consider soto zen)

thanks in advance!

[floating_abu]

Hi icy

I think you can search Zen centers of the world and a directory would come up showing what major groups there are in Europe. I do not know about the breakdown between Soto and Rinzai groups, and personally, what works is what is good IMO. "works" is another big topic but we can leave that one for another day of course

Best wishes,
Abu

[icylake]

Hi icy

I do not know about the breakdown between Soto and Rinzai groups, and personally, what works is what is good IMO. "works" is another big topic but we can leave that one for another day of course

Best wishes,
Abu

thank you for kind advice! true. "what works is what is good", true zen practitioner.

[kirtu]

Unfortunately I did not actively practice when I was living as a young adult in Europe, and now this was some time ago. But my impression from the US is that Soto Zen is mostly practiced in Western Europe. There are also many Kwan Um practitioners and often they seem to be from Poland. But Dharma in Europe has changed considerably since the early 80's. There is also Rinzai in Europe.

Kirt