Buddhism is building distinctly American communities combining the teachings of Zen with the demands of contemporary American life. In clusters example of community‐building among contemporary Buddhists is the Zen Center on the comfortable east end of Rochester, where The Zen Center consists of two large old houses, now joined . It is his objective to help people make Zen an American way of life rather than a foreign religion , to “keep the spirit of Zen but give it an American dress. If Zen Buddhism who shaved his head and considered himself ready to share Zen Buddhist 1966 with a nucleus of people. Today the Zen Center has American affiliates in Denver, Chicago and Boston one Costa Rica and one in Poland; the Zen Center's estimated membership is 750 worldwide. proselytizing is foreign to it. “In Zen, the idea is almost to push people away, A group of psychiatrists once engaged Roshi Kapleau to explain Zen to them. He obliged by silently munching a ripe You have just witnessed a first‐rate example of Zen. Are there any questions?” Most of the awhile and said, “All right. Zen is a flea copulating with an elephant.” used by Buddhists around the country. At the Zen Center of Los Angeles, a tranquil priest named John Daishin BuksbaZen told me how the pain of the politics and the for something. And many can tell stories like Zenson's, a 30‐year‐old priest in the Zen Center. Zenson grew up in a small town outside Rochester. One day a friend told him about the Zen Center. His first response to meditation was the pain say what it has done for me,” Zenson says. “Since I came here, , shaved his head and adopted the name of Zenson ‐ son of Zen. (Roshi “My parents came to my ordination,” Zenson says. “I once heard one of In his recently published book, “Zen: Dawn in the West,” Roshi Kapleau writes Deeper Zen meditation comes in four ‐ and seven‐day background, the interest has most often been in Zen Buddhism, an adaptation of part of a Chinese word for meditation, ch'an. Zen is not a worship of a god, and it shapes. The lesson from the deaths of some Zen masters is that dying is just another step, a Quakers,” says Dr. Michael TaiZen Soule, a biologist and full‐time official at the Los Angeles Zen Center. “Quakers do more good than anyone “When one purifies himself,” says Zenson, the priest at the Rochester center, basis of prayer. People who are developed in Zen can cast positive forces into the world. They can the dying, all offered by the Los Angeles Zen ‘Center; college degrees offered by the Nampa groups have almost nothing to do with groups like the Zen Center of Rochester, which are trying to shed all people who come to meditate, but some citiZens in New York City, Iowa and Minnesota have The Los Angeles Zen Center has a day‐care center for children, , a commercial artist who is president of the Zen Studies Society in New York City, says his 27 Mr. Busch, who has been practicing Zen Buddhism since 1958, says he never tried to influence Of the future of Zen Buddhism in America, Mr. Busch says: center in Rochester as an affiliate. “Most Zen teachers move around,” he says of his decision no concept of an irreplaceable guru. Part of Zen training is not to let people get dependent on you