Zen "teacher" scandals, their critics, and the fetishism of the "teacher" of Zen

One reason I'm kind of bored with the Shimano thing is that in looking at the Sweeping Zen stories (they don't seem to stop), I kind of get to wondering what this all has to do with Zen practice, with the practice of most of us who aren't involved in Zen teacher scandals,  and who aren't in any of the sanghas that have been blacklisted.

I mean, yeah, the jokers are still out there, but if you google "genpo," the number 2 suggestion is "genpo roshi affiar."  A similar result holds for "Eido Shimano."   While it's not the sole focus of the Sweeping Zen website by any means,  scandals do seem prominently displayed.  So why the focus, especially when anyone could google a Zen osho these days to find out if there's any dirt on them?

I think it has to do more with issues of attachment than many of the people talking about his would like to admit, and the fact that there are avowed "Zen teachers" in the thick of this leads me to question their credentials,  at least in terms of the root meaning of the word (i.e., what do they have that would give you credence in them).   I'm not talking about Genjo Marinello here, by the way.

This stuff doesn't have to do with the improvement or edification of  my practice, and I suspect it's true for others as well, at least directly. 

I do think for many of the people who are ostenisibly "Zen teachers" who are commenting on this stuff there is a dynamic of the fetishism of the "teacher" of Zen - and this doesn't just express itself as a positive idealization of the "guru," but also  but also as a condemning idealization of the guru.

Let me ask a question: Ethics aside, does anyone think Dennis Merzel or Eido Shimano or Sasaki knows nothing  or has no experience about Zen?  Are they worthy of compassion?  Yeah, don't let them near attractive women students...but then again I wouldn't recommend anyone go near a "teacher" who says things like: 

Japanese men in power and Western men in power tend to indulge in sexual encounters with subordinates as part of their privileged position. Whether they are US President, congressman, or business man, or spiritual teacher or minister, sexual liaisons seem to be included in male privilege all over the world.

This "teacher," in my view,  raises red flags to me just as much as Shimano or Merzel would.

I happen to be a white male working in an international company in a managerial role; I have had numerous dealings with professionals from pretty much every name electronics company you can think of outside of some industrial applications.   In my experience of about 35 years in the profession, there have been, amongst the thousands of people I've been working with there have been just two cases of sexual indiscretions. One was clearly consensual, and in the other the woman was hardly powerless in the situation.

Companies in the West have good reasons for ethical guidelines they have about these things (less so in Japan, but on the other hand there are other forces at work in Japan that put a lid on this to some extent).  Disturbing the 和 (wa or harmony) of the workplace is very bad for business, and most business people get that.  Even in government, it's the exception rather than the rule.  For every Bill Clinton or Jack Kennedy you've got more than a couple of a Richard Nixons,  Jimmy Carters, and Barack Obamas.   They arguably misuse their power anyway,  but they are generally acting on behalf interests that want power misused that way.

From someone who claims to be a "Zen teacher" who writes the above,  I would question their credentials as a "Zen teacher."   From someone who claims to be a clinical psychologist, I would wonder what kind of professional and ethical criteria relate to someone who makes such generalizations.  I wonder how this attachment to stereotypes of males in power ripples through their practice. 

I realize that my criticism can be applied to myself here, and I wouldn't say I'm completely free of attachments myself,  but then again, I think it does harm to perpetuate a false stereotype, and that ought to be in the "public interest" as much as any "Zen scandal."

I'm done with this post, I've got to take a long shower.

So about that new pope and that "interreligious dialogue"...

I realize I'm very late to comment on this, but today is about as good as any day to comment given the new Roman Catholic pope (there's others; you know that, right?) and all that, and the fact that reportedly he's "reaching out" to the rest of the world for more "interreligious dialogue."

Yeah, whatever.

I am more or less a product of some of those institutions and attitudes that weighed so heavily on so many; I was fortunate, I suppose, in that the only abuse I suffered at the hands of these people was verbal and corporal.   But abuse it was nonetheless, and the Catholic Church's response in recent years to the sexual abuse doesn't give me hope for any kind of real possibility that anyone will be made whole in any of the other areas where abuse was pervasive anytime soon.

Nathan calls it patriarchy.  He's not wrong here, but I think it's way more than that.  Patriarchy has the connotation that somehow a few men are running things, and they're in control, have all the power, etc. etc.  I concede I'm oversimplifying here, but the reality is that the former Ratzinger and all the other Ratzingers were enabled by a network of clergy and laity.  The abuse many children in Catholic schools suffered was at the hands of some very distorted (pre-or anti-Vatican II) nuns; it's lampooned in movies like The Blues Brothers but it was taken for granted that you could physically assault children to get them to do what you wanted in those places, and in many places likely still is.  And there is a laity that enabled this, encouraged this, and funded this, and in many places likely still does. 

There is a reason the Catholic Church in East St. Louis is a highly attenuated version of itself, as another article in today's NY Times presents.   And it is precisely because all the crap that the Catholic Church perpetuated and all the "charity" it perpetuated came to nought.  Of course  a "deity" commanded the charity as did the "deity" put in place abusers, so what kind of charity is that if it's stained and sustained by greed and fear?

I became a Buddhist because Buddhism makes better sense of the world and has a more consistent ethic than Christianity.  In Christianity it's sort of verboten for mere mortals to go to hell to save another; in Buddhism you're in hell yourself as long as another is there.  That's why I think the two paths are ultimately incompatible, regardless of how friendly Thich Nhat Hanh gets with the liberal priests (assuming any survived John Paul II/Ratzinger).

And like Nathan, I'm hopeful for collapse; the sooner the better if people are disabused of notions that the charity means you have to support the abuse: they come as a package deal with the Catholic Church; they come as a package deal with humanity in fact.  The Catholic Church maintained that they were above it all.   Some folks in the American Buddhist community thought they were in Christian churches in the sense that they thought Buddhist sanghas were above petty politics, corruption and scandal.

It's a package deal in Buddhism too: the savory and the repulsive permeate each other, and the only hope Buddhism gives you is that there are means by which you can learn to transcend the repulsive as well as that which keeps us stuck or suffering.  It doesn't guarantee that those who prescribe the medicine will not themselves fall ill or aren't in fact already ill.  At least though Buddhism really does recognize this (and it's not to minimize harm when it happens...does every post that touches on this issue have to repeat that?).  And Buddhism has a path that recognizes that its path isn't trod by those who are vicars for deities.

Good luck to Francis; maybe he'll be another John XXIII.   But regardless,  suffering and dukkha are still inescapable, but can be transcended...

Acting according to someone else's "revelation" is violent and blasphemous

I am a Buddhist because, among other things, appeals to supernatural have never seemed particularly effective to me, nor have I seen any convincing evidence that it was effective for anyone else.   I don't claim to be a metaphysical naturalist (too idealistic in my view, especially with regard to the limitations of language, thought and perception).   However, I'm sure I seem damned close to one if the person doing the seeming is a monotheistic "believer" of some sort.  I put quote marks around "believer" because I think there is a whole entire question of whether or not a anyone can "believe" anything in the sense of what a writer in the bible said; that is faith is the "evidence of things not seen."  Is this "belief" delusion by another name?

It is a question I will not get to here, because for now I have a larger question in mind.  Some  people I know are perfectly content to attempt to convert others to Christianity, and otherwise talk as though it is natural and appropriate to presume the existence of Christian belief in polite conversation.  People with whom I am a little less familiar think there's no problem at all in attempting to convert others to Christianity, particularly children and adolescents.

I say this is a kind of violence, in the sense of an unjust or unwarranted exercise of force or power.  This view, I'll admit, owes a bit to R. D. Laing's brilliant case for how much of what we call "love" in Western "civilization" is really a form of violence as found in The Politics of Experience.

It is not enough to destroy one's own and other people's experience. One must overlay this devastation by a false consciousness inured, as Marcuse puts it, to its own falsity.  

Exploitation must not be seen as such. It must be seen as benevolence. Persecution preferably should not need to be invalidated as the figment of a paranoid imagination; it should be experienced as kindness. Marx described mystification and showed its function in his day. Orwell's time is already with us. The colonists not only mystify the natives, in the wasy that Fanon so clearly shows, they have to mystify themselves. We in Europe and North America are the colonists, and in order to sustain our amazing images of ourselves as God's gift to the vast majority of the starving human species, we have to interiorize our violence upon ourselves and our children and to employ the rhetoric of morality to describe this process. 

In order to rationalize our industrial-military complex, we have to destroy our capacity to see clearly any more what is in front of, and to imagine what is beyond, our noses. Long before a thermonuclear war can come about, we have had to lay waste to our own sanity. We begin with the children. It is imperative to catch them in time. Without the most thorough and rapid brainwashing their dirty minds would see through our dirty tricks. Children are not yet fools, but we shall turn them into imbeciles like ourselves, with high I.Q.'s, if possible. 

From the moment of birth, when the Stone Age baby confronts the twentieth-century mother, the baby is subjected to those forces of violence, called love, as its mother and father, and their parents and their parents before them, have been. These forces are mainly concerned with destroying most of its potentialities, and on the whole this enterprise is successful. By the time the new human being is fifteen or so, we are left with a being like ourselves, a half-crazed creature more or less adjusted to a mad world. This is normality in our present age. 

Love and violence, properly speaking, are polar opposites. Love lets the other be, but with affection and concern. Violence attempts to constrain the other's freedom, to force him to act in the way we desire, but with ultimate lack of concern, with indifference to the other's own existence or destiny. 

We are effectively destroying ourselves by violence masquerading as love. 

It is an obscenity and blasphemous to say that one person has been deigned lucky enough or good enough or sacred enough or holy enough to have had the Great Holy Truth Revealed to Him and Those Who Say the Same Things He Does And No One Else Does.

It's not "love" or "compassion" talking when one wants to "share the good news," but rather it is pride and narcissism. 

And it should be pointed out to be such.  Look, if you want to talk about such things, and "believe" such things, fine, good for you.  But do not be so rude and arrogant as to assume that people who don't "believe" such things should be "brought around to your way of thinking."  You are just as existentially unlucky as anyone else.  You cannot escape.  You can only try to help others without the religiosity, and if you have another way and it's not empirically demonstrable, don't waste anyone's time most of all your own.

I was recently on a flight to Washington D.C., and I was sitting next a wonderful woman who worked for World Vision, a Christian charity. We discussed quite a few things related to charity (such as why the heck a lawyer was needed for that charity and why they needed government grants - I never actually got an answer to those questions).   But the issue of charity came up.  She said people helped others in World Vision "because they wanted to recognize that God loved them." (Actually I think at first she said, "Because we want to show God's love in the world" - that really is the kind of  issue I'm talking about.)

This struck me as odd, and out of reasons of sparing the woman's feelings, I did not  tell the woman that if you're not helping people because people are hurting or will hurt, and for those reasons alone - that is, to alleviate suffering now and in the future - then you're not helping them as effectively as you could. 

It is a kind of narcissistic blasphemy to think you're "showing God's love in the world" by thinking you're "doing unto others as you would have others do unto you."  You may be helping fellow human beings.   But if somebody's dying of cancer maybe the last thing they need is someone to preach to them with an affect of religiosity and instead they need someone to care for them without a first or second or third or n-th thought as to the "goodness" of this in the eyes of any real or imagined deities.   Maybe if they're religious,  and dying of cancer they may want some religious comfort.  Good for them, and for you if you both want to pray together.


In some cases, even a dying person can be attempting to manipulate others in religion talk, even to the point of attempting to get people to say things they don't believe in just to make the dying person "feel better."  Again, nobody's "revelation," even a dying person's, is of any greater value than anyone else's and regardless of who does it, it is violence to act otherwise, and should be stated as such.  And I don't really think many dying people are actually any more comforted (and perhaps less - there's that whole damnation thing)  by appeal to a monotheist deity than anyone else.  In the cases where I've seen this type of manipulation of the family by the dying, it certainly wasn't the case.

So hopefully that sets a few things straight here.

One more thing: you're still responsible.  You can't blame "faith" for hate and narcissistic arrogance disguised as care and love.  This is partly my Buddhist/existentialist answer to the question of where morality comes from. But it is, here, ultimately my entire point: we're responsible. I'm responsible for what I do, and for what I do in response to whatever behavior I encounter.  If you're going to act "in God's name" to me, you better damn well do it as though God doesn't exist  (in which case why are you saying you're doing it in God's name?)  You better damn well do it as though God doesn't exist, because whether or not a monotheistic deity exists, you're still responsible.

OK, that's it for today.

So much spiritual hucksterism...so little time...

I'm a busy guy of late, what with work, family, and the various practices in which I'm engaged.  So, here's a few quick pointers on the absurdity I read nowadays...

• Chogyam Trungpa might have been skilled in various ways,  but a guy you should drop everything for? I think not.  Or at least stop pretending  "enlightenment" thing (at least such as "was" his)  is any more than being really really good at reversi or something.
• Scientology? Geez, in this  day and age?  The very word should connote "people meat grinder."
• I'm still flabbergasted that folks "follow" Dennis Merzel. He has varying levels of "closeness" with him, that - guess what? - depend on how much you're willing to fork over every month.  And all of them, all of them, will help you "awaken the world" and "raise global consciousness." Wow! what -a- bargain! 
• And, obviously somebody, or at least one Maurice Shonen Knegtel,  in the "Big" "Mind"  "sect" (group? cult?) decided that they had to put some masking tape on "Big" "Mind" to try to attach it to  Zen/Chan.  You can imagine why. 

Of course we Mahayana Buddhists vow to save, or help  all sentient beings ourselves, in the sense of the transcendence of suffering.  But in no way is that a function of how much we can pay nor how much abuse we're willing to take, or whether we check our brains at the door when we go for some sort of teaching.  

Also don't believe everything Maurice Shonen Knegtel wrote there at that link, as if I had to write that.  Especially this part is risible:

Teaching, practice and realization took place in everyday activity, like farming, walking through the mountains, drinking tea, cleaning, or just talking. Probably they did not sit that much in formal zazen, and the early Masters rarely talk about sitting practice. Zen was not yet formalized with rituals and ceremonial practices, as it was later in Sung China (Tenth to Fourteenth Century A.D.), Korea, Vietnam and Japan. Early Chan was a living religion, not dependent on forms like teisho (formal teaching), zazen (formal sitting) or daisan (formal interview). Enlightenment was found and expressed in daily activities. And the way of teaching of the old Masters was very similar to that of Gautama the Buddha. Students were led to a place where they are one with the Dharma and express it. Genpo Roshi’s Big Mind process offers the same living religion in a playful game of giving voice to whatever dharma is coming up and by skillfully practicing the same ‘wonder of teaching’ as Gautama the Buddha and early Chan Masters did. 

 It's risible because its Orientalism and revisionism just oozes right through every word, including the instances of "a" and "the."  That Lin Chi didn't depend on his teishos - even if they weren't called that - is absurd.  What the hell does Shonen think he was doing when he ascended the high seat? He wasn't thinking "Gee, this is just like what 'Big' 'Mind" is going to be in a thousand some-odd years." 

And for Void sakes, "Big" "Mind" isn't an "everyday" activity!   There's 8.6% unemployment! Their everyday activity, I assure you, isn't mucking around with "voices."  The "everyday" activity of the working monastics (and laity) consisted of, you know,  activities performed every day. No special process or mind games were needed, playful or not.

These guys have completely forgotten, it seems, what it is to be ordinary.  And, it seems, Shonen might have confused the Dharma with a "conflict of interest," the conflict of interest being his personal investment of time and energy and effort, and I'd bet, gelt, into the Merzel Thing, and, of course, the practice of the Dharma.

All right.  Enough of my rant for today.

Frederick Lenz's Dark Materials...

As of today, over $36,000 has been raised in something called the "Rama's Materials" campaign. And what's the payoff? "When we reach the donation goal of $100,000, $200,000 of funds will then be available for the marketing of Rama's Materials." 

Another link helpfully reminds us to "Pay Now for the September 22 - 25, 2011 Lenz Foundation's Soul of Money Fundraising Conference and Workshop  [in] Park City, Utah."  

It's about, you know, raising money, and taught or hosted by an est person.

It looks pretty shabby to me given the current state of things, even if the Lenz cult foundation is using money to give money to Peace on the Street," though their goal in this funding is to use "Frederick Lenz' approach to meditation and life success."  I wonder if that includes suicide and overdosing of downers.

How did things get that way? And are they becoming that way with me?

Everybody knows that there is a locus of problems around Genpo Merzel by now; even Genpo Merzel must be dimly aware of that, regardless of the size of his mind. That locus of problems extends to the Rinzai folks as well.

But I think the best expression of this issue plaguing Western Buddhism comes from a guy who is hardly associated with Western Buddhism (but doesn't seem to mind anyone who makes that association), namely, Andrew Cohen.  I simply don't get it; this guy is as phony as a $3 bill. Know why I say that? Read his "declaration of integrity."

Almost from the very beginning of my teaching career, over twenty years ago, people have responded to me in extreme ways. I have been perceived by some to be a dangerous character, possessed of unusual charisma and spiritual energy that could seduce the weak-minded and innocent seeker to abandon all common sense, objectivity, autonomy, and self-respect and become one of his helpless minions—soul-ravaged and mind-controlled. I’ve been branded a pathological narcissist who never recovered from his childhood traumas and unhealthy relationship with his mother and as a result was using his power position as spiritually enlightened guru to dominate and control others in order to compensate for his lack of self-esteem.
On the other hand, there have been those (some of whom are now, ironically, my worst detractors) who hailed me as a spiritual hero, a 21st-century Buddha, a true revolutionary and spiritual activist whose unwillingness to compromise the standards of his own teaching, even in his most intimate and important relationships, was an expression of an unusual degree of courage and a rare commitment to the highest.
I guess it goes with the territory: to be a guru in a postmodern context one has to be either crazy or very courageous—neither of which are characteristics I find it easy to relate to. More than anything else, I’ve always aspired to be an authentic human being, and that’s why the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me, as far as I’m concerned, was a few years ago, after a teaching in North Carolina, when the gentleman who had driven me to the airport told me: “Andrew, you are a real mensch. Even if you weren’t enlightened, I’d still want to be your friend.”

Read the whole thing; it's a masterpiece of a narcissistic lack of self-awareness.  You've read all kinds of critiques of Cohen, no doubt (one of the better ones is here, although I'd have a few words to speak with John Horgan about regarding Zen Buddhism in general).

As I said above, I'm focusing on Andrew Cohen is that this guy, to me is obviously phony.  Here's the intro to a book of his that is supposedly coming out:

Why do some of us seek for higher truths? Why is it that certain individuals are driven blindly, madly, and passionately to transcend their own limitations? Why do we, at times, feel compelled to improve ourselves, not only for our own sake but for the sake of a higher cause that we can sense yet barely see? Why is it that in those precious moments when we are most conscious and most awake, we seem to intuit a deeper sense of purpose that is infinitely bigger than our personal worlds can contain? What is that soft vibration that tugs at our hearts and beckons us to courageously leap beyond the small confines of the separate self so that we can participate in the life-process in a much deeper and more authentic way?

That vibration is none other than the spiritual impulse, the impulse to evolve at the level of consciousness. It could be that same impulse that caused you to pick up this book and, no doubt, that compelled me to write it. And it’s not just a feeling that you or I might have. This impulse is something much bigger. In fact, I believe it is that very same impulse that caused something to come from nothing fourteen billion years ago, that compelled an entire material universe to miraculously emerge from complete emptiness.

Consider these few bullet points:

• The effect of the first few paragraphs is to appeal, I think, to the part of us that is infatuated with our own existences.  
• And he's got not only something for the part of us that has a very high opinion of our selves, but also he's got the best most enlightened version of all enlightened versions of enlightened teachers!
• And none of that, to me, at all, addresses the core issues of The Great Matter.  Really, it's like the relationship of play money to real money.

Now given all the above - that Andrew Cohen is the spiritual huckster par excellence,  an obvious question arises - why did otherwise legit Zen teachers in legit Zen organizations give this guy the time of day?  Is it because Cohen's narcissism reinforces their own?  And could it be that Cohen's narcissism  - or Genpo Merzel's, or Jun Po Kelley, or Wilber's - reinforces my narcissism, my lack of self awareness, etc. even as I criticize them?

That's what I thought as I surfed around the 'net when not busy on my recent Euro trip: Geez, I don't want to sound like those guys.    And so it's a good thing to keep in mind: don't be like them.  Don't be attached to them, or one's own attachments.  Just now.

More Weirdness from Genpo Merzel...

The link http://www.kanzeonzencenter.org directs to  http://bigmind.org/center/. 


But you can't see at "bigmind.org" this: http://www.kanzeonzencenter.org/category/news/ . If you clicked the "news" link at "bigmind.org" you'd see this instead: http://bigmind.org/category/news/ .

Not very big-minded of Merzel, I'd say.

持久 (じきゅう) : More on Genpo Merzel: Sympathy and Criticism and Caveat Emptor

Once, when my son was younger, he took Tai Kwon Do lessons at the local martial arts school, and once we had a birthday party for him there.   Or perhaps it was the opening of their new dojo; I don't know which.  At any rate, at some point the instructors asked me to break a board - me, who knew jack about such things.

Within a few minutes of trying I had broken a board 1 inch think. It was pine. I'm glad it wasn't oak.

On the larger piece of the broken board I later painted 持久 - pronounced in Japanese "jikyuu" - which means "persistence" or "endurance."   It's there to remind me to be persistent and to endure.

And everyone around me knows I have to keep persisting and enduring.

I bring that up by way of explaining more my sentiments regarding Genpo Merzel.  I think it's too trite - way- to trite, to go into unmitigated condemnation of the man, though you can be sure he had it coming.  There's more to see here than that in us. 

"Genpo Roshi" had built himself into a brand, following all the bromides of current American capitalism in decline: It doesn't matter what the brand is trying to sell; the brand's the thing.  You can see that on his Twitter account, or by going to Google images and searching him.  To some extent we can't help but "brand" ourselves one way or the other, but like that Magritte painting of a pipe with "This is not a pipe" in French written under it, the brand is not the person or thing.  

Anybody and his brother can be trained to hold a Large Group Awareness Training (LGAT) meeting and pretend to be a Guy Who Knows His Stuff.  Anybody and his brother can get a photographer to propagate a "look" that one wants to be known by; Charlie Manson did it.

It takes 持久と仕事 - persistence and work - to actually live a life authentically, oddly enough. It's not enough to boast to people how you don't care about what people think because umm... you care deeply about all sentient beings. Walking the walk is the hard part.

Genpo Merzel is us: He's fallen seven times.  We're all falling seven hundred times.  He wasn't my teacher; we wouldn't have had each other in a teacher student relationship, and he's deeply hurt many people and completely trashed his own brand all by himself, without any help from his blogosphere critics or Brad Warner or anyone.  I still think what many of his critics wrote was true: "Big Mind" was and is a load of horse hockey.  But to think that your Zen practice or other Buddhist or "spiritual" practices - or lack thereof - insures you against the type of crap Genpo stepped into is also horse hockey.

Work and persist to be what you can and should. Caveat emptor.

That's all.

Eido Shimano: Please go away.

Having read the recent stuff (HT: Nathan) and Genjo Marinello's take on it (via Open Buddha; also see the Tricycle Blog post comments)  I encourage the Board of the Zen Studies Society to do whatever they can at this point to ensure that Eido Shimano does not conduct dokusan or other dharma inteviews on Zen Studies Society/Dai Bosatsu Zendo or other affiliated Rinzai lineage property.

I mean, this has gone far enough.  I hadn't spoken out as much as I might have because I believed that it was a large part of the responsibility for Shimano's dharma heirs to handle, but at this point (and I think they're moving in that direction) this is simply de trop.

Ultimately, it's  matter of human beings doing some of the worse things human beings can do, and executing the proper response thereto.
  
At this point, however, with Shimano's letter which is stuck hard in denial mode,  I think there's no alternative but for Shimano to retire permanently.  I wish his heirs well in their dealings with him. I think they know what to do now.

Another post on "nurturing" versus "marine boot camp" Buddhism

I have sat with two teachers who are women in my days...two of which were in the same general lineage as Barbara O'Brien.  And I am very grateful for their teachings. 

But...also...

My doctoral thesis adviser was a Holocaust survivor.  Another teacher at Polytechnic routinely failed 2/3 of his class - from him I truly learned how to bring elegance, beauty and clarity and discipline to real world engineering problems.  There's a guy mentioned on the Tricycle blog who says wisdom isn't found at universities, and I call BS on that. If you are in the right place at the right time you may meet a real teacher, even if he's not a Buddhist.

Teachers in my lineage had to endure much in Japan during and after the war.  They had to practice amidst those conditions.  As I noted on Barbara's blog, the great mainland Chinese Chan masters of the 20th century endured unspeakable hardships both in and outside  the temple and not only due to the Communists. 

That's why eventually on Barbara's blog I wrote that the experience of these people - and their students make Nomura-san's experience at Eihei-ji, even if true, seem like a paper cut by comparison.  It seems self-evident to me that there is a point to the hardship at these temples, and it is to teach the student that the hardship ain't nuthin' compared to the unspeakable hardships untold millions of beings have faced and do face.

It is true that, um...hardship is hard.  And not everyone can pass through it - or should.  But to those who can and do, to those who can meet their greatest fear and pass through it, in the midst of it,  there is a skill given that enables one to help.

 Barbara wrote,

But the point is that this monastery -- an all-male enclave in a patriarchal society-- sounds out of balance; way too much yang, not enough yin. It seems that the old boot camp feel was an echo of hyper-masculine qualities of Japanese Zen, and now that echo is fading away.

That sentiment can't help but seem to me to be "out of balance" itself; it seems like she is practicing a feminist reaction to perceived and actual injustices of a patriarchy rather than Zen.  And I'm sorry if she's offended but Zen will still be Zen and the Dharma will still be the Dharma no matter how much there is a Yin/Yang "imbalance." 

Although it's Taoist, and not Buddhist, it seems fitting to quote Lao Tzu here:

When the great Tao is lost spring forth benevolence and righteousness.

When wisdom and sagacity arise, there are great hypocrites.

When family relations are no longer harmonious, we have filial children and devoted parents.

When a nation is in confusion and disorder, patriots are recognized.

Where Tao is, equilibrium is. When Tao is lost, out come all the differences of things.

Do away with learning, and grief will not be known.

Do away with sageness and eject wisdom, and the people will be more benefited a hundred times.

Do away with benevolence and eject righteousness, and the people will return to filial duty and parental love.

Do away with artifice and eject gains and there will be no robbers and thieves.

These four, if we consider them as a culture, are not sufficient.

Therefore let there be what the people can resort to:

Appear in plainness and hold to simplicity;

Restrain selfishness and curtail desires.

Sometimes it isn't a bad idea not to try and fix and improve everything.  The Dharma will still be the Dharma whether we practice in a way too much "Yin" manner or way too much "Yang" manner.

Spiritual Materialism, slapping, punching, hitting, ...is it always abuse?

This post is a bit of an expansion of comments made on Barbara's blog post on women in Soto Zen.  I think she equates some of the more harsh-sounding experiences at Eihei-ji with the kind of testosterone fueled stuff that goes on in football training, in which (full disclosure) the author has never participated, save for quite a bit of touch football games in my youth, and, I suppose the beer-swilled game watching of my later youth.

But what is it then?  And is one way "good" and the other way "bad?"

First of all, let's consider the background of what Barbara takes to be the state of things at Eihei-ji in Japan. Now I have never trained at a Japanese temple; I've sat at Japanese temples (Rinzai),  and stayed overnight at one, but I have never had the experience of Nonomura Kaoru, author of Eat, Sleep Sit.  Nonomura-san writes:

When we arrived, we each laid our cushion and bowls at our assigned place on the platform before carefully seating ourselves in the prescribed way. First you drew your cushion up to the edge of the plat¬form and set your buttocks on it; then, supporting your weight on your fingertips (using all but the fourth and fifth fingers of the left hand), you hoisted yourself into place and crossed your legs, taking care that your feet and buttocks never touched the wooden edge. Under no cir¬cumstances was stepping up permitted, even if you could do it with¬out coming into contact with the edge. The practice of eating is such an important part of Zen discipline that you assume the same formal cross-legged posture for it as for sitting in meditation.

As we clambered awkwardly up on the platforms and settled into place, a small door opened and, one after another, in came monks bear¬ing buckets and trays. Without a word they went straight to work, draw¬ing out shelves along the far wall, setting down the buckets and trays, and laying out small tables on the floor. I watched them, entranced, until suddenly the sound of the wooden gong at the entrance announced the start of the evening meal...

In a Zen monastery the evening meal is not a formal meal, and so does not involve the sacred Buddha bowl. The procedures for the
evening meal and the morning meal differ considerably. Back in the temporary quarters we’d been drilled in all the fine points, but it was so complicated that we were thrown into hopeless confusion and no longer had any idea what to do or which rules were for when. Yet here we were, about to be put through our paces.

Five or six instructors stood planted in front of us with arms folded and eyes gleaming, on the lookout for miscues. In this tense, forbidding atmosphere, drawing on indistinct memories, we proceeded cautiously to lay out our things.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Somebody was getting yelled at before his bowls were even out of the wrapping cloth. It was Daikan, at the other end of the row. Arms crossed, the monks all went over and glared daggers at him.

I managed somehow to spread out my kit and put the bowls where they were supposed to go. But I was stiff and clumsy with nervousness, and when I took my chopsticks out of their bag, I almost dropped them.

Daikan still hadn’t got it right. Now, with all the instructors lined up in front of him observing his every move, he was falling completely apart. “No! You’re the only one who can’t do it! Pay attention!” Another vicious slap across the face. Helplessly, he pressed his shaking palms together. “What do you think you’re doing? Fine, stay like that till you die. If you can’t lay out your bowls, you don’t eat. Remember that!” As this little drama unfolded, the servers went quietly about their business,, oblivious.

Daikan wasn’t the only one to earn the instructors’ wrath. “No! No, no, no! Come on!” As the meal progressed, the yells grew steadily louder and more menacing. The sound of slaps rang out ceaselessly...

For all of us, the acts of eating and drinking were carried out in a state of abject terror. The least mistake brought an instant cuff from one of the eagle-eyed senior trainees standing watch. The food had no taste; there was no sense of enjoying a meal. The pace was fast and it took intense concentration to keep up. Now the chopsticks. Next the lap cloth. You had to confirm each step mentally before you could act.

If you paused to savor the food, before you knew it, second helpings were being served and you had to rush to get your share. If you took time eating that, next thing you knew the servers were coming around with tea, then hot water. Even after we’d memorized exactly what to do and the routine grew familiar, there was never any time to linger over our food.

Eat carefully and you fell behind. Rush and you ran the risk of drop¬ping your chopsticks or bowl. Washing up was fraught with danger, too. You had to turn each bowl in hot water with one hand while scrub¬bing its sides and bottom with the other, and the slippery bowl was in constant danger of skittering from your grasp. When wiping and stacking the bowls, if you got them out of order they wouldn’t nest properly. I have to say that when I finally tied the wrapping cloth I felt intense relief, nothing more.


Our first meal using the bowls, conducted in this highly charged atmo¬phere amid the unceasing scramble to keep up, was over before we knew what had happened. It left us in the state of mental numbness that follows extreme tension. Amazing feats of physical strength may be possible under duress, but the human mind, by contrast, shuts down to the most primitive, instinctual level. Extreme stress and fear had instantaneously frozen the minds of some of us, leaving us literally at wits’ end, unable to do a thing In the end it was not with our minds but with our bodies that we memorized the compact and intricate form and motions, clenching our teeth as we were slapped and knocked about.

Now on reading this, a quite a few warning lights flashed in my head:

1. Did these novices think this was somehow a vacation? I mean, if you're going to spend a year as a monk at a Zen temple, wouldn't you, you know, read up on the policies and procedures and disciplines involved in a Buddhist temple? I  have worked for an employer whose company is based in Japan for over 13 years, and I assure you that I took quite seriously the act of reading all about my employer and the customs of the company to which I would be employed.  It would seem to be common sense to do this if you're going to stay, full time, at a temple for a year.

2.  One of the things that most anyone who's read anything about a temple knows, the evening meal is not supposed to be that important; there is no big deal about not eating an evening meal or only a very light evening meal if you've had your nutrition at the other two meals.  The actions described here are the actions at the evening meal.  In fact, as I'd recently posted here, it's not a bad way to moderate one's eating. And that leads to my next point:

3. That whole description of the rate at which the monks ate rings completely false to me, and I would submit, to anyone who has ever eaten with Japanese in a work setting, except, for business trip situations or where  the -kai meals eaten in celebration of something: see Jake Adelstein's description of the ryonenkai in Tokyo Vice for the exception that proves the following rule:

In a work setting in Japan, all meals are eaten quickly, and in such a way as that all finish their meals at roughly the same time.

That Nonomura-san is decrying  the rate at which the meals were eaten - what is plainly typical behavior for millions of Japanese -  must have brought quite a chuckle to them.

But, what about the slapping, hitting, punching, kicking, etc?

It does sound over the top to me, but then again, so does the complaining about the rate at which the  meals were eaten, so I'm not sure this is completely credible.  But even if it were, what about the tales of the ancient masters, and even the Chinese Chan masters such as Lai Guo and Hsun Yu?

Master Lai-Guo liked to compare Chan sessions to ancient China’s Civil Service Exams. For the exam, a scholar would study rigorously for years, come to the exam, do their best and… Bam! The next thing he knew, he was up in the Imperial Court working with the Emperor and his ministers. The rules in the exam room had to be strict so people could concentrate. Similarly, Gao Min Monastery is well known for its rules. Master Lai-Guo is also famous for being strict in the Chan hall and hitting people with his Chan stick to help them in their practice. Once, a wealthy lay person offered Master Lai-Guo 7 gold bullions (equivalent to US $200,000~$500,000) if he would hit her with his Chan stick to help erase her karma. He refused, saying, “My Chan stick is reserved for people with the potential to become patriarchs.” 

 

There are a lot more severe things described in the lives of these two Chan masters, but it is clear that the aim of the training is to persevere despite the circumstances.  Nomura-san describes being "numbed" into just reacting with the body to the forms given.  That may well be true, but, so what? It is what the marines do in basic training, to be sure. Perhaps another way of looking at it, is at a certain point it all simply doesn't matter. And that's perhaps the point, perhaps crudely delivered of this kind of rough training.  And the ancient Chan masters, breaking legs, slamming doors, etc., made Nomura-san's experience seem like a walk in the park...but then again, perhaps those stories were over the top, too.

The older I get the more I realize that there's a lot of things that just don't matter that much.  And, as a guy who majored in Electrical Engineering at one of the (at the time) 10 best schools in the country, where we were told in the orientation meeting meeting "Look to your left and your right. Two thirds of your classmates will flunk out," I can't help but think that this sort of thing as described by Nomura-san does not matter that much if the point is transcendence of suffering.

So to a certain extent, at least what is here, the descriptions of "boot camp" at an Asian monastery versus "nurturing" of the Western Zen tradition rings somewhat like spiritual materialism on the part of those who would immediately decry such practices instead of spiritual abuse on the part of the Asians...and of course if you decide otherwise, it does call into question how much else of the Asian's tradition might be fought with ignorance that only the enlightened Westerners can bring to the unenlightened Asian Zen and Chan practitioners!

So, call me skeptical on some of  these points, and somewhat indifferent on some of the others... and, as I noted on Barbara's blog, it's a matter of taste, ultimately.  My own lay parent practice is demanding enough, and frankly, there's much more to deal with than a slap or a punch or a kick, and it's not all touchy-feely "being vulnerable."

The other side of fundamentalist religious oppression

As Barbara notes here, one component of it is a fear of losing one's self - but there is another component. And it's a type of hubris, greed, and narcissism, based on a denial of a fundamental self-evident observation of  human behavior in the human condition, as succinctly put by R. D. Laing:

I see you, and you see me. I experience you, and you experience me. I see your behaviour. You see my behaviour. But I do not and never have and never will see your experience of me. Just as you cannot "see" my experience of you. My experience of you is not "inside" me. It is simply you, as I experience you. And I do not experience you as inside me. Similarly, I take it that you do not experience me as inside you.
"My experience of you" is just another form of words for "you-as-l-experience-you", and "your experience of me" equals "me-as-you-experience-me". Your experience of me is not inside you and my experience of you is not inside me, but your experience of me is invisible to me and my experience of you is invisible to you.

And:

I cannot experience your experience. You cannot experience my experience. We are both invisible men. All men are invisible to one another. Experience used to be called The Soul. Experience as invisibility of man to man is at the same time more evident than anything. Only experience is evident. Experience is the only evidence.

We can take "experience"  for Buddhist purposes to mean one's own collection of the 5 aggregates and the various forms of consciousness.  When I declare that your experience invalid because of either my experience or some external to both of our experiences (such as somebody's opinion of "scripture" or  what someone was told "God's intention" or "God's words" were, this is a statement against your very being.  In the case where either of us are citing something external to invalidate both of our experiences, this is a statement directed against both of us.

Although we can "see areas light up in the brain" corresponding to all kinds of human thoughts, feelings, emotions, hallucinations, volitions and sensations, these can never be the equivalent if any person actually experiencing those thoughts, feelings, sensations, emotions, hallucinaitons, and volitions.

Despite what I have experienced in my life, I  really don't have a clue as to why Lindsay Lohan  is messed up, or what makes a fundamentalist tick,  what's in Eddie Long's brain, or any of a thousand other such questions.  Only the principals know what's in their hearts and minds. True, there is empathy and compassion, but this empathy and compassion is counterfeit if it does not take into account that what another is experiencing is really experienced..

It is this invalidation of others that is the beginning of all kinds of religious exploitation, and all the big religions have done it from time to time.  I practice Buddhism in part because by placing the issues with regard to the Way on the individual, at least in my school, much of this harm can be avoided.  And that's another reason, as I say, that such practices are the last best hope for religion. Maybe Taoism and Jainism are too.

Reason #49134 that I'm not a big fan of "Voice Dialogue"

Salon  has an interview with Meredith Maran, who has recently written a memoir of her involvement in one of the 90's witch-hunts: the mass of children and women who were led to claim a "recovered memory" of abuse that never happened.

There are of course, guided meditations in many traditional Buddhist practices, but these are rather benign, extending to such things as calming one's self and so forth; you know, making new body-mind connections generally.  And of course koan practice is clearly not in this league at all: it's not for nothing, as they've said in Brooklyn, that the "source language" of koans is meaningless. Koans aren't at all about replacing one narrative one has with another. It's about not having a narrative at all, really, and seeing what is and what happens.

"Recovered memory" is like "disowned voices," as far as I can see. It'd be nice for practitioners of such Voice Dialogue stuff to try to explain the differences.

Update on Lynne Twist

Regarding Lynne Twist of "Soul of Money," as Duff pointed out in the comments on the post below, she has apparently been involved in the questionable "Hunger Project."  Rick Ross reproduced the original Mother Jones article on the Hunger Project. (Mother Jones has part of the article here.)

The Hunger Project is technically a separate legal entity, but in fact it functions as a recruitment arm for est. The experience of Hunger Project volunteers confirms this. From the moment she first went to the Project's offices in San Francisco as a volunteer, reported Lori Lieberman of the Center for Investigative Reporting, members of the Project staff concentrated on recruiting her to est. "I was greeted by Tracy Apple [a local Hunger Project staff and est graduate]," she recounts, "who immediately asked me whether or not I had undergone the est training. When I said I had not, she reassured me that that was okay, but that it 'would be easier for you to work around the office if you do take the training because we use a different language and different ways of communicating around esties.' Pressure to take the est training continued throughout my five-hour stay. I discovered only one other person among the 20 or 30 people that I encountered to be a non-est graduate. She was an office worker. And as I was sitting in the bathroom, I heard two other women office workers harassing her because she had worked at the Hunger Project for a month and still refused to take the training. They said she was 'uncooperative, closed-minded and had a narrow perspective.' I was later asked to provide my car to chauffeur some out-of-town est officials around the city several days later.

"I was also struck," Lieberman adds, "by the emphasis on Werner Erhard. Everything was 'Werner says.' When I expressed confusion to someone about the way the Xerox machine worked, she explained that I 'really ought to study this machine because Werner says we all ought to get clear about how machinery works so that it doesn't control us.' "

Another Center for Investigative Reporting staffer volunteering at the Hunger Project described a similar experience. The effort to pressure him into taking the est training, says Dan Noyes, was as important as Hunger Project business: "When asked Tracy Apple if est was important, she said 'I personally recommend it, but it's not essential. It will help you understand the Hunger Project and the man who created it. T's the greatest thing that ever happened to me.' Although she was careful to say that est was not essential to the Hunger Project, she then proceeded to pressure me to sign up for the two-weekend seminar, saying it cost $300. She asked me when I had a free weekend and sat down to call and find out when the dates of the next Bay Area sessions were. I said I would think about it.

"The next time I came in, I saw Tracy Apple. After saying hello, the first thing she asked was 'Have you decided about your training yet?' She told me that I had to have the $300 enrollment fee by the next day. She called to arrange for me to go down and enroll. When I went to a special est guest seminar the next week, I was surprised to see that it began jointly with a Hunger Project seminar. My general impression was that there was no difference between the two." Hunger Project staffers expended so much energy trying to get Noyes to join est that they neglected to collect his Hunger Project enrollment card or to convince him to contribute time or money to the Project.

Such pressure in recruiting new est members comes as no surprise to anyone familiar with the organization. Est has monthly enrollment quotas and staffers are put under enormous pressure to fill them. "Werner once put out a list of ways to recruit people to est," explains one disillusioned former est staffer. "You would not believe the lengths staffers were asked to go to get people in the training. F someone called est by mistake, you know, a wrong number, you were supposed to not hang up but to try to recruit him. You were supposed to recruit your lover, your mate, your friends, your family, the milkman or paper boy. It was incredible." According to another former staff member, Werner explained the purpose of the Hunger Project as that of increasing enrollments in the est training. 

It takes quite an penchant for indifferent to one's fellow human beings to exploit hunger for one's own ends. Speaking of that, go now and read the NY Times magazine article on Plumpy'nut.

Eido Shimano and Genpo Roshi and the blogosphere and questioning teachers

By now, everyone's heard about the Eido Shimano scandal being written up in the Times.  As an ex-New Yorker, I can tell you this is a bigger deal than you think, because Eido Shimano was quoted when they needed "the NY  Zen Buddhist" viewpoint (there was at least one more article in which his name appears but doesn't in the search, if memory serves me.).  Though the Zen Mountain Monastery folks got in too, sometimes.

And as I've said, that's all well and good, and I wish them all the best.  If you want a more candid opinion, from those in the know, there are podcasts of Genjo Marinello of late that  are worth hearing.  I have never met Genjo, but I have great respect for his teaching.

Back to the Times article.  These part struck me a little:

The Aitken papers were soon circulating on the Internet. On June 15, Mr. Shimano’s board of directors, which exercises ultimate authority in the society, met to discuss the allegations. Mr. Shimano, who was then on the board, was not present, but most board members concurred that the charges most likely had some validity...

First, this more recent affair occurred in a different news media culture. Clerical impropriety is a hot topic, of course. And on the Internet, where several bloggers were scrutinizing the Aitken papers, the new affair was sure to be mentioned. “The Internet was turning the heat up,” one member said. Board members had to act; they could not afford to be seen as indifferent. 

Second, there has been a shift within the American Buddhist community, which has become more concerned about relations between teachers and students. 

Historically, because that relationship is considered sacrosanct, affairs were not always condemned, or even disapproved of. 

“Unlike the therapeutic environment with analysis, with Buddhist teachers and students there are debates about what is appropriate and what isn’t,” says James Shaheen, editor of Tricycle. As to sexual relationships between teacher and student, “most people would come down on the side of ‘Let’s just not do it.’

What is interesting to me is that on the internets, my impression was there was a general wave of questioning of the ethics and motives of teachers.    Stuart Lachs' groundbreaking work in this area is completely ignored in the Times article.  Brian Victoria's work, while not relevant to the article (and Victoria has been mentioned in the Times before) is also relevant here too.

But the idea that there should be ethical and fiduciary responsibilities for Buddhist teachers is kind of a no-brainer, especially to those of us who saw the Catholic Church disintegrate over pedophilia scandals.  

And the other thing that's ignored in this article is the "Genpo Roshi "controversy.  Now  Dennis Genpo Merzel I'm sure doesn't put himself in the same category as Eido Shimano.   But if he doesn't then he should at least put himself in the category of LGAT guys.  In terms of the number of people who are misguided, in terms of mischaracterization of the Dharma, Dennis Genpo Roshi's "Big Mind" is leaving I think a substantial footprint.

In fact, I'd say the "Big Mind" scandal is actually a bigger scandal in terms of number of people involved than the Eido Shimano scandal. That's an opinion, of course, but I would maintain that the Times has, at least until now, let a big fish get away when it comes to Zen Buddhist internet scandals in the blogosphere.   That's their perogative of course.  And for all I know Dennis Merzel featured in an earlier version of the story.

Regardless, I hope these scandals get resolved to everyone's benefit.

Right now I'm glad I practice in a tradition that has taken,  steps to resolve its own issues here, even if they're too late.

I wish the Zen Studies Society the best of fortunes

I am glad to see that they are taking positive steps to deal with the Eido Shimano scandal. As I've said in the past,  my practice at the ZSS was vital to my practice, and words by Eido Shimano were of great encouragement to me at a time when I needed such encouragement more than I could have been aware.

So I am very hopeful they can make something good of all the trouble that has come into being.

Still Adjusting, Working

Bad jet lag combined with a cold picked up somewhere is slowing me down a bit.

So go listen to Genjo Marinello's talk "Kanchiketsu."  If you haven't heard this, he addresses, in the context of koan Case 21 in the Mumonkan, the recent re-airing of the Edo Shimano issue. 

How NOT to help people...

PZ Myers once again brings an important issue to my attention...OK, it has to do with Scientology, so for most of us it's not so important, but I'm coming to a point here...

Anywhere people are suffering, Scientology's yellow-shirted "volunteer ministers" can be found lurking near news cameras and claiming to help people with their bullshit technology. They performed "purification rundowns" on recovery workers sifting through the ruins of the World Trade Center after 9/11, administered "touch assists" to victims of the tsunami, distributed literature after the Virginia Tech shooting, and are on the ground in Haiti right now warning the starving, dehydrated populace about the dangers of psychiatry...

So precisely what does this desperately needed help consist of? To be fair, Scientology claims to have airlifted some actual medical professionals to Porte-au-Prince, a move that is hard to argue with even if the doctors are cultists and are accompanied by a retinue of recruiters and glorified masseuses who are there not to help but to carry on their "crusade to build a better world," as the web site for the cult's volunteer ministers program puts it, through the application of L. Ron Hubbard's paranoid and power-mad fantasies.

Read the rest of it, it gets weird, and includes massages to remove "standing waves" of trauma, detoxification "quackery," and other absurdity.

As Myers notes, as in the aftermath of 9/11 and the 2004 Tsunami disasters, these people will be in the way, distracting aid workers away from actually helping.


It doesn't matter what the religion is; whether it's Scientology, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam or 12 Step Groups; if you're going to the hurting people because you "have to" take the opportunity to convert them to your religion, you're not actually helping them. Shunryu Suzuki made such a point in the famous "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind," which, despite the grime put on by some of his students, still rings true, To paraphrase it: If you take up my path, you might make me very happy, but you might be quite miserable.

And this goes &infin times in crisis situations; there's people that are in immediate danger of death, or starving, or thirsty beyond imagination. And you're going to tell them that they have to do/believe in X, Y or Z?

You can't be serious.

Just help them.