Introduction

You are being invited to take part in this research study on the ‘material culture’ of Western Zen practitioners (I’ll say a bit more about this in the next section). Before you decide whether you wish to participate, it is important for you to understand why the study is being conducted and what it will involve. Please take some time to read the information provided and discuss it with others if you wish. Please email the researcher (address below) if there is anything that is not clear, or if you would like more information.

What is the purpose of the study?

The aim of this study is to investigate the material culture of Zen practitioners in the UK. This means that we’re interested in the things, the objects that people involved in Western Zen own that are related to their practice, and what we can learn about Zen in the UK and its practitioners. Studying ‘material culture’ like helps us understand people through the practical and symbolic significance of the objects, and what that says about personal identity, social belonging and even our spiritual aspirations.

This will be achieved in this study by asking Zen practitioners in the UK to take some photos of spaces in their homes and upload them to a secure website. This will be achieved by collecting images from the homes of participants and looking at the ways that people physically shape their domestic spaces that are either directly related to their meditation practice (e.g. altars, sitting spaces) or reflect their interest in Zen practice or Buddhism more broadly (e.g. Budda images or artwork around the house).

One of my interests is how the actual manifestation of Zen in the UK is changing as it gets more established here and in a sense further from its Chinese and Japanese roots. One of the places to look for these changes is in how people actually shape their own living and meditation spaces around their practice.

This will also lead to a second phase of this study, where we ask a smaller number of people to participate in an interview in which the photos (and other aspects of participants’ Zen lives) will be discussed.

Why have I been invited?

You have been asked to take part in the study because you identify as a practitioner of Zen, and are normally resident in the UK. We’re hoping for quite a wide range of people, so the idea of ‘identifying as a practitioner’ can be thought of quite broadly. We’d love to include people ranging from teachers ordained priests to beginners or even people who just occasionally practice but are very inspired by Zen thought.

Do I have to take part?

Taking part is entirely voluntary. If you decide to take part you will be asked to sign a consent form to confirm that you understand the project and are happy to participate. If you decide to take part and then change your mind, you are free to withdraw from the study or withdraw any data you have given within 30 days of participating.

What will my participation involve?

Once you have agreed to take part in the study, you will be asked to take one or more photos of your own home and upload them to a website (the address will be provided when you sign up). We’ll ask some questions about you and your practice at the same time.

You will be asked if you are happy for your images to be included in a collection that can be shared publicly, for instance at academic conferences, in research publications or maybe even a public exhibition. (If you’re not happy with this, you can still participate – we’ll just make sure your images are not shared outside of the people doing the actual analysis.) Finally, you will also be asked if you are interested in being contacted about the second phase of the research in the form of a follow-up interview.

What are the possible benefits of taking part?

The information obtained from this study will help us understand both the culture and psychology of contemporary Zen practice and culture in the UK at a time when Buddhist (and Buddhist-inspired) practices are having a wide impact on Western ideas of health, well-being and spiritual and religious life more broadly.

What are the possible risks or disadvantages of taking part?

There should be no overt risks to your participation.  We would ask that you try not to include other people in the photos, especially if they are identifiable, so there’s no risk of people’s identities being made public without their consent. You can include yourself in an image if you like, but our interest is mainly in the objects you’re depicting.

What if something goes wrong?

If you have any concerns about any aspect of the way you have been approached or treated during the course of this study, then please contact Dr Manos Daskalou (Manos.Daskalou@northampton.ac.uk), who is Chair of the Ethics Committee for the Faculty of Health, Education & Society at UON.

Will my information be kept confidential?

All the information collected for this study will be anonymised and stored in a secure, password-protected space approved by the University of Northampton Research Ethics Committee. If you wish to maintain that confidentiality, those images will not be shared beyond this.

If you agree to your images being part of a public collection, they will be uploaded to an online data repository, and future researchers will be able to access them for their own work if they’re interested. They may also be used in presentations about this project, either academic or public.

What will happen to the results of the study?

The results from this study will be used in the following ways: published in an academic journal, presented at research conferences, shared more broadly with people interested in Zen and Buddhist culture in the UK through public events and online blog posts / magazine articles. If you would like to receive a summary of the findings, then please indicate this on the consent form or contact the lead researcher.  

How will my data be processed?

This study has been reviewed by an ethics committee to check that your personal data will be kept secure and used only in the way you have been told it will be. Your consent will be sought for processing your data in this way. The ethics committee has also checked that data collection is “in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes... proportionate to the aim pursued” as required by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (2016, Article 9).

Under the GDPR all researchers must have a legal basis for processing any personal data about you. During the study, you will be asked for information about your age, gender and sexuality, nationality and ethnicity, and about your Zen practice (length, tradition if any, etc.). The University of Northampton confirms that the processing of your personal data will be handled in a lawful manner as required by GDPR article 89(1) and the Data Protection Act 2018 sections 19(1)(b) and (c). We therefore confirm that the processing of your data in this project is in the public interest, has due regard for your rights and freedoms as a participant (‘data subject’) and will be stored and processed in a secure manner. The University of Northampton is the Data Controller for this project. If you have any concerns about the collection, use and storage of data in this project please contact the University of Northampton’s Data Protection Officer.

Who has reviewed the study?

This study has been reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee for the Faculty of Health, Education & Society at the University of Northampton.

Contact for further information

If you have any questions about this study or your possible involvement then please contact me at:

Rev Dr Alasdair Gordon-Finlayson
alasdair.gordon-finlayson@northampton.ac.uk

 Thank you for considering taking part in this study.

Before going any further on this form, please make sure you have your photo(s) ready to upload. 

The next step is to take at least one photo of the place in your home where you practice. This should look as it does when you’re about to do zazen (i.e. zafu/blanket out not stored, etc).

I am also interested in any other images you can take from around your house and garden where you think your Zen practice and/or identity is reflected in some way – e.g. Buddha/bodhisattva figures around the house, family shrine, artwork on the walls, pebbly zen-garden-y bits outside, etc.

You can be quite liberal in interpreting this; as long as you think that something reflects your Zen, it counts. And be as creative as you like – as I say below, you can always add a short description to images if they need explaining.

These images are about places and spaces and things, rather than people, so don’t feel that you need to include yourself in the images (you can if you like, but remember that you may have consented to these images being shared publicly). And definitely, please don’t include images with anyone else in them; I’m afraid I won’t be able to use these.

The quality of the photos isn’t that important, as long as they’re clear. Beautiful images are welcome but remember this isn’t a photo competition!

Once you’re happy with your photos, you can come back here to upload them. You can upload up to four pictures, so if you have more than that, think about which of them best reflect how your Zen practice, identity and beliefs are reflected in your physical environment. You can also use this to add a short description of each image if you like – this isn’t mandatory, but if you think it would help to explain the image, please feel free.

That’s it – happy snapping! If you have any questions at any time, of course email me at alasdair.gordon-finlayson@northampton.ac.uk and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

Thanks and have fun!

Only fair that I share an image of my own practice space!

(If you want a copy of the information sheet emailed to you, please contact alasdair.gordon-finlayson@northampton.ac.uk).

Identifier

You will need to include an identifier which you can remember so that I can link the information in this form to your photo(s). To do this, please provide an identifier here that you will remember, but that is not your actual name, so that we maintain anonymity. You can use anything that you think will be unique, but the usual suggestion is to choose the first three letters of one of your names, and then add your birth month and year.

(For example, I wouldn’t write ‘Alasdair’, but I might choose to write TAI0571 – the first three letters of my dharma name, and I was born in May 1971, or GOR0571 using my surname).

Again, please fill in as much of this as you’re comfortable with. You do not have to be a member of a Zen group or lineage to participate in this project – as long as Zen is for you in some sense a guiding principle in and inspiration for your practice.

This is the first phase of a two-phase project. In the second phase, I aim to get back in touch with a small number of people who’ve contributed in the first phase, and have an online interview with them in which we’ll talk about your images and anything else that comes up in relation to those – could be details of your Zen history, your personal life, your development and identity, etc.

Thank you so much for your time & effort in assisting with this project, it is very much appreciated.

You gave {identifier} as your unique identifier at the start of this - you might want to jot this down somewhere so that you can use it if you want to get in touch for any reason about this project. 

Please click the Submit button below to send me your photos!