Woke versus Awake

This post is largely, but not entirely a response to the confluence of a few tweets, one a nice tweet by Brad Warner, which can be found around here, but also this thread.  What I'd like to express in this post is:

• There's massive amounts of ignorance in the universe; it is an unfathomable amount of ignorance.
• As I wrote somewhere way back when,  regular Buddhist practice results in something, "awakening-wise" something like the way death is mentioned in the movie Beetlejuice:

• Just because you're highly experienced at whatever doesn't mean you don't have an obligation to learn more, do more etc. In such ugly times as these, not only is beauty true protest, but insouciance can be fatal.  The same applies for anyone who's ever had any kind of realization in practice.
• Just because you're highly sensitive to marginalized groups - because you may be in a marginalized group - doesn't mean you're not influenced by a massive amount of ignorance, especially since it tends to be the case with all of us.
• I don't consider myself woke, especially since I respect what a lot of folks are doing to realize their struggle in life is far more treacherous than mine. I won't opine on anyone's awakened state or lack thereof.  What I do know is privileged folks need to be more cognizant of marginalized folks regardless of what they do or know now, and people who are more aware of the issues and struggles of marginalized folks need to cultivate awareness, wisdom, compassion, and generosity.  Everybody anywhere along  the continua ought to try to excel in both ways.

So those are the points I wanted to cover in this post, and if I leave anything out here, well, consider it covered in my bullet points.  But I want to elaborate a little here and there at least:

I found this thread - pointing to this article - about a kid and a kimono, and how some that are derided as "SJWs" picked a target that revealed their ignorance, especially since it was later pointed out that kimono making is a dying industry in Japan, and wearing kimonos, and other Japanese stuff had been disseminated from Japan.  It was, in fact,  another example of what I mentioned in my post about Buddhist "cultural appropriation."  

I found it interesting because the thread I found on Twitter dealt with two people of Chinese ancestry talking about whether a Westerners using Japanese disseminated stuff was cultural appropriation or not. Yes, Virginia, they were Chinese-splaining proper behavior of Japanese towards Japanese culture.  I didn't know whether or not it was appropriate to White-splain Japanese culture to them, but they had unwittingly stepped on an inter-East Asian fault line (they're probably still unwitting, maybe not if they read this).  That fault line of course is that  if group X comprises subgroups A, B, and C, and A is the vast majority of those people in X,  people in B and C don't expect or desire that A is going to be the spokes-group for them.

I regularly work with East Asians, and there's certain protocols that are observed, because people need to get along with people in their work, and because there's laws, they're good laws, and they should be observed.  It is a tribute to the massive ignorance in the universe that laws that make people do the right thing for their business need to exist, but such laws do need to exist.  I try not to speak for any subgroups of people in which I work because of the law and because we have work to do.  Would that this would be the case in society at large, but it's not that way, even amongst those that favor social justice.

Back to Brad Warner.  Of late Brad Warner took a lot of heat (some of it from me) for his post here, which unfortunately sets of a false equivalence/comparison between alt-right buzzwords and the buzzwords of  what some deride as  SJWs.  I don't like the term SJWs,  because it reduces all people who hold certain positions to a caricature. (Such positions include some of my positions,  e.g.,  "Black Lives Matter" was a clever way to call attention to the fact that Black lives weren't being treated like White lives; it was a kind of koan: How are Black lives different than non-Black lives? That some liberals like Hilary would say "All lives matter" was precisely the point of Black Lives Matter. ) I also don't like the term "allies" either and that whole nomenclature that goes along with some of what those who (often mis)use critical theory use in advancing yes, justice and equality.  That was what Brad was decrying - the reduction of everything to shibboleths.  But, as I replied here and there to him, on one side, there's people trying to fight for people getting screwed by prejudice and bigotry, and on the other side there's racists and bigots who might be little guys screwed and exploited by others, but still racists.

The social justice folks, being human, are as capable of ignorance, violence, and hatred as anyone else, and, as Brad might point out, some of the people feeding into and exploiting bigotry and racism might make a mean apple pie and make you feel welcome in their home.  Maybe. But the current objectives of one group is not the moral equivalent of the other. It just isn't, regardless of who's in anyone's family.  And you know what? A million billion social  and cultural faux pas by a myriad number of social justice folk is not the same thing as a white person complaining that they are socially sanctioned for calling minority groups with derogatory names! There are however exact analogues for other groups in the world  because racism and bigotry are pretty widespread in the world.

There was something in one of Shunryu Suzuki's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, that pointed to one's own self, one's own practice, one's own awareness as the locus of where any meaningful action should be initiated.   "Culture grows out of you," I think he wrote (and I don't know where my copy of the book is, so I'll rely on my memory here.)  Culture and you and/or culture and I are not separate. Cultural dissemination and cultural appropriation can't be completely separate either; and when something is disseminated the disseminated thing may not be bound to the social structures in which the thing existed prior to dissemination.  Bill may have to be killed because he used the skills disseminated to him for evil ends.  Or not.

Culture, social action, and any such related things can be used for good or bad ends; we have to have some degree of ethical principles to use them towards good ends, and we have to be aware of them to use them effectively towards good ends. 

So it's not enough to be "woke," you have to work towards being awake.  And what good is being awake if it's not helping yourself and others?  To the agree that we're awake, we're awake but we became awakened/died each in our own way, each with our own baggage. We still have an obligation to deal with the baggage.

Buddhism, Martial Arts, 書道/書法 and Cultural Appropriation

I could have sworn I'd written about this already but recent stuff I've been reading on social media leads me to believe that Certain Things Need to Be Written Down.  I know I commented on this elsewhere because there was a spate of "cultural appropriation in yoga" stuff a while back.  What motivates me today is not yoga critics but  recent critiques of cultural appropriation such as this.  Now the originator of that Twitter bit often has content worth one's attention, and is often rather witty.  But Certain Things Need to Be Written Down.

And with that a few words about "yoga appropriation" ought to be said first. I thought yoga appropriation as cultural appropriation rather absurd, as yoga as New Agey Thing has been a thing for a lot longer than the last decade and a half or so when it really took off.  And I thought if people didn't get peeved at New Agey yoga appropriation, what's the deal with cultural appropration?

And the trajectory by which the yoga meme (the Dawkins meaning,  folks) went from Indian thing to New Agey Thing to commercial thing to appropriated thing to alleged intellectual property is interesting because in some ways it mirrors the martial arts memes (without the New Agey step more or less), and in my view, despite the capitalist appropriation of yoga and martial arts, really damns the view of cultural appropriation of these disciplines i.e., the outcome of colonization and oppression of people of color by dominant white culture. NB: my examples here do not mean there is no such thing as cultural appropriation. Of course there is.  Yeah, Elvis Presley, white idiots who dress up like Native Americans and so forth.  But my point is not all instances of white people - or any other people - taking up a discipline "outside" their culture is stealing, is cultural appropriation or is wrong. And these "not all instances" are not "corner cases" - isolated instances which prove the general rule. They are, in my view vital for the survival of humanity in fact, at least when it comes to Buddhism.  They can be vital to the survival of the disciplines, too!

In a nut, the processes by which white people were introduced to yoga and martial arts  wasn't cultural appropriation at all.  It was cultural dissemination.  Yes, that's what it was. The same is even more true (and more important) for Buddhism, as I'll show. And it's also true for 書道/書法. I will readily and quickly grant that there is capitalist appropriation of yoga and martial arts just as there is capitalist appropriation of mindfulness.   But it was cultural dissemination to be sure.

Somewhere in my house I have this book. This lady trained for many years with B.K.S. Iyengar.  She didn't take it from him; he willingly taught it to her.  So it was with the Catholic nun who wrote the first book on yoga I ever read 46 or so years ago (though there were bits in there about being careful when you meditate, because Satan or something, if I recall correctly.) Point is, they learned it from those willing to teach it, and those willing to teach it thought it important to teach it to white people.

So it is with martial arts.  My Sifu, at his age (75 or thereabouts) wants me (60) to learn Wing Chun well enough so that I can teach others, and also so his lineage doesn't die out! Now, thankfully for Sifu, there's students in the class much younger and better than I! On the other hand, there's Tae Kwon Do, which is in several ways cultural appropriation of kung fu albeit as a  white and Korean cultural appropriation, but that's a whole other tangent. Here I should make the obligatory point that it is said that at least some of Ip Man's students had some resistance to Bruce Lee's studying of Wing Chun because of his mixed race background.  But I think I just made my point again.  I will make the point again shortly!

The difference between appropriation and dissemination is an order of magnitude more salient when it comes to Buddhism, especially in the Zen school.  Now I have heard some advocates for people of color make some ridiculously ignorant complaints about Western Convert Buddhists, which is used often as a signifier for white Western Convert Buddhists.  (NB: Read Arunlikhati's Angry Asian Buddhist blog for legitimate critiques of white Western Convert Buddhists.  Arunlikhati is a saint in my book.)   These ignorant complaints about white Western Buddhists often, but not always, come from Asian Americans with a Christian background.   So let me dispel a few myths that I've seen straightaway:

• YES, we know it's "awakening" and "understanding" and seeing into one's nature and not "enlightenment."  And some of us, unlike some of you, can read Chinese and Japanese.
• YES, we know it's asinine to go to places like Thailand sporting Buddha tattoos.  At least most of us do.
• YES, we know there are mistranslations of some texts.
• Many Buddhist texts were written in an Indo-European language before they were written in Sino-Tibetan languages.
• No, we don't all revere the Dalai Lama.
• YES there are quite a few frauds and hucksters and degenerates (white and Asian) in the White Western Buddhist Convert area, and YES, we've worked hard to try to deal with that issue. And YES, similar stuff goes on in Asia.
• NO, we're not all vegan/vegetarian.
• We're not all liberals. Heck, I'm not a liberal.

Anybody who's read about Bodhidharma knows that Zen was transmitted by cultural dissemination; this is emphasized in  the Platform Sutra.  And anyone who's read the Lotus Sutra knows that Buddhism is supposed to be universal.

But more importantly, one practices Buddhism to try to grok suffering, disillusionment, dukkha. This is about freakin' living one's life to deal with the fundamental human condition, and to help others to do so! If someone's going to call me out for "cultural appropriation," so be it!  But I would hope that such a person develops enough skill to be able to be a better practitioner than me.

Ditto for martial arts, at least in so far as they are taught to develop authentic 功夫.  I would wish that everyone be disciplined and accomplished.  This strictly speaking can't even be culturally appropriated for the same reason that Kierkegaard railed against the notion of "Christian nations." 功夫 happens at the individual level.

I could write a book on this. Perhaps I should.  One point I should make before I close is the same is true for 書道/書法; the author of the Twitter stream I referenced earlier took umbrage at a font.  I imagine he may not be happy at my practice of 書道/書法, but that may be again, like Asian Americans with a Christian background complaining about white Western Buddhists, due to a lack of familiarity with what 書道/書法 even is.  I hope not, but suffice it to say, 書道/書法, like 功夫 happens at the individual level.  When you see a work of  書道/書法, you are in fact seeing someone's mind.  How could anyone culturally appropriate that?

A Response to Herb Eko Deer on money and Buddhism

Herb Eko Deer also wrote something recently about "fee for service Dharma," although frankly I'm a bit puzzled by it.

Now before I begin with Eko's post, let me just say there are some things I can see paying for regarding the Dharma; it would seem unseemly to me not paying honoraria to oshōs to officiate at weddings and funerals and what-not. That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about a situation where someone that wants to cultivate the Way in all aspects of his life is providing a significant portion of the sustenance of another person who ostensibly is helping that person along the Way.

Think about that for a second. OK? Uh...Shouldn't everyone be helping each other cultivate the Way without an explicit "quid pro quo"? And the real question of course, is what is the quo for which quid is requested.

Thanks. Oh and one other thing, see my previous posts if you happen to take umbrage at my placing "teach" or "teacher" and the like in quote marks.   Now on to Eko:

Why isn’t meditation taught in schools? Why not in police stations and hospitals? Why isn’t it offered in corporations or government administrations? Why not in the military?

It is simply not valued enough, not as a religion, but as a practical way to foster peace and serenity, not to mention spiritual awakening. 

I believe it would shift the planets energy towards peace if it were valued, implemented and supported for its full potential. Compassion and wisdom are priceless. This is because they are more valuable than any price we could pay, not because they are impractical or not valuable enough.

The issues with teaching meditation in schools, corporations, and what not  are several:

• Ethical issues of power and the potential for coercion:  in schools, police stations, hospitals, and work-places there are hierarchies of power, and those hierarchies of power should not be compromised by anyone's beliefs, whether for or against meditation.

• Ethical issues of religious freedom: While I very highly value a meditative practice, it's absurd to think in this society that everyone values it equally.   Although I find their way of life problematic on so many levels, we have to dwell with fundamentalists.

There is a sort of “free dharma” movement who’s members think Dharma teachers should not be compensated financially for their teachings. These voices, in my experience, are usually practitioners who are not authorized teachers themselves.
So what are we talking about? Well, the teachings for example include “introductions” to meditation, perhaps extended workshops, dharma talks, face to face teachings, books, articles or blogs, or “just” holding the space for meditation to happen. These are offered by teachers who must pay for utilities, maintenance, insurance, food, etc.
As i understand the complaint, since the Buddha didn’t charge set fees for his teachings no students seeking teachings should ever be asked to contribute to any of these teachings or activities. But, since the Buddha accepted offerings it is ok for teachers to accept their money as long as it is not asked for.

The complaint that's been made is the one I've referred to above.  Nobody in his right mind would challenge a fee to attend a retreat, or the above honoraria.  We're talking about people claiming explicitly - explicitly - to be enlightened (with or without wishy-washy language to try to walk back any claims to being a Buddha themselves) charging money so that you, too, Bucky, can see what the Buddha saw.

The issue, Eko, is that  you can't sell it and  a student can't pay for that. Because ultimately the trainee is living his own life.  

Let me be clear about my perspective, in our modern American culture, expecting the teacher to cover the overhead for you to come and be taught for free is ludicrous. Not to mention I don’t hear anyone pining for the good old celibate days. Things have changed, but the teachings are still pure, in their impurity...

I have to say, what kind of teacher teaches what cannot be taught?  But putting that aside, Eko is making what, at least from my perspective is a straw-man argument.

Money is empty, it is not good or bad, asking for it is not good or bad, giving it is not good or bad. Renunciation also is empty, it is not valuable or ethical in itself. It does not really exist and we cannot absolutely renunciate the basic necessities of life. The buddha never turned down a meal and he accepted offerings, this is not renunciation, this is modesty. He simply took what he needed and didn’t ask for more. Of course when he expected others to dedicate their entire lives to his path and support his cause full time was no modest compensation.

Well. The goodness or badness of giving and receiving money depends on the circumstances, no?  And we baldly have to ask the question here: Is Herb Eko Deer fundamentally more of a Buddha than you are I? And did the Buddha expect something in the way of a guaranteed middle class lifestyle from either his monks or lay supporters? 

Herb Eko Deer, like everyone else, needs money for food and shelter.   That's a given.  And people who patronize him as "teacher" should certainly support him.   I'm not talking about supporting someone who chooses to do this (mostly) full time at levels significantly different than what I would pay another trained person.

However...

• We're talking about levels of payment significantly more than compared to compensation of a music teacher or martial arts teacher.
• It's unrealistic and  ahistorical to think that, unless one is an abbot of a temple, that one did this kind of thing full time in the past, at least in the Chinese and Japanese traditions.  This is not about not giving to those who need it.  It's partly about how the word "cynic" evolved.  But above all, it's about humanizing the provider; to what degree is the provider a person of accomplishment (in the sense of 功夫) if all they can claim is to be able to "teach?" 

That last point is a major one in my book: what good is your "teaching" if you can't allow someone to authenticate it outside of the context of a reference as explicit teaching, if it's not tangible like playing music or demonstrating proficiency at martial arts?

In fact, Daido Loori mentioned various "outside" practices, namely art practice and body practice in his book "The Eight Gates of Zen." 

By contrast, there's Genpo Merzel ("Big ___") and a guy litigating his former sangha who was not embraced by Myoshinji.

Herb Eko Deer seems to have an interest in the martial arts.   Hopefully he has access to a good tradition here. Some work better than others, as Sam Harris pointed out.   I probably won't have the time to learn Brazilian Ju Jitsu in my life.  But I'd encourage  Eko to  continue to practice martial arts if he isn't already, because this is a skill that can be taught well from the background of Zen training.

Has Tricycle become the Weekly World News of the Whole Foods Customer?

I've seen the magazine at two of my local upscale groceries.  Used to be you'd see Weekly World News or the National Enquirer or some such rot in a grocery.  At other groceries you still do, but there's also magazines with Oprah's mug on them as well.

We have many choices in our free enterprise system, don't we?

I guess I'm asking this question in the title  because I've been re-reading some blog-posts from the last few days, including, but not limited to NellaLou's here,  my own posts, and that of the Speculative non-Buddhists .  It seems to me there's scandals reported in Buddhism all over the place, that DC area shooter, Thailand monks,  Buddhist Geeks conference flippant remarks about unwanted sexual situations, etc. etc.

Who makes the narrative for all this?

Yeah, I'm making the narrative here, and you can help.

But I think it's too easy to sit back and let others define the narrative for us, or perhaps a better phrasing is someone puts forth a narrative and we're inclined to adopt a narrative because adopting a dissonant narrative involves the work of constructing a dissonant narrative.  Or something like that.   But it's why the echo chamber effect we see in right wing media happens in situations outside of right wing media.

So who has been making the narrative in Western Buddhist media?

Well, I'll go through a couple of them, based on what my browser's presenting me at this moment.  Of course they change this stuff, and by the time you get to it the various Western Buddhist media might be different.

But let's look at it for a second. It might give us insight we might not otherwise have.

First, let's look at the  Shambhala Sun's site.  Did you know America is Angry, and the Left became "unhinged" when George W. Bush took advantage of a conservative controlled Supreme Court to stop the vote count in Florida in the year 2000, and therefore questions will always remain about the propriety of his assumption of the American presidency?  Note to Shambhala Sun: I think one reason "America is angry" has to do with articles like this, with their false sense of balance and equivalence.

I mean, this was the first article I looked at in writing this blog post, and right the freak there is the problem I'm trying to point out: Western Buddhist media provides a narrative that really is more of an impediment to ethical practice than an enabler of it.

From that article:

The hostile left-wing Volvo driver might be shocked to hear it, but he’s not so different from Rush Limbaugh: both lack a filter with which to screen their bile. Meditation practice provides this filter by training us to be nonreactive, to consider our actions, to “check in” and directly experience how we feel physically and emotionally before acting on it. They teach us to see the larger world and our place in it more clearly, and to experience what we are feeling with some degree of awareness.

We don’t need to become Buddhists to deal with our anger but everyone can benefit from what Buddhists have learned from millennia of training. These practices are not a panacea or a cure, but a process through which we learn to see our emotions as dynamic and changing. By undertaking this work, we are less likely to give the finger to the next hapless driver who accidentally cuts us off. Or start a war

As I've also noted elsewhere,  there's nothing at all ethical or useful categorically, with respect to Buddhism, in making "non-reactivity" good in and of itself; rather we should strive to have the right action at the right time. 

Oh, and that's not why at least we Zen Buddhists practice meditation. Sometimes reacting non-responsively to a situation is a good idea.  Sometimes it means death.

But more over, this article is itself injurious to right speech, in my thinking in that it posits a false equivalence between Rush Limbaugh and an angry Volvo driver! And in so doing, presupposes there is a "Buddhist" political point of view and modus operandi.  But, regarding the equivalence:

Dude, whoever wrote that article: Rush Limbaugh is partly a character, like Stephen Colbert, only his real-life politics align with the jerk he plays behind the microphone.

Plus he's worth scores of millions of dollars.

There is no equivalence here.

Not that I'd justify angry drivers whatever the political persuasion.  I don't.  But I also can't justify this kind of speech with an implicit political agenda  purporting to  be "Buddhist" speech. (BTW, do lefties still drive Volvos?  I thought they all went over to Priuses.)

Anyway, to conclude: Shambhala Sun, in publishing such articles, in part serves a purpose not completely dissimilar to the tabloid rags of yore.  But instead of being distracted at gaping at some celebrity  scandal you can be distracted by tut-tutting your head at all the right-wing or left-wing folks, and distract yourself into feeling superior to them because you meditate.

That's some hell of an editorial policy that admits such articles injurious to the 8-fold path, don't you think?

I better get over to Tricycle or I'm never going to accomplish anything meaningful today.

What do I see at Tricycle?

• Buddhistdoor is recruiting an executive editor.   That's the first thing I see.
• Scrolling down, I see links to stories, many of which are behind a paywall, but the majority of which seem to deal with either a) "Buddhist celebrities" (e.g.,  Thanissaro Bhikkhu), b) the shooting in the DC area, but above  c) (inclusive of a) & b)) stories in some way related to Buddhism outside  the experiential realm of the average reader of Tricycle. 
• Then there's the ads.  Buddhist Geeks has an ad there. 

I had to poke around a bit, but at least in 2012, The Tricycle Foundation did receive a grant from the Frederick Lenz Foundation. 

If you go to Tricycle's "About" page, there is  links to what are said to be IRS forms, but alas, as of this writing, they're dead links.

The fact is, the editorial policy at Tricycle will in some part depend on who gives it money.   The fact that Tricycle still does not acknowledge the wrongdoing of the likes of Lenz, is in effect whitewashing his shady past, and implicitly green lighting new misbehavior.

So Tricycle, like Shambhala Sun:

• Helps to mystify Buddhist experience rather than clarify it by positing Buddhist content as outside of one's self (perfect for mental cause tourism).
• Plays down, or ignores  any role it might have in the historical  issues facing Western Buddhism.  For years in Tricycle there were ads from Genpo Merzel's outfit, Eido Shimano's outfit, etc. etc.

How has Tricycle responded? It's unclear as to what their ethical or editorial responsibilities and  standards they have or attempt to meet.  Just like the National Enquirer. 

Once upon a time Tricycle linked to outside Buddhist blogs.  They do not anymore.  They did attempt to create a social network within their domain; naturally this can't demolish any echo chambers in existence.

Now I'm not saying that all the Buddhist luminaries presented in Tricycle or the Shambhala Sun have nothing to say, they're all immoral, yada yada yada. No, what I'm saying is the very structure of the Buddhist media in the West is conducive to not illuminating and dealing with the stench of feces within the sangha.    Tricycle and the Shambhala sun present themselves as hipster kitsch; there is the absolute denial of their own shit  through the absence of its appearance in their context (whereas tabloid rags are kitschy in a way Kundera could not imagine living in the drab Communist world in which he was at the time when he came up with his kitsch formula.)

I don't fault the Buddhist luminaries necessarily for presenting in these magazines; you've got to try to help people wherever they are.

I do think it's time we in the West paid a more critical eye towards these publishing institutions and their role in shaping the discourse in Western Buddhism.

Some Questions for Kenneth Folk

James Ford has offered some what I think is valuable perspective on my recent posts on "fee-for-service Buddhism" here. In particular, it was issues discussed regarding Mr. Kenneth Folk.  I used the quote marks back there because I wanted to specifically emphasize a bracketing of whether or not an economic system where a "teacher" or "coach" should be paid for services is a form of right livelihood.

James says:

So, given the complexities of the Japanese ordination models which have produced many Dharma teachers here in the West as well as the significant numbers of lay teachers, we have come up front and ugly, to confront that connection between money and teaching.

Among the options I see, we can 

1) scrap the non monastic ordained and lay teacher models.

2) keep these systems amateur (in the most positive use of that term), where the teacher is expected to make her or his living in some way unconnected to the Dharma.

3) revisit the “ethics” of financial support for non monastic teachers 

Frankly, I think the horse has been out of the barn vastly too long for option one.

Option two is what many are doing, myself included. I’m endlessly grateful for having stumbled into a line of work that has, I think, fruitfully, pushed me and challenged me as a Dharma teacher. I think those who have taken on various uniquely Western disciplines as psychologists, social workers, coaches and the various related, also fit into this option two adaptation. 

And, I think, as good as it has been for me, and a number of other teachers, it isn’t an ideal model. For one where is the line between a psychological counseling and Buddhist teaching? Or, coaching? Or, the rising discipline of “spiritual direction?” I find that line so movable depending on this or that as to be almost meaningless. 

So. Acknowledging it isn’t going to be easy, still, I think we need to go with all deliberation toward option three.

I'll also note before I go deeper into this  that the notion of fee for services is not unknown in Japan,  and one of the more lively debates/scandals etc. over there - at least as of several years ago - was  the fact that some temples were selling "better" Buddhist funerary names for more money.  And temples remained in the family over there, etc.   So these types of issues aren't even unique to the West.

And I'll state flat out, that my preference above is James' Option 2; it seems to have worked best to avoid so many attendant problems historically.

I'll also note before I go deeper here, that from a Zen perspective, "teacher" or "coach" seems a bit much, and "roshi," as I've noted before, is a bit over-the-top as well, mostly because it's applied in Japan to very old great or dead great widely recognized leaders in the field, though translated back into Chinese it literally means "teacher." 

So over there, you don't call someone a teacher unless they're pretty much not in a position to abuse their position, Sasaki-roshi notwithstanding.  The term of use in Japan is  oshō, "和尚"  which my dictionary says is composed of characters for "harmony" and "further." I like that.  That said, for purposes of this conversation, since many of the principals involved are not in the Zen school, or even possibly recognize where I want to go with this ethically, I won't quibble with others' use of the word teacher here, but note in passing that I would hope that those who use it stipulate to  possibly committing the same wrongdoing critics of Western Buddhism  have been accused of doing, which is the use of jargon for the purposes of mystification.  I, myself, maintain the position of my  和尚: There is no teacher.  Bodhidharma is the teacher.  The most neutral terms, I think would be "provider" and "client," and I'll use those terms in what follows. (I could use the more geeky and probably even better "server" and "client," but let's stick with "provider" and "client" for now, since it's a similar terminology used in the secular world.)

James wishes that the rhetoric might be a "toned down" in this.   I won't speak for others, but I can't see that right speech categorically might exclude rhetorical styles that are within the pale of Hunter S. Thompson or Mike Taibbi or at least a good old fashioned polemic.  But that's just me.  R.D. Laing's The Politics of Experience, is one of the best polemics I've ever read, and despite Laing's own failings as a human being, he made some points that echo down even to this conversation *.  And regarding the blog posts of others, as I said elsewhere, there's an internet version of active listening.  It works more often than you might think. Use it.  And for those who took umbrage at my use of the term huckster, I think I used the word properly in context, especially given the existence of a coupon code.

Anyway, that's just the prelude to this post.  Anyhow,  Al commented on James' post, that perhaps we might want to address questions to Mr. Folk directly.  Again I come at this post from the perspective of a professional who is well-paid for what I do but with that status comes a host of ethical obligations to which I adhere for purposes of right livelihood, and because it's my job, and because I don't need the trouble of going through legal disclosure.  I have never had that done but once (and that's an amusing story in and of itself which I can't go into the details in any great degree).  Trust me,  although it's never happened to me,  you do not want to be deposed for in relation to an anti-trust action.  Angela Davis was right: a fair trial is no trial at all if you're innocent, and Clarence Darrow was right if you're guilty.

And regarding ethical issues of pay-for-service professionals, I'll note that in the secular sector, there's issues that arise there too:

• The abuse of fee-for-service by medical, psychological, and counseling  professionals is not unheard of, and I've known of several instances in my life (and one that affected me personally) where this structure's been abused.  The usual mode of abuse here is maintaining  a provider/client relationship and money flows from client to provider long after services from the provider are no longer needed.

• There's also of the abuse issues that arise from the power relationship between provider and client, including but hardly limited to sexual abuse issues.  In fact the asymmetry of the power relation between provider and client is one of the big issues that arise in the medical field, in the US especially, especially when it comes to attempts to negotiate fees in an emergency room.

The secular sphere has put some safeguards in place but they are inadequate even there.

So based on all of the above, here's questions I'd ask to Mr. Folk directly:

• What code of ethics would you adhere to? Is it published? If someone has a dispute with the services you rendered, how is redress effected?
• How does the client know when he no longer needs your services?
• From a Buddhist perspective, are you concerned with the ethical quandaries of teaching meditation without the corresponding instruction in right conduct?  If you feel it is not necessary,  why is that so, and why or why not, from your perspective, is that a Buddhist right livelihood? 
• Aside from time constraints, under what circumstances would you refuse services to a client?
• Do you offer pro bono services to those who cannot meet your fees?
• How does the client have assurance that your claims of enlightenment are genuine?  How can you ensure that these claims have no bearing on any potential exploitation of the relationship between you and your clients?
• Regarding your fees, are you aware that the motivation for certain pricing schemes and business transaction methods are structured precisely to encourage a sale? For example Publisher's Clearing House makes people go through a lot of effort to enter into their contests because they have found that it makes one more likely to subscribe to a magazine if one goes through a lot of effort to register for a "free, no obligation" contest.  Then there is  the well-known pricing with prices ending in "9," and there's more recent results on the use of numbers in context with other things to encourage certain behaviors.  Are you aware of how your "coupon code" discount might be construed?
• How were your fees set at the levels they are? What factors, such as cost-structure and retirement planning were considered in setting them?

As I said on James' blog,  I'm pretty easy to find, and look forward to Mr. Folk's respsonse.  For that matter, other practitioners of "fee-for-service Buddhism" are encouraged to reply as well.

Update: Dosho Port answers the questions here.

________________

*Speaking of active listening and R. D. Laing there's a story about how there was an incommunicative schizophrenic patient who spent his days sitting on the floor rocking back and forth.  Nobody had been able to speak to get him to communicate, until Laing sat down next to him, and rocked back and forth...until the patient spoke to him, if I remember the story correctly.

Mysticism and its Mystification with respect to Enlightenment.

I would like to say a bit more about some of the ideas of the Speculative Non-Buddhists and Tutteji in particular, this time on enlightenment.  I am not necessarily talking about the Soto "practice as enlightenment" per se  below, as I come at this mostly from a Rinzai perspective, but on the other hand, I don't wish to have it understood that I'm trying to invalidate the Soto position either.  In what follows, as far as I'm concerned, I'm mainly talking about experiences of kensho  (見性) and satori (悟り) rather than the Dogen practice enlightenment, but I don't necessarily wish to exclude Soto's position.  

People like Kenneth Folk or Daniel Ingram or that other guy whose name I can't remember at the moment are really visible straw-men for their critics, especially because, at least to me, their "practice" does not seem in any way deep or authentic. Those are polite words for something else. Folk and Ingram, if I understand correctly, readily admit they're "enlightened" but they also readily admit  they might not "be enlightened the way the Buddha was," but their use of the word is a transparent attempt to hijack all the meaning involved in the Buddha's enlightenment to their particular projects.

As a technical guy, the fact that they bandy words about like "neuroscience" and other pseudo tech words,  is, I guess, their attempt to sound hep to the techie set they understand exists in The Valley Where the Money Is.

And then they use words like "pragmatic." 

It invites the charge that all enlightenment accounts and experiences are hoaxes or delusions, and in particular with respect to accounts from those such as the self-professed charlatans above, fraudulent.

Now that I cannot abide.

Just because there's boys in High School claiming all sorts of sexual exploits doesn't imply that in High School there are no boys getting any.

The only way you'll have to legitimately answer the question though for yourself is to pay your own dues. 

I think there are genuine enlightenment experiences, and attempts to deny or marginalize those experiences are themselves a form of mystification,  just as the charge is spot-on that people like Folk and Ingram are themselves mystifying enlightenment. The critics' mystification exists to advance their own ends, I would posit.   But the fact that there is mystification does not in any way invalidate anyones experience of the transcendent.  In addition, it doesn't make one perfect in any way at all.  

I also think there are enlightenment accounts that are not attempts to mystify the experience; these accounts exist because, people have the experience, that dammit, something did happen. It's what people impute to that something that did happen, though that I think makes the difference.  And these accounts, I think, are instructive in yet another way with respect to the charlatans: the charlatans are saying you'll benefit from an awakening experience, but most of the accounts I've seen from people whose later results seemed benevolent indicate that nothing changed.  And indeed nothing should change because you've got to put something in motion for interdependent phenomena to arise.

Narratives and Buddhism, Zen Buddhism in particular

In recent days I've blogged a lot about the so-called "Integral" movement, which I think will be remembered as a spectacularly failed  fin de siècle attempt at making New Age stuff ...umm...I really don't how it will be remembered other than the I will find it hard to believe that anyone who's understands what  a Lebesgue Integral is won't remember it as beneficial in any way.

The lack of understanding of science and mathematics though is only pointing to a bigger issue around, an issue at times which I probably bear some responsibility as well.  I suppose I've meant well.  And I suppose there's no way out of it, if you're going to be asked/describe/put into everyday practice a Zen Buddhist practice.  

You're going to have to talk about it. 

In one of Genjo Marinello Osho's recent podcasts (I think it was "The Great Death") he mentions what is said  often - to the point where it's almost a slogan with some Zen texts: if somebody says he's the Buddha, he's not.  If someone says he's enlightened,  he doesn't know what enlightenment is.

The issue in communicating a narrative of Zen Buddhism has always been that to do so one has to express their understanding such as it is or isn't.  So a lot of physical activities that seem potentially harmful are reported in the records of the early practitioners and masters.

And what have we got today?

This blog? Don't believe this blog.  This blog will not help, just as you'll have to do more than look at a web page in Wikipedia to really understand the motivation and uses for measure theory.

You have various other narratives as well.  Some are, I think, rather helpful - I think Genjo Osho's work has been helpful, and there are others as well, including some folks from the Seung Sahn lineage, and some of the Soto folks.   Hsu Yun's lineage also looks particularly interesting to me, at least from the folks I met in China in this lineage.  (Can't really speak to some of their reputed acolytes' their web presence though.)

But even those websites/areas must be taken with a grain of salt, because ultimately they're not going to enlighten you either.

What I think is more problematic, though is the attempts by people to "add" stuff to Zen based on psychotherapy, Large Group Awareness Training (google it), etc.   Similarly I think attempts to create a narrative of "Western" versus "Asian" or "Immigrant" Buddhism ignore the fact that these categorizations are not fixed in any way.

And it is hard to see what that all has to do with the project of Buddhism.  It is true that often immigrant communities aggregate together.   American ex-pats in foreign countries do the same.  But does that mean that a Western Buddhism is fundamentally different from an Asian Buddhism?

Does it have any relation to the question of how you are to realize your original face or everyday mind  moment to moment in your everyday life? 

Note: when it comes to Buddhism and technology, I don't think there's much of an issue there at all; Buddhist can, do,  and will make use of technology.  But it's really a stretch to think this is "adding" anything to Buddhism (and Zen in particular).

It's easy to make narratives out of anything, to try to make declarative, authoritative assertions about Buddhism, the state of Buddhism in time t, in location x, but like that guy said in Pulp Fiction,  that might be pride talking.  

Yeah, this post is a narrative too, and I hope my purpose was to help all beings rather than say, "You're wrong!" for the sake of feeling better about myself.  That's not to say there's no snake oil salesmen out there.  There are; there's questionable teachers and there's teachers that have been authorized to teach by questionable teachers.  Some learn in spite of their teacher, it is hoped.

"Westernizing" versus "Mutating" Buddhism

James Ford and Barbara have written posts about "Westernizing" the Dharma, and more specifically Zen Buddhism in the West.

I figured I'd put my two cents in...

• Barbara and James talk about how Zen training was at first primarily a Zen training in monasteries.  They're right as far as they go, but what I wonder about is if they get the historical context correctly.  As I've said repeatedly, the degree to which Zen training was "laicized" in Asian cultures depended on the degree to which people had free time, and in the societies in which Chan/Zen flourished, most people had very little time on their hands.  The degree to which Chan/Zen flourishes amongst non-monastics is quite highly correlated with economic status. Thus, samurai and nobility could study Zen, but peasants could not unless they became monastics.  That fact can't really be ignored, and should be taken into account.
• James Ford writes:

Most people, however, who practice Zen, do not live in a controlled rule based environment beyond regular or occasional retreats. The average Zen practitioner today sits with a group that meets maybe once a week, perhaps a bit more regularly. And hits a retreat once in a while, maybe once or twice a year.

  I think that most Americans who practice Zen are in fact living highly structured lives by default because lives today are that structured, and there is "surplus" time in which to do meditation.  That's partially because of the class of folks practicing it.  The challenge for Chan/Zen is to bring this practice to those who have more hours of physical labor in the week and are poorer than those who do not.

• There are similar problems of Chan/Zen going on throughout the Western world; there is a significantly larger lay practice in Japan than there was centuries ago, because the movement to bring Zen to the laity actually started first in Japan, with Japanese organizations.
• Even amongst the less economically well off (and especially amongst the better off) Chan/Zen "offshoots" have been around for centuries with much the same spirit of Chan/Zen.  When James was writing about how there is much criticism in traditional monastics, I was thinking about martial arts training.  Teachers who are worthwhile in this endeavor aim constantly for perfection in their students.  Any practitioner of the so-called "Zen arts" will be challenged by one's continual need to improve skill.  And Barbara's right of course, communities of practitioners of any discipline will make for a better group of practitioners.
• Finally, I'd take a small issue with Barbara's characterization of "Western" versus "Eastern" philosophy.  My take on how professional philosophers do this is not that they intend to denigrate Eastern narratives of Buddhism, but rather that they wish to contextualize Buddhism in terms that have proven useful to Western philosophy.  To me, this is kind of like how mathematics has developed over the world.  Much of Western philosophy is concerned with matters about how to consistently, logically, describe aspects of human existence, just as mathematics attempts to consistently and logically describe numeric and computational aspects of our existence. The fact that much of probability theory has come to us through Soviet era mathematicians doesn't imply that probability theory is in any way "Communist," though I can imagine some know-nothings might assert that for political reasons.  Thus,   I can't imagine a serious professional Western philosopher saying there's no need for reading Nagarjuna when one has Sartre, but my viewpoint is shaped by what I've read on the subject.  But I'm talking about folks like the late William Barrett, whose writing was very respectful of D. T. Suzuki, (not to mention D.T. Suzuki himself) rather than knock-offs like Ken Wilber.
• So from a "Western philosophical" point of view I don't think there's a big problem.  I do think there's a big problem when "Western Buddhism" makes fetishes out of political figures, particularly when those figures have their own agendas.  I also think there's a big problem when "Western Buddhism" is really someone's projection of what they'd like  Buddhism to be, when it's a Buddhism laden with their own psychological or political or gender biases. But that's what I'd call a mutation of Buddhism.  It's all well and good to support political action and have that political action to be informed by one's Buddhist ethics.  It's another thing entirely to say that a particular movement is "Buddhist" and therefore that "Buddhism" should re-make the entire world.  You better free your mind instead, as John Lennon sang.
• Finally, I'd note that "traditional Buddhism" can indeed learn something from the West, and that something is professional ethics.  We in the West really did do that; it's a legacy of a Roman system of law.  All religious personnel should have notions of conflict of interest areas in what they do, and to be on guard for them.  The notions of professional ethics is of course still evolving, but let's give credit where credit is due.

Seriously, though I don't think the subject is so important to think about concerned with the day-to-day practice itself.

Yes, it seems June is now officially "American Buddhists" month...

There's yet another article on this topic, this time in the Mormon-connected Deseret News.  This one is actually a reproduction of the article in the Washington Post though, except for this paragraph:

Our take: Although surveys have found that the number of Americans who practice the Buddhist religion is rapidly growing, the practice of the Eastern faith doesn't necessarily reflect the traditional path. In fact, a "North American sacred tradition" has sprung up that is somewhat different from "wholesale" Buddhism, but, according to some Buddhists, this is possible because of the simplicity of the faith, its broad applicability to all cultures and types of people, and because it does not rely on the belief in any deity.

Naturally, I hardly ever look at the Deseret News - the last time I looked at it, it was to see if there had been any recent coverage of a couple of Mormon Fundamentalist murderers of late, who were the subject of a book I'd been reading on a plane ("Under the Banner of Heaven," by Jon Krakauer).

The Deseret News (or these days, the Washington Post) are not particularly reliable news sources to me, or perhaps I should say they are reliable to behave certain ways given their ownership and editorial policy.  

How the Deseret News can talk about a "traditional path" of Buddhism, a "North American sacred tradition" that is "somewhat different" than a "'wholesale' Buddhism" (as opposed to retail?) I just don't know.  I realize that news media is dying because its business model is collapsing, but to stick a paragraph like the above on top of a "Sally Quinn's brother who is a scholar of Buddhism" link-bait simply reveals the utter irresponsibility of some "religion" reporters, and, as Arun would note, the invisibility of Asian-connected Buddhists in the US.

To the Deseret News: Just because Genpo Merzel married someone well-connected to the Mormons doesn't mean we're at all like him. 

What is this, Western Buddhism month in the major media?

Via Arun, I see the Washington Post is weighing in on the subject of "Western Buddhism" and the "future" of Buddhism in the West.

This article has so many issues, it's not even wrong, as the physicist said:

• Yes, William Wilson Quinn, there is a historic North American Buddhist tradition: it is compiled of the aggregate of Buddhist traditions that immigrants brought to North America.  It includes nasty things that were done to the Chinese, the Japanese, etc.  It includes the folks who first greeted and sheltered Soen Shaku, Nyogen Senzaki, and many others.  It predates by decades many of the fundamentalist Christian sects in America, for example, the Foursquare Church, the Vineyard, and many other such sects.
• "Some North American authors have suggested that North Americans might consider foregoing any such wholesale adoptions of Eastern traditions in deference to gradually developing their own. " Others, including this author, have suggested that keeping the Eastern traditions is useful in the way that it's important to have a "skill set" developed around a form of cultivation, much as one learns to play a musical instrument. 
• "Expansion of consciousness????" Really, who talks like that in Buddhist circles anywhere?  Does the author think this is some kind of highest good or something?
• It's not all meditation. There's a whole 8-fold path that includes lots of other things too! And in the Zen tradition, most recorded accounts of enlightenment most assuredly do not recount it being achieved when in meditation.  So there's that.
• "North American Buddhists are likely to create their own traditions and schools of thought, but they should do so with the awareness that they are forging a new Buddhist culture, not the ‘true’ Buddhist culture."  I'm not sure what this sentence means. I'm not even sure the author knows what it means.

How much effort and the origin of divisions: further conversations

Nathan, over at his place, has continued the conversation further on how much effort one should put into one's practice. I'm grateful for that. 

I think this converation has aspects of the cultural and generational divides of so-called American convert Buddhism (which, as I'm sure one would point out, might still have ethnic faultlines considering that there might be Asian convert American Buddhists...etc...but I'll let the danger of overgeneralization on that point hang there to proceed on one of my larger points.)  Or maybe I'll just list them as bullet-points:

• I think one of the bigger cultural divides that I see has to do with "-isms."  While it is true that many of us adhere under Buddhism,  the Buddhism of the school from which I hail does endeavor to truly not exclude all.  And so I would aspire  to be just as jaundiced in looking at anti-capitalism and anti-sexism as I do anti-comunism and sexism.   It's more of a kind of a convergence of John Lennon and the Lotus Sutra though than any kind of a centrist politcal philosphy though. (I. e. "If you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao/You ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow" meets the Burning House parable which teaches skillful means.)   I mean in fact when it comes to politics and "skillful means" in politics (i.e., to acquire political ends purely and amorally)  I'm more of a kind of a fan of the guy who wrote "Carthage must be destroyed." And if someone's playing that zero sum game - the "Carthage must be destroyed" game, that may indeed be a convergence of Buddhist skillful means with political skillful means.  But all other things being equal, that is, when it's not presumed to be a zero sum game,  avoid the "-isms" is how I've been acculturated.
• But before I depart from that point, re: Michael Roach,  how the hell do people afford to go on a 3 year retreat?   Is it like the Catholic Church of a hundred or so years ago, which offered the equivalent of castration without the surgery (i.e., celibacy)  as a quid pro quo for lifting boys and girls out of poverty?  Or is this a fancy of the ultra-wealthy?  Clearly there's class and cultural issues that are outside mine right there.  I mean, I'm not poor by any means, but I could not afford to do a 3 year retreat until, geez, I'm like 68 or something...that's about 13 years from now.
• How much effort? It might be a Rinzai/Soto thing, but from a Rinzai perspective, "right effort" should be unceasing through the day.  In that sense I do not put in enough effort. But as far as Rinzai/Soto divides, we Rinzai can do that because there's ways of doing koan practice during the day that don't involve sitting in zazen.   Soto folks have mindfulness practice, which someone should have said is "just sitting without sitting."  I hope someone did, because it'd be a shame if that phrase were only attributed to me.
• And in the Rinzai tradition, at least Hakuin realized that the average people busted their buts and that effort was quite substantial. And that the Way could be realized that way. 
• Even when Hakuin wasn't in sesshin, he did a lot of sitting each day, oftentimes.
• So "right effort" and "arduous practice" are not something to be lightly dismissed. Despite what everyone said about "Geez, that's extreme what those folks did out there," Bodhidharma was arduously meeting the cave wall face to face, without "-isms."  Now the trick is to bring that ardor to being stuck in traffic, faulty plumbing, failed expectations and other beauties of our brief dwelling here.

Tricycle interviews the Angry Asian Buddhist

I'm really glad to see Tricycle publishing an interview with arunlikhati,  which deals with some of the issues of culture and ethnicity that tend to distort some of the way in which "Buddhist media" portrays "Buddhism."

As I commented over at arunlikhati's place, I tend to experience these issues too in odd ways.  The other night before my trip I was practicing Wing Chun with a Vietnamese professional guy.  His French was impeccable, but yes, I was (slightly)  surprised that he was illiterate in 漢字.  (Yes I know Vietnamese has been Romanized since the French, and yes I know Vietnamese isn't a Sino-Tibetan languague, but just because an Asian language has loan-words from Chinese, and just because there are non-Sino-Tibetan 漢字 languages not written in 漢字 whose users are literate in 漢字 doesn't mean that all educated speakers of non-Sino-Tibetan Asian languages know 漢字. )

So it's good to see this kind of dialog taking place.

What does it mean to have no rank?

I travel a lot, as regular readers on this blog know.  At the end of this week I'm traveling to Prague, which is sort of an ancestral homeland of mine (I'm of Polish, Slovak, & German descent, and have relatives in Prague). 

As I often do when I travel, before I go I usually do an internet search to find the "state of Buddhsim" where I'm going.  It's how I found Chan/Son/Zen Temples in Xi'an, Tianjin, Jeju, Seoul...

So I look to see if there's any kind of Zen in Prague. And there is. There's the Kwan Um folks' Prague office. I kind of have a grudging admiration for the Kwan Um folks.  And then there's this guy.

Master Sando Kaisen – Alain Krystaszek was born in 1952 in Noyon in the Oise region of France. He spent his first years in his hometown, and left it at the age of eight, when his father decided to take him to Poland, his father´s home country, to be brought up there. Here in Wroclaw, he received strict education, and the repressive atmosphere of communism of that time left sorrowful feelings inside him. As he was growing up, he kept on thinking more and more intensively about the issues of injustice, anger and human ignorance. The Christian education, he received in Poland while he was ministering for an old bishop, provided first answers. When he returned to France in 1967, he became a guardian of a Noyon cathedral and a guide in the John Calvin Museum. He was even thinking of becoming a priest. But at that time he started to ponder about other things too. He could not accept the idea, that peace and happiness of the spirit could only exist inside the church walls, and that the outside world would be filled with suffering and ignorance.

He ceaselessly continued searching for answers, and he wandered from one group to another. He started to make his living as a musician playing drums. At that time, at the end of the 60s and the beginning of the 70s, France was a place where eastern philosophy was flourishing. Fascinated by martial arts, which he had started to learn in Poland with teachers coming from beyond the Caucasus, he decided to go to China in 1972 where he could practice martial arts in their place of origin. His journey led him through the Himalayas, all across the communist China to a small temple, lost in the mountains of Wei-fang-shan. He practiced kung-fu here and meditated under the tutoring of an old Chinese master, who taught him both the mastery of controlling his body and mind and the traditional Chinese medicine.

When he got back to Paris, he met a Japanese Master Taisen Deshimaru, who had arrived to spread the zen teachings in Europe. He finally found in him a living example of what he had always been looking for, and he decided to become his disciple...

In 1979, he received an ordination for a monk from the hands of his master. His monk´s name became Sando Kaisen, meaning “a lonely hermit”. He devoted himself completely to the practice and transmitting of the zazen position. He studied ikebana (the Japanese art of arranging live flowers), calligraphy (the Japanese art of writing-painting) and growing bonsai. For over twenty years, he pursued his interest in Chinese medicine and kept on improving his kung-fu, up to the point when he realized, that the quiet sitting position surpasses all other practices and leads directly to the realization. That is when he definitively stopped practicing martial arts.

Full of energy, Master Sando Kaisen kept on drawing more and more disciples to himself, he founded one association after another and established many dojos, centres for practicing zazen...   ...© Master Sando Kaisen’s Zen

Of course the name Taisen Deshimaru was kind of a dead giveaway as to why this oddly flattering praise appears here.  It is really hard  to get past that - does this kind of schtick help beings in Central Europe? Maybe it does.  I find it kind of hard to believe however, yet, I'm sure this guy's got "followers." 

I guess the point of this whole thing is Alain Sando Kaisen really has his poop together, and you don't.  I guess.  I mean, the guy can walk on water and swim on land, it seems.

But what possible kind of Zen could you learn from a guy like this? 

You might learn, I suppose, how to meditate in the Soto kind of way (I'd hope at least that.)  But this kind of wording can't but encourage some kind of attachment to Sando Kasisen that is unhealthy.  Someone in the position of authority should maintain some difference from their "students" (clients? partners?), but ultimately there are no kings; nobody is by virtue of whatever karma or effort untouchable, fundamentally and irretrievably separate; there is no divine right. 

Anyway, "Master" Sando Kaisen's Zen is rather unfamiliar to me; it doesn't look very much like Zen from its web presence.