Memorial Day 2011

I'm sorry if folks have any thought that's political or too engaged or not engaged, but it was a goddam slaughterhouse back in the "Great War."

On my altar at home, in memory of my lineage, I keep the Purple Heart that my grandfather was awarded in that war. I'm not sure what the circumstances were, but of course many, many didn't survive to have children; they lived and died in what has been called, a place with "every corruption known to man."


May we someday evolve enough of a scintilla of wisdom to avoid such carnage again.

Not desirable...not repulsed

I have never watched more than a minute or two  or three of the Oprah Winfrey show (you know, the ones with Barack Obama and such), but like everyone else on earth, I've heard her, and heard her.

I don't know jack about her "religion."  But I do know that this analysis of "the church of Oprah" in the NY Times is deficient.

...The scholars found conflicting sources of Ms. Winfrey’s spirituality. It began, but definitely does not end, with the black church of her youth. In her 2003 book, “Oprah Winfrey and the Glamour of Misery,” Eva Illouz, a sociologist, quotes Ms. Winfrey as saying: “Since I was three and a half, I’ve been coming up in the church speaking. I did all of the James Weldon Johnson sermons” — Mr. Johnson being the poet whose “God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse” was published in 1927. “I used to do them for churches all over the city of Nashville,” Ms. Winfrey said..

While respecting Ms. Winfrey’s use of her Christian heritage, Dr. Illouz ultimately concluded that the talk-show host might be something of a false prophet. That is because, she said, Ms. Winfrey and her cadre of self-help experts treated suffering as something beneficial. Ms. Winfrey turned the black church’s ethos of self-reliance in the face of suffering into an exaltation of suffering itself.

“By making all experiences of suffering into occasions to improve oneself,” Dr. Illouz wrote, “Oprah ends up — absurdly — making suffering into a desirable experience.” 

 It would be strangely masochistic if  "suffering as occasion to improve oneself" exactly equals "suffering is desirable."   I mean, we Buddhists sort of know that suffering is inevitable but to the extent that there is a "point" to suffering it's an occasion to learn to be not attached to nor repulsed by suffering.  Suffering is universal, and that should be an occasion for the cultivation of compassion.

 Dr. Illouz may be a sociologist  - and may even be a good one - but she really ought to learn more about religion.

And Oprah Winfrey certainly enabled all breed of spiritual hucksters and quack snake oil peddlers...I'm sure I must have said something negative about her in the past about all this...but that doesn't justify making uninformed statements about religion.

Haven't had much to bloviate about lately...

Sometimes it's best just to do what you should be doing, I suppose. 

I've been reading more and more into the whole martial arts thing - its kinship to swimming of all things, is intriguing to me.  (Kinship to swimming? Yeah, it's all about the breath you know.)

So much of how one lives one's life is how one physically lives one's r life combined with how one consciously lives one's  life.

Nonattachment and non-duality is not all that different from "being like water."

Really, these guys were doing so much of the same thing as the Chan/Zen folks because they came from those folks.   Whether or not there was an exact lineage or what-not isn't really the point: they put non-attachment and non-duality in motion;  they made it a realized part of life.

And the other bits in one's life are like this.

Myers, Chopra, and 功夫

The word "功夫" has an interesting translation in Japanese; it means either (pronounced as "ふう" or "kufū") as (1) scheme; device; scheming; devising; figuring out; coming up with; solving ingeniously; (2) dedication to spiritual improvement (esp. through Zen meditation)," or (pronounced as "カンフー" or  "kanfū") it means what you might know as kungfu.  You know -  Bruce Lee, Wingchun and all that.

The first definitions - figuring out, solving ingeniously, and dedication to spiritual improvement are  implicit in the juxtaposition of the kanji - the first is that for "achievement, merits, and honor" and the second is that of a man.

They're really one in the same. Spiritual development is one and the same with becoming skilled and accomplished in one's day to day life.

And that's where I part ways with both Deepak Chopra and P.Z.Myers. First regarding the obvious casus belli: I've really no beef - for now - with Christopher Hitchens and the way he wants to die.   That's his path.

But with regard to Prof. Myers and "Dr." Chopra,  I do remonstrate. First with respect to "Dr." Chopra, he writes:

By making belief in God their enemy, atheists deprive themselves of what spirituality is really about: a process of inner growth. There are wisdom traditions around the world that do not use the word God (e.g., Buddhism, Vedanta) or advocate religious worship in the conventional sense. Countless people have seen through the faults of organized religion and turned instead to their own spiritual journey. Hitchens and other atheists stand at the door to that journey and slam it shut, assuring all who approach that to seek God, the soul, or higher reality is a fool's errand. How do they know? It's not as if they have inquired deeply into the great saints and sages who have successfully traveled such a journey. Hitchens dismisses every spiritual person out of hand, which means that he dismisses William Blake (the source of his phrase, "mind-forged manacles," which Blake applied to modern industrial life, not religion) in the same breath that he dismisses Bible Belt preachers.

By discounting the whole notion of spiritual awakening, atheists make a claim to false knowledge. They haven't walked the walk, yet somehow they know, with dead certainty, that Buddha, Socrates, Plato, Jesus, Confucius, Zoroaster, Saint Paul, Rumi, Kabir, the Prophet Muhammad, Rabindranath Tagore, and countless others aren't just wrong; they are stupid and blinkered compared to any everyday atheist today. I have my doubts. The atheists I've met went through a period of personal disillusion with religion, and on that basis alone they became atheists. Could anything be more subjective for a crowd that decries subjectivity? Could anything be more idiosyncratic for a group that claims to represent universal reason?

I'm not on this path not because I expect to become a master at anything by this phase of my life.  I'm not on this path because I want a cool experience of seeing a deity, or because I affirm or deny what any big names in philosophy or religion might or might not have said, assuming they might have existed.  Myers writes, in various places, in response to this:

"Spiritual journey" is one of those New Age phrases that means nothing: it means not going anywhere, not learning anything new, only wallowing in one's preconceptions and justifying it with bafflegab about "spirituality", which is also undefinable and unmeasurable and utterly useless...

Scientists and atheists have set reasonable standards for evaluating truth, and like to point out that the claims of religion not only fail to meet that bar, but also are contradictory, both within and between the different mythologies. We know the multitudes of bizarre spiritualities can't all be true, and given that they won't even try to justify their beliefs with evidence, we may righteously discard them all until they make an effort to show that they actually possess some tiny fragment of truth.

I have seen and experienced suffering.

I have seen and experienced that there is a cause to suffering.

I have seen and experienced that - however briefly,  due to my incompetence - suffering may be transcended.

I have seen and experienced that when I follow the path of the Buddha, the above sentence becomes more true more often.

I take issue with Chopra because he is a huckster, a charlatan and a liar (he has met Richard Dawkins, who would not say that he became an atheist because he had a "period of personal disillusion with religion, and on that basis alone [he] became [an] atheist."

But I take issue with Myers because you just can't look at a friggin' life of many in Buddhist sanghas, you just can't  participate in the tea ceremony in indifference, you just can't marvel at the effects of cultivation of skill for others and not say that the practice of a religion that emphasizes these points is superstition.

Speaking of Hitchens, here's a Youtube video that purports to be of Yip Man, Bruce Lee's teacher of Wing Chun, 1 week before his death of throat cancer. Yip Man, who was known to have been an opium addict at some point in his life according to his Wikipedia page, wasn't perfectly cultivated all the time, and neither is yours truly. But that's not the point.




Somewhere in all that is the answer to the Genpo Roshi/Eido Shimano koan too. I'm sure you can figure that part out. But as long as you've gotten this far, and if you saw the above video of Yip Man, you might as well see what his student did, according to this guy who deconstructed some of his moves.



Yes, at one time they had to rely on skill because CGI had not been invented yet.

And so it is for our lives. Except we don't have to do 20 punches in 3 seconds or something like that.

I'll have something more to say about Myers v. Chopra

I've got a reply in mind to Myers...and Chopra.  Meanwhile, look at this.

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.

But seriously, give me a country with a 24-hour convenience store any day...

Where I was recently...it's not where I am now...but it's not all doom and gloom, even in those places where financial Armageddon threatens la dolça vida doesn't seem to be suffering.  Now back to my regularly scheduled work...

"Who are you?" and Buddhist ethics and morality

hThere is, somewhere on this site, an assumed fictional dialogue which illustrates how squishy the concept of "I" and "you" are.  Somewhere else on this site was a post called "Everyday Zen" which would make a good feature.  Still somewhere else on this site was the time I added Danny Fisher's first blog to my blogroll - I might have been doing this as long as anyone.

I was getting into a discussion with the Rightwinger at Work the other day, and, thanks to that dialogue being published in the now somewhat dubious publication Tricycle, and thanks to my being aware of it, I   noted that the fact that because the concept of "I" and "you" are so squishy pretty much means that the moment you try to objectify someone and/or a class of people by declaring These Beings Favored Persons and Those Beings Are the Others  that  you are then not talking about actual "people" or "persons" but imaginary "beings."

This idea then informs much of how Buddhists should view morality; it informs Barbara's well taken viewpoint on Buddhist responses to bin Laden (here), which finds agreement with Brad Warner (here) , which finds at least some agreement with "moi" (here).  And of course Kyle's I already mentioned.  To repeat about that subject, it was business.  Leave the gun, take the cannoli.  I'm not glad bin Laden's dead, I'm not sad that bin Laden's dead, but it was just business. I suppose the "r" that I feel in response to bin Laden's death is "red herring."

Philosophy is not worth an hour's trouble, according to the French Mathematician Who Provided Gambling Consulting Services to French Nobility. This is not some mystical mumbo-jumbo or nihilism, by the way, because of course you know who you are! That is, a) if you're aware of who you are, and b) you express that awareness in your behaviors mindfully carried out; who you are is no more mystical than executing a good serve, a proper chord change, or a well chosen turn of phrase.

And that's still too much philosophy.

It's paradoxically seeming not easy to practice living one's life well; it takes skill, but at the same time, of course you're living your life anyway. Nonattachment is a key thing here; I had something really well written in response to Barbara's post on "Buddhist" reactions to bin Laden, but I forgot what it was, and somehow the about.com comment machine digested my comment. Or I hit a wrong button somewhere.  I used to play the piano better too and have pretty much no time to practice these days.  

Things are exactly the way they are. Buddhists remonstrating against those nasty violent people and Buddhists remonstrating against those who remonstrate etc. and so forth are all exactly the way they are.  There is also a direction this post could go where I bring notions of 侘寂 (wabisabi) up again. But I don't have the time to go further into depth in that way, though it might have led to an interesting (to me at any rate) discussion on how the brain being limited and all that makes it relatively straightforward to write a computer program  that beats humans at rock paper scissors unless they are using some external artifice (such as dice rolling with a simple algorithm). Oh well, so it goes.

Now it's time to prepare for the business trip.  Maybe I'll get a chance to update from a nicer place, not too far from Cannes, though in a more Catalonian paradigm.  After the internet ate my comment to Barbara the other day I realized I  get too attached to travel preparation, sometimes. Well, hopefully this will not be the trip to and from hell. And I wish the same to all today.

My Buddhist reponse to the demise of Osama bin Laden..and other Buddhist reponses.

My first thoughts on the subject were summed up as "Osama bin Laden is dead.  The greatest threat to your freedom is still right between your ears."

And I'm sticking with that response.

I kind of agree with Kyle's bit here (nobody could sensibly, to me, argue that bin Laden dieing the way he did was in any way not related to the self defense of the forces involved and the self-defense interests of this country).  And while yeah, we're to practice compassion even for the likes of bin Laden, given that we are all in some nexus of responsibility for each other.   But the guy and his henchmen were trying to kill folks to establish their view of "heaven" on earth. Or whatever.

But the fact is the media uses this whole TERROR thing - continues to use it - as an excuse to distract you from whatever it is you need to do in your day to either propagandize you or sell you junk or both.  And the fact is you distract yourself with this whole TERROR thing (or this whole THE BAD PEOPLE ARE USING THE TERROR THING TO EXPLOIT YOU! or the whole THOSE PEOPLE ARE ACTING OUT OF UNBRIDLED IGNORANT BLOODLUST!) because the crap you've got to do to get through the day is bo-ring! Or not fun enough. Or too painful. It's, you know, dukkha, right?

If you were Echō speaking to Hōgen, and if you'd asked him What is Buddha, Hōgen would have replied, "You are Echō." 

I do find it odd that there are a few who, when asked which "r" do you feel (yeah, we're all thinking like Tarantino now) that it is neither relief or regret that some folks feel, but remorse.  I could understand relief, for obvious reasons.  I could understand regret, because bin Laden wasn't brought to trial, and because al Qaeda #2 and #3 are still out there.   But "remorse" at this stage is odd.   Yeah, I heard there was screaming and chanting of USA! USA! USA! Ah, so? Is that you? Does that not scream, "Don't be distracted?"

I felt remorse when Katrina hit and I was in the UK, and how people were telling me how sorry they were for a largely preventable tragedy.  I felt remorse for all the indignities that non-Europeans had to suffer in the wake of 9/11. I felt some remorse (but more frustration and outrage) at the invasion of Iraq,  Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, etc.    That was stuff we could do something about.  But when al Qaeda went to war against the US (I felt remorse that there wasn't a declaration of war),  the moral and ethical action was to fight him and his cohorts until they lacked the ability or will to fight any further, and no more and no less. It's the principle of  武道 - būdō - the way of war, you know? 

But geez - if you want to act effectively, compassionately, and wisely  in a world of ignorance and hatred and terrorism and pitifully narcissistic responses to the  misery in which we find ourselves,  how can you do that if you are not acting out of complete sincerity moment to moment; how can you do that if you have decided to ignore the soundless sound, your true face before your parents were born,  or to put it still another way, that you are you?

Interference

Kyle at the Reformed Buddhist has a post  on the horrors going on the world which are almost completely airbrushed out of US media by broadcasting fluff and gossip.  I commented that there was once a great radio engineer (who had the occasional bizarre right-wing view, e.g., opposition to the metric system) who called such media  fluff and gossip a "interference."  In communication systems and radio engineering, we call interference as "unwanted received signals" or often, when the interference is unintentional, as "noise."

Funny thing is, our brains do that to ourselves or at least my  brain has a tendency to do that.  By "that" I mean  make "interference."  Habit and diversion - these were, in the West, noted by Blaise Pascal as forms of "interference." Regarding diversion Pascal wrote (in French of course!)

Nothing is so insufferable to man as to be completely at rest, without passions, without business, without diversion, without study. He then feels his nothingness, his forlornness, his insufficiency, his dependence, his weakness, his emptiness. There will immediately arise from the depth of his heart weariness, gloom, sadness, fretfulness, vexation, despair.

and

As men are not able to fight against death, misery, ignorance, they have taken it into their heads, in order to be happy, not to think of them at all.

and

The only thing which consoles us for our miseries is diversion, and yet this is the greatest of our miseries. For it is this which principally hinders us from reflecting upon ourselves and which makes us insensibly ruin ourselves. Without this we should be in a state of weariness, and this weariness would spur us to seek a more solid means of escaping from it. But diversion amuses us, and leads us unconsciously to death.

Regarding habit Pascal wrote:

What are our natural principles but principles of custom? In children they are those which they have received from the habits of their fathers, as hunting in animals. A different custom will cause different natural principles. This is seen in experience; and if there are some natural principles ineradicable by custom, there are also some customs opposed to nature, ineradicable by nature or by a second custom. This depends on disposition.

I agree with Kyle's point that the misery of the world very far surpasses our ability to even know about it, especially with the media with which we have been so fortunate to be able to have.  But we do this in 100 tiny ways to ourselves.  Sometimes, it's out of necessity. Other times, it's out of blissful ignorance. Sometimes marriage vows are read as:

I, ____, take you, ____, to be my (husband/wife). I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life. I, ____, take you, ____, for my lawful (husband/wife), to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.

Imagine if these vows were more descriptive, at least statistically.  Perhaps in addition to this, if  there was a sentence reading such as "I understand that, if you live to the age of 55, that  between the ages of 55 and 64 there is a 10% chance of you  dieing by any cause whatsoever, including a 3.2% chance of death due to a major cardiovascular disease, and a 3.7% chance of death due to a malignant neoplasm" the reality behind these flowery marriage vows might sink in - like those warning labels on cigarette boxes.   On second thought, no that probably wouldn't work - people would just ignore that too, just like people ignore those warning labels cigarette boxes. Habit and diversion again, are pretty powerful ways to get one's self to avoid seeing how one is and what needs to be done.

But my point, I hope, is obvious: Whenever you meet someone, you're meeting someone who's going to die.  Any time you meet someone, you meet someone who either has just been born and is just finding out about the world in which he lives, or has been survived enough to have hopes and dreams and aspirations, or who has had them and may have lost them, or was, by luck of the draw, rendered too insentient to ever have had them, but is still sentient enough to be alive and present on this planet at the same time you are. And  you are meeting someone who will have been able to have an obituary written about them.

To put it in a more Zen context, as Case 7 of the Hekiganroku points out: 

A monk asked Hōgen, "I, Echō, ask you, Master. What is Buddha?" Hōgen said, "You are Echō."

Now, what is the list of things I've got to do today?  Or more to the point, what do I have to remember to do today that goes against my ingrained habits, desires for diversion, and actually helps folk here?

 

And where does getting all that skill in practicing lead?

To be able to actually see and behave and interact in the world as one is.

You do anyway, you might say, but at least after all that practicing you're paying attention as you're doing it.

It prepares you for the unwanted things that inevitably arise.

But takes a long time to master.  Or at least it's taken me a long time and I'm not nowhere near there yet.

Turns out Zen is about Buddhism

NellaLou has a great post on the continuing saga at Madhushala, and hits all the right notes, in my opinion, about Merzel and what his Sangha and Board should do.

But in writing about that, and  doing some stuff at work related to my company's business as well as searching for temples in which to visit in my upcoming trip to China this summer, I became aware of a few things, not all of which appear to be immediately related to the subject at hand, at least at first:

1.  I was still wondering why this Rube Goldberg financial structure existed that to the casual visitor's mind, conflated "Big Mind" with "Kanzeon Zen Center." It was, I think, clear enough in retrospect: "Big Mind" served as Genpo Merzel's way of introducing "Zen-like" things into non-Buddhists.  It would  end up  to be a case of the tail wagging the dog here.
2. Ditto for this "Integral" stuff:  It still appears - to me - that this whole "Integral" thing is nothing more and nothing less than a clumsy attempt to try to "make Buddhism better" by blending it with pop-psychology and New Age woo. 
3. In Southeastern China, there is a plethora of Zen temples; some of which are undoubtedly brand spanking new (like the one in North East China I wrote about in 2009) but many of which are remnants and regrowth of the original temples. And there's an obvious reason for the original temples and the growth of Chan in this part of China if one thinks about  the realities of that part of the world: Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu provinces are a melting pot of dialects/languages, more than a few of which are not mutually intelligible in any meaningful degree; look up each of the places on Wikipedia if you want more information about that.  If ever there was a place that needed a doctrine of "no reliance on words or letters" it was this place.  And if there was any place here that was "the right" place to see Chan Buddhism in China, it would be here. But exact temples and locations might not matter all that much, eventually; it was the practice itself that mattered. 
4. Introducing Zen Buddhist concepts to non-Buddhists is not in any way an easy task facilitated by "dialogues" with other "gurus" or creating meta-concepts in order to "bridge" or "transcend" ideologies.  It took Japan over a thousand years to come up with the concepts of Ma ( 間) and Wabisabi (侘寂 ) - not to mention the application of Zen to the martial arts the like.  And they're still struggling with what kind of a culture they want to have!

All of which is to say that Zen Buddhism is about the cultivation of skill of Buddhism.  It took folks a long time to figure out a whole bunch of things related to how we live, including, but not limited to why it's good to boil water, how to get to eat rice, vaccines, karma, how much sleep to get, and 10,000 other things.  Ditto for how to cultivate the skill of Buddhism. And we have to practice it, even when it's painful or not what we "like" or what others "like."

It is true we take vows in Mahayana Buddhist to save all beings, but we do that through living our own mundane little lives which briefly flicker in this place in the blink of the blink of an eye in the life of this small speck of iron in an unfashionable part of the Milky Way galaxy.  And there are no shortcuts in our own little mundane lives. If there were, we'd be cutting out the profundity of it all along with the mundaneness.

Zen Buddhism is about the cultivation of skill of Buddhism. That means that our lives are crafted by us, slowly but surely, imperfectly, impermanently, and surely incomplete.  As NellaLou points out, there is an infusion of doubt (and I'd also add faith) in this.   This skill may be passed to others in the way a craftsman passes his skill to an apprentice; in the same way it's folly to think that one can pass the gist of any highly refined skill to just anyone without emphasizing that diligent training is needed to be able to make any fruitful use of skills.

Temples and sanghas are good of course, but there's a time and a place  for everything, and if the "sangha" in question is more devoted to something that goes against the way in which a life is rightly to be lived, it's time to re-examine what that sangha is all about, just as in finding "the" historical temple of Chan Buddhism overlooks the Much Bigger Thing.

Strange things coming from Kanzeon Zen Center

Sweeping Zen, quickly becoming the go-to site for all things Zen, has published the latest letter from the Board of the KZC.  I personally find it representative of a place I do not want to be, a cautionary tale related to me who has lived enough of a live to be a cautionary tale to others.

This part I can accept:

Though he did resign as a Soto Zen Buddhist Priest on February 6th, until April 15^th he had not resigned from the Japanese Soto Zen headquarters, the Shumucho. He stayed involved with the Japanese organization temporarily out of concern for the official status of those of his successors who want to remain affiliated with the Japanese Soto school.  When he first announced his intention to resign from the Soto school, he was told by Junpu Kuroda Hojo-san, Maezumi Roshi’s younger brother, who had spoken to the head of the Shumucho, that if he did so, the ordinations of all those who had received Jukai, Shukke Tokudo, Denkai, and Shiho from him would be regarded as invalid by the headquarters of the Japanese Soto school.  At that time he was, and still is, working on completing the necessary paperwork for Tammy Myoho Gabrysch Sensei to be recognized as both a Shuso and Dharma successor by the Shumucho.  He chose not to impose problems on his successors and those who had received Jukai and Shukke Tokudo from him by withdrawing from the Japanese Soto school before these matters were settled.  From his discussions with Bishop Daikagu Rumme, General Director of the Soto Zen Administrative Office of North America, his understanding was that that if he did choose to resign it should not affect his successors etc., but even the Bishop was not 100% sure of that.  On April 15^th he received word from Bishop Daigaku that considering the imminent release of more statements critical of Genpo Roshi, and because this could be an embarrassment to the Japanese Soto school, now would be the time for him to officially submit his resignation, which he did on that date.

 I guess, despite Brad Warner's remonstrations to the contrary, official affiliation with the Soto school is indeed a big deal - it says if the Soto Zen official is mired in wrongdoing that the correction propagates through his descendants -at least as regards what sort of lapel pins they can wear today, I guess.    It's a different take on the old Catholic saw about corrupt priests administering sacraments (and the bigwigs in that body decided long ago that the sacraments' "power" is still "effective")  - and in a way the Zen teacher's position is by nature substantially more intimate, so it's not surprising they should differ with Christianity on this point.  But...

As part of our efforts to sustain Kanzeon, with Genpo Roshi’s support one of Roshi’s successors was invited in early February to step in to take Roshi’s place as full-time teacher at the Zen Center, which he generously agreed to do. It was hoped that during this time of transition he would help support the sangha and the continuing existence of Kanzeon Zen Center while it remained at its present location, and that he would be financially supported by Kanzeon Inc.  Also, in response to the request of members of the White Plum, the Board created a separate website for Kanzeon, which included the introduction of him as our new teacher.
In large part because of the critical and hostile feelings expressed by a few people in the local community, further inflamed and amplified by some outside Zen Teachers, students and others, Roshi felt he was no longer welcome to teach at Kanzeon.  Because his teaching activities at Kanzeon and mainly through Big Mind were the primary source of revenue for the Center, the necessary condition for this transition was that our properties had to be sold.
This decision to put Kanzeon’s two buildings up for sale was particularly painful for all concerned, most of all for those of us who continue to live, meet and practice here in those very buildings. It has also generated a lot of comment and criticism to the effect that the properties were being sold out from under the local community without their input, perhaps even to support Genpo Roshi’s activities elsewhere.  These suspicions and accusations are based on misunderstandings and mistaken assumptions which we would like to clear up.
First, the money originally used to buy the properties did not come from the local Salt Lake sangha. Almost all of it was donated with extraordinary generosity by members of Roshi’s European Sangha and students, by his former wife Hobai and himself, and from his inheritance from his mother.
Second, for years Kanzeon’s income from membership dues and programs have covered only a small fraction of Kanzeon’s overhead, while additional donations and contributions from all but a few local members of the Center have been very minimal.  Contrary to the impression that has been widely voiced on the internet, and even in our own community, the reality is that the Center has been largely supported by Genpo Roshi’s teaching and Big Mind work.
As is well known, Roshi has been widely criticized within the Zen community for receiving large donations from people who have attended small Big Mind workshops with him. These people, almost all of them needless to say wealthy, successful in their professions or businesses, have chosen to give amounts which they could just as easily spend on other things, so that they could study with Genpo Roshi.  To the best of our knowledge, not a single one has ever felt they wasted their time or money.  On the contrary, they are extremely grateful, they gladly allow their expressions of thanks to be quoted, many of them have returned again for additional workshops.
On the other hand, those who criticize these events, and Roshi for giving them, have never attended them.  And those who condemn them include not only representatives of the far-flung Zen world, but people in the Kanzeon community itself, the very people who are benefiting from them without realizing or acknowledging it.  It is these donations that have enabled Roshi to support Kanzeon’s Salt Lake City properties, full-time staff and office infrastructure, to continue supporting residents, extending scholarships, promoting social action programs, allowing free and partial tuition to many who could not attend at full price, and, by the way, provide Maezumi Roshi’s widow Ekyo Maezumi a place to live and a salary to help sustain her.  In fact, contrary to a widely disseminated but inaccurate impression, it is Big Mind that is supporting Kanzeon rather than the other way around, since the local Sangha provides only a minimal portion of the funds needed to support us.

The level of denial here, from a standpoint of Buddhist ethics is simply breathtaking to me.  Let me show you.

In large part because of the critical and hostile feelings expressed by a few people in the local community, further inflamed and amplified by some outside Zen Teachers, students and others, Roshi felt he was no longer welcome to teach at Kanzeon.

 "At least in part those people outside made Roshi feel he was no longer able to teach."  I mean, did they actually think about how this would read to the outside world?  Because that's how it seems to read to me.  Really, here's a guy abusing his power, and the Board (I'm assuming it's the Board) opines that people in the "local community" "inflamed" and "amplified" by "outside" Zen Teachers, students "and others." made Roshi feel he was unable to teach.  But evidently it was fine to still use the honorific that means literally "Old Teacher."

The following sentence:

Because his teaching activities at Kanzeon and mainly through Big Mind were the primary source of revenue for the Center, the necessary condition for this transition was that our properties had to be sold.

I can live with.  I know it's a great suffering for the Sangha at KZC,  but that's what happens in these things, and I have great empathy for them for this.  Though further down in the post we'll get to something that I think is potentially explosive on this point.  A bit further down:

First, the money originally used to buy the properties did not come from the local Salt Lake sangha. Almost all of it was donated with extraordinary generosity by members of Roshi’s European Sangha and students, by his former wife Hobai and himself, and from his inheritance from his mother.

 Did you not go, "Whoa! Who actually owns those buildings?"  But wait ...it gets... worse...

Second, for years Kanzeon’s income from membership dues and programs have covered only a small fraction of Kanzeon’s overhead, while additional donations and contributions from all but a few local members of the Center have been very minimal.  Contrary to the impression that has been widely voiced on the internet, and even in our own community, the reality is that the Center has been largely supported by Genpo Roshi’s teaching and Big Mind work.

EXACTLY THE PROBLEM! Forget about the fact for a moment that lots of people in the Zen community, myself included, think "Big Mind" is a load of horse hockey.  The sangha could not sustain the facilities. End of story! Right there.

Now for the nuclear explosion, at least as I see it.  At the Sweeping Zen Facebook entry on this, comments have been prolific, to say the least.  One Rob Evans has, through public sources, started to go through the tax forms filed for the Frederick Lenz Foundation and "Big Mind" Inc. I'm assuming these are correct forms, and if others have updated information I will happily correct this post as soon as I am aware that I have the correct information. But, before I go into the  reputed details that have been published on the internet ,  first, now, remember this, from Genpo Merzel?

...But no, none of that money goes to me. I have a very small and comfortable little house in the Zen Center and I drive normal cars and I don’t have Mercedes or, what was it that Bhagawan had? His Rolls-Royce’?  No. I’ve never had been interested in wealth or being rich in any way. I don’t have a lot of desire. My biggest desire has been to get the teaching out there and this has made that possible. The money that we receive really just goes to get that teaching out there to the world...

Well, if you look at the records for "Big Mind Inc." for 2009, an interesting story unfolds... It's address is SE Temple. I don't know the sangha and I don't know the address, but if KZC was the owner of the property, I'd assume BMI was paying it rent, no?  BMI took in about $1.4 million in 2009.   Here's some other interesting bits from that return, which again, I'm assuming is correct:

• Does the organization have a written whisleblower policy? No. But you'd probably have guess that by now.
• Dennis Genpo Merzel made has income from "BMI" $185,900 and from related organizations $108,000.
• Bruce Lambson   was the guy ripping into Warner when he criticized BM, if I recall correctly.  Mr. Lambson was working a full 40 hour week for BMI, but made no salary. The related organizations payed him $56,568.

Now, I don't begrudge Merzel for his income. And maybe he's speaking correctly in that none of the money from the "Big Heart Circle" money went to him.  But money as any accountant can tell you is fungible. Also, I'm sure there's other Zen Teachers who do well, too, and well they should - if they're supporting themselves in a way that doesn't burden the Sangha.   And of course Dennis Genpo Merzel is in his "peak earning years."  But as far as I see it, Dennis Genpo Merzel wasn't being fully forthright with Vincent Horn. I am a man, whose income is hovering in the neighborhood of the top 10th percentile.  But Dennis Genpo Merzel's combined income for 2009 is much more substantial, to say the least.  It can be relatively easy  to say you're not attached to wealth when you're pulling in over a quarter million dollars a year.

When I go to a local sangha here in the Portland OR area, I go full well knowing that I'm not one of the poorer guys there. But BMI and KZC were so closely joined at the hip that for all intents and purposes they seemed one and the same, and presented themselves as such even on their website - I recall visiting that site quite a few times to try to disentangle them, just to see if KZC still did sesshins without "Big" "Mind."    And regardless of what Dennis Genpo Merzel was saying, he was living well.  Not Bhagwan N Rolls-Royces well, but quite comfortably upper middle class.  More comfortably upper middle class than I am. 

I don't know to what extent the Board of KZC knew about this, nor the greater sangha.  But what I do know is there are massive consequences from attachments all over the place here, and I would reiterate the points I made earlier:  It's time to let go of Dennis Merzel as a teacher, at least for now.   I wish them peace and contentment.

An Open Blog Post to the Board and Sangha of the Kanzeon Zen Center and the Successors of Genpo Merzel

To the Aforementioned:

Regarding the recent behavior of Genpo Merzel, the Board of KZC has stated in the past that you wished other Buddhists  "will extend us a little patience and allow us the time and breathing space to restore the peace and harmony of the sangha and the strength and sound practice of its members."  You also stated that, "Genpo Merzel has repeatedly reiterated his full support for all of the actions taken by the Board" in addressing the real trouble arising from Genpo Merzel's behavior.  The actions taken included Genpo Merzel's refraining from teaching for at least a year.

And yet now he is apparently back to teaching, it seems because money is an issue.  To me this is a horrible reason to allow this man back into your trust.  (Or is he in your trust?)  It seems  your sangha's Board is saying the sangha depends for its existence on  income from what to many Buddhist teachers and practitioners is a corruption of Zen Buddhism as taught by someone who abuses his position of authority, breaks the vows he has taken, and goes back on promises made when caught in the abuse.  What does this say about your own ethics? To those who have taken the precepts, what does this say about how you keep the precepts?

As a lay member of a sangha, I would encourage all lay members of the Kanzeon sangha to find another teacher.  I am sure many of you think Genpo Merzel is a great Zen teacher.  Remember, though, there are other teachers and sanghas.   And perhaps it is time to learn that there is a point at which you have to leave the teacher.  And it may be well before you've broken through that koan or well before you've fully integrated Genpo Merzel's teaching into your lives.

Finally, to the successors of Genpo Merzel: it is time to take the lead on this, and seek out other teachers yourselves if you wish to remain Zen students.  In particular, it is time to let go of attachment to "Big Mind."

I strongly wish you find peace and contentment soon by letting go of the attachment that somehow Genpo Merzel is needed by you as a "teacher."

Sincerely,

Mumon K.

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.

Interesting Times...

Spring has arrived the radioactive spring the spring of the shortage, the dark spring.  Spring has arrived.  Now visible  are the first shoots of plants that will destroy the granite, that will overturn the order, that will lead to a bright tomorrow after the catastrophic misery yet to be endured.

Spring has arrived. There is still the remote hope of the Catalan sun, burning bright, and the satori which will transcend the complete loss of everything which will enable us to be free to do anything.

Spring has arrived, and remotely the promise of the sticky hot Zhejiang summer, the smile on the face of the abbot of the timeless temple which endures despite the temblors and upheavals and poison.

Spring has arrived.  And with it the thieves and patriots are emboldened, the citizenry is outraged, the children rebellious, and the rocks and stones cry out, "Let me be your messenger!"

Spring has arrived, with and all the timeless wisdom and ignorance and compassion and hatred permeates space like the dew and fog that abound outside the outskirts of the benighted city.

Spring has arrived, and for a few weeks it is Wednesday, Anything Can Happen Day.

Spring has arrived, and like this  it is none but a tragic farcical replay of Matinée d'Ivresse, and few care or are aware because it ain't squat, it ain't a paper cut even, compared to the horrors of Kampuchea and Auschwitz and the Great Leap Forward.

But it still early Spring. And I'm actually pretty optimistic despite the pervasive gloom that can be found that things won't be quite that horrible. May your near future be far better than the worst it could be.

And speaking of 間 (ma) and Western Buddhist blogging and media

I guess what I  can do really really well is present Asian Buddhist ideas from a  perspective of a European American much closer to Asian culture than most of the Western Buddhists with whom I'm familiar.  I'm reminded of this from, yep, yet again Vincent Horn and Danny Fisher.  Consider:

Danny: One narrative that’s on my mind, has been no my mind kind of a lot is the whole kind of narrative of Buddhism in America. And I suspect that many of the people who, not all but many of the people who listen to Buddhist Geeks and follow your website probably take a look at other Buddhist blogs and things happening with Buddhism in the internet.
And it feels like there’s a lot of conversation about that and how well particular communities, groups, individuals, cultures are represented. I mean I think sometimes a mistake that you hear coming out of perhaps this Anglo middle class community is when you talk about the history of Buddhism in America, the narrative arc of Buddhism in America. You sort of say where does it start?
Well there were these guys the Beats poets and they got really interested in Zen and all these other stuff. Again, the problem with that is that it ignores that Buddhism has much deeper root in America, you know, with east Asian settlers in particularly the western United States and people who came over here to do things like work on the railroad and then ended up contributing to the growth and development of temples and centers all over the west that were there for people like the Beats to drink deeply.
And again that’s a problem if that kind of thing gets perpetuated this idea that the narrative of Buddhism in America starts with the Beats. I mean that obviously points to the problem of how we’re privileging maybe the experience of one group, one part of the picture not the whole. And by the way, could I stop for a minute and just add one thing to what I had said before.

And:

Vincent: Cool. And you know it’s interesting because there’s a recent article that came out kind of academic article by someone that we’ve had on the show before on Buddhist Geeks named Stuart Lachs.

And it’s entitled Modern Day Zen Hagiography. In it he goes into incredible details on two Zen masters that were modern day Zen masters. And he talks specifically about the way that they’re biographies were factually and accurate. He sort of points out the kind of accuracies there and then make some conclusions about how this type of hagiography even for inside practitioners, people that are part of the tradition can actually contribute to scandalous and unethical behavior from the Zen master.

Obviously you know in the last few months and we don’t necessarily need to get into the gory details of this. But for everyone listening to show you’re probably aware of some of the recent scandals that have come to the larger cultures attention. Scandals from various Zen masters and of course there’s a history of scandals on all the Buddhist traditions from teachers and people in position of power. It’s really interesting given that it’s current in our practice community, this tension of scandal and people being in hurt in community.

And also this point from Stuart is the way we can see of a Zen master, if we don’t see that it’s not literal that there’s metaphor culture mixed in with kind of mythical storylines that this can actually contribute to some really scandalous and unethical behavior actually. I wonder if you could maybe respond to that and maybe share some of your perspective and on this complex issue. 

 Naturally there's a current "history of Buddhism in America," which as the Angry Asian Buddhist would point out, that would never start the narrative with the Beats.  Hell, even for many, if not most Americans of European descent (Anglos? You talkin' to me?) our own personal history with Buddhism would never have begun that way if we reflected on it for a bit.  In my case it began with a trip to Chinatown when I was 5 or 6 years old. CHINATOWN! You think it was any freakin' different for Allen Freakin' Ginsberg?

That reminds me, I need to get a link about a summer program for youths from the USA near Shaolin  (yeah, the one in China) here.  No Chinese language experience or ethnic background necessary.  I'm just sayin'.

I included the quote from Vincent because I think, despite the verbiage here, they're actually on to something.  But they're seeing from this perspective that seems so outside to me.  I'd rather leave outside out, so to speak.  There's folks like me that I feel are "much closer to the metal" it seems that this Eastern/Western divide is more illusory than all that.  As is the "hagiography" divide.  The big thing about Stuart Lachs, despite his brilliant (but sometimes flawed) criticisms of Buddhist hagiography is that and yet he is still swimming in the Zen water!  That's a huge, huge point these guys seem to miss - or don't get to the point in reaching quickly for a guy like me.

I'm grateful to them for this conversation, but I think there's folks like me who can complement what they're dong here.

間 (ma), Parent Practice, Mac Arthur Park, the iPhone

In helping my son with a project for school I have oddly enough had to teach my son the value of leaving something out.  Clearly every engineer knows that this discipline does not come second nature to most engineers, and we have a term for the opposite ingrained tendency: creeping featurism.  The opposite tendency is an aesthetic that has been referred to by some as  "間  (ma)" - which translates as interval, space, etc. 　A Japanese word which expresses this in the opposite sense is 間も無く (mamonaku), which means basically in a very short time - "no interval," from the kanji.  You hear the word on the shinkansen when they announce in Japanese that the train is about to arrive in a station.

I haven't been that much aware that this is a strategy Apple builds into its products until I read about it recently, but in helping my son with his project I noticed that this principle is all around.  It is why overall horrid song MacArthur Park sold phenomenally well: it has a hook.  It is why Rush Limbaugh is still there after all these years: the Oxycontin addled demagogue repeats right-wing talking points well to the masses so they get the "hook."   (And Glenn Beck, since he's been  going off the metaphorical  reservation, is the natural target for other right-wingers now.)  It is also a good explanation of Suzuki-Roshi's idea of the Worst Horse.

We in the West like to hold up the "Renaissance man" as some kind of ideal, but clearly we prefer  that with a more carefully chosen set of features than "everything."  If you can do one thing well, or make something that is so incredibly excellent in one or two features, you can leave out something, and people seem to like it better; you can include your version of "Someone left the cake out in the rain..." it seems, and it seems to make the whole thing better as far as we humans can tell.  Very strange.  But that allows me too to embed a really otherwise sucky song in this blog post.  Enjoy!

Doubtful that will enlighten you today, but it's just a Note in Samsara, you know.

I have a student...

Actually, he's my son. He's not my student.  But I am entrusted with the responsibility to guide him in life to a point where he can help all beings.  He doesn't quite fully appreciate that right now.  Neither do I.







In a sense, I feel really bad for folks like Genpo Roshi.  I wonder if they're even aware of this.  Geez, I wonder if I am.

The Wenzhou region is replete with Chan Temples

As I had previously mentioned, this year I'm going to spend a near two weeks in China, visiting my wife's family, among other things, in China. My wife comes from Wenzhou, which, as Wikipedia describes it:

Wenzhou, also known as Yongjia (or Yung-chia，永嘉) has a history which goes back to about 2000 BC, when it became known for its pottery production. In the 2nd century BC it was called the Kingdom of Dong'ou. Under the Tang Dynasty, it was promoted to prefecture status and given its current name in 675 AD.

Throughout its history, Wenzhou's traditional economic role has been as a port giving access to the mountainous interior of southern Zhejiang Province. In 1876 Wenzhou was opened to the foreign tea trade, but no foreign settlement was ever established there. Between 1937 and 1942, during the Second Sino-Japanese War, Wenzhou achieved importance as one of the few ports still under Chinese control. It declined in the later years of the war, but began to recover after coastal trade along the Zhejiang coast was re-established in 1955...

Wenzhou is also the birthplace of China’s Mercantilism. From the Southern Song Dynasty, in contrasted to the Confucianism represented by Zhu Xi and Lu Jiuyuan in China urging people to study to be officials in the future, the theory of Wenzhou’s Yongjia School represented by Ye Shi, emphasized the importance of business. The theory has an enduring impact on the mindset of Wenzhou natives and has become the “cultural gene” in the economic development of Wenzhou ever since.

Renowned as the cradle of mathematicians in China, the city has teemed with over 200 mathematic professors in the recent 100 years, among whom Su Buqing, Gu Chaohao, Jiang Lifu and other mathematicians have enjoyed great fame both at home and abroad. Furthermore, Wenzhou is also reputed as the “Home of Swimming in China”, “City of Chess” and “City of Poetry in China”.

They speak a rather unusual dialect/language. 

Anyway, I've been there a few times before, and whether it's an improvement in Google maps, an improvement in the opening up of China or what-not, it seems now that there are many more Chan temples in Wenzhou than I'd been able to find before. I do hope to visit at least one of them, as I have when I went to Tianjin and Xi'an, to talk to the monks, and perhaps find an afternoon for practice at a temple.

That last part might be difficult, since it is difficult for a layman to actually spend time practicing at a Chinese Chan temple, for the moment at least. But then again, my darling wife is one heck of a negotiator...but then again, we're talking theA-list of top seeded world class negotiators when we're talking about Wenzhou, as the rest of the Wikipedia entry would imply.  These are the folks who basically started China's upward climb to economic dominance.

(Click on the link below and it has 3 links at the lower left, with increasing radius.)


View Larger Map

And oh...they have a Shangri-La Hotel there now! Considering that it's only slightly more expensive than the Shiloh Inn in Long Beach Washington  (and substantially cheaper than anything 3 steps down in comfort and quality from its price equivalent in any major American city)...and this is the finest hotel chain I've stayed at in Asia...well...I gotta do some negotiating on my own...maybe I'll bring them for the breakfast at least. You can't beat a Shangri-La breakfast...