More Thoughts on Other Religions, Their Relations with Buddhism and Hurt People

It's an interesting confluence of things these days; I'm reading more about the anti-12 Step movement on line, and the more I read, the more I'm appalled.  I'm appalled not simply because 12 Step treatment for compulsive behaviors is so prevalent in the US and so ineffective, but also because the adherents of 12 Step groups - which are legally and in every other way religions - tend not to look on other religions as on a par with their 12 Step practices.

You can see this by looking, for example, how Buddhism is occasionally represented on a site like thefix.com, or my current bête noire,  one Ms. "InkyMama,"  who claims to be a "Buddhist" "meditation teacher" who is  "currently working on a forthcoming collection of meditations on the 12 Steps, the 4 Noble Truths, and the Eightfold Path." Despite her claims of being a "teacher," I haven't been able to verify that she has any credentials from anywhere to teach whatsoever. 

Some of her bilge has already been published on thefix.com as so-called "guided meditations;" and basically her schtick is basically pulling out some aspect of Buddhism; and some aspect of 12 Step religions, and making an absurd claim that there's correspondence between these two different aspects of two different religions.   Now maybe in some varieties of Buddhism guided meditations have a place; but in the Zen school, it's almost entirely unheard of in my experience, at least, in terms of more authentic teaching, and Brad Warner explains why.   Although I've cheerfully upbraided Ven. Warner on some of his political meanderings and his super reliance on Dōgen, his commitment to authentic practice seems very strong.   I'll still continue cheerfully upbraiding though when the situation seems to warrant it. 

I've debunked her stuff chapter and verse elsewhere, but suffice to say here, anyone who's serious about Buddhist practice and has been in contact with 12 Step spiritual religious practices will eventually realize:

• We Buddhists don't really have a "higher power."
• We don't really have "character defects;" in fact the opposite is more true.
• There's no "we" who are "powerless."
• Buddhism can't really be warped into a 12 Step religious framework.

I could go on, but as I wrote elsewhere, maybe her cultural appropriation of Buddhism is good in the way that maybe Frederick Lenz's cultural appropriation might have been good in that it will spur people on to look for the real thing.  I hope so, because there is so much misinformation about Buddhism in 12 Step circles, and a growing realization that even Refuge Recovery is tainted with 12 Step - inherited Christian moralism and dualism.

Also though the confluence of this 12 Step distortion of Buddhism happened, it's not the only place where religious principles alien to Buddhism rub elbows with Buddhism.  I'm not going to delve into whether Roman Catholic priests should study or teach Zen - although I wouldn't be a student of such a teacher, preferring the original flavor to the Western appropriation.  But I would like to go back to the issue of Adam Tebbe, which I think hasn't gotten nearly the shrift it merited. 

Adam Tebbe was for a few years heavily associated with a kind of American Sōtō Zen Buddhism qua Tricycle qua TMZ.  There were, for a while a few teachers with whom he was associated, and indeed they blogged on his site.  Jundo Cohen gives him credit for propagating information about predatory teachers, although I think what Tebbe was really doing was becoming absorbed in the scandal, that is scandal blogging, as opposed to ferreting out new information, i.e., journalism.  I think it's sad that Tebbe was more or less unconciously aided and abetted by a couple of teachers here and there who I think didn't see a couple of warning signs which were more or less evident to anyone who questioned why the main focus of a site purporting to be an encyclopedic resource for "Zen" was so focused on what to me was scandal blogging.  Adam Tebbe was - probably still is - a hurting person, and somewhere along the way,  if his "testimony" is accurate - he seems to have had a psychotic break, or at least the language he's using to describe his experience is not inconsistent with having such a break.

How do we respond to such a person?  Right now the response of most of the on-line Buddhist media and what's left of the Buddhist blogosphere has been mostly silence.  When the subject has come up, the response has tended toward "I hope he finds peace in his path," and though I've said this too, I would also add that I'd wish he'd stop denigrating Buddhism in his pushing of Christianity, especially since it comes across with a certain "Raymond Shaw is the kindest, warmest, bravest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life" quality to it.  I do think though it's incumbent on the Buddhist blogosphere - and especially those teachers that were formerly close to Tebbe - to make some kind of statement, to pay some attention to the fact that this happened, as I titled an earlier blog post on this subject.

Two or three years ago I was having a beer with my teacher (yes, this happens), and the subject of Eido Shimano came up.  We both agreed that from our standpoints it was impossible to explain Shimano's predatory behavior; my teacher opined that Shimano must have been really mentally troubled.

So it is - and ironically so - with Tebbe.  I can't explain or know what he went through, the pain and troubles he's had that would have related to a psychotic break.   I can't explain why at this stage of his life, he has to deprecate the Dharma, but I will certainly remonstrate against that. 

But one thing I have learned deeper since the time I've spoken with my teacher.  We're not kidding around at all, it's not just a pep talk, to say that we're inherently  Buddhas, inherently capable of transcending suffering.   I don't know why some folks suffer profoundly in ways I can't understand, but I can attest that suffering can be transcended, and you don't need another religious or "spiritual" path to do that.  And this fact that we are inherently Buddhas has profound implications about how other religions are in relation to Buddhism.  It's not something to be erased, papered over, swept under the rug or otherwise ignored.

Identity Politics and Zen Buddhism

I'm using almost the exact same title of this post as one by Brad Warner, because a) it's roughly about the same topic, b) there isn't one single viewpoint on this, as you might expect, and c) Ven. Warner has of late posted a couple of rather strange things  (e.g., reposting this bit of creationist claptrap), that, in my view,  merit a response.  Regarding the creationist stuff, see my response to Ven. Warner on the comments section there.  This post, and Ven. Warner's post on identity politics,  should be read in light of the comments on Brad Warner's posting of a video of Jordan Peterson, who, with flimsy arguments, denies the existence of trans and intersex people in his refusal not to use non-traditional  3rd person singular pronouns.

I have written quite a bit on this site about identity politics before, and privilege.   Whatever I've written in the past few years, I generally still affirm as my views, although I freely admit that those posts probably adheres to Mumon's rule: In 20 years, posts about race, gender, sexuality, privilege and class will likely be cringe-worthy demonstrating some kind of form of disrespect. 

I've also written quite a few posts on this site indicating that I agree with Ven. Warner on a number of issues, and I do, and continue to do so, but here a critical response is merited. 

Ven Warner writes:

But what is identity anyhow? Lately a certain faction has emerged who believe that society has an obligation to accept and affirm whatever identity an individual has chosen for him / her / them / zem / em / hum / pehm / per / thon / ver / xem / yo / hir / mer / zhim-self (ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-person_pronoun). But is that how identity actually works? 

For example, is Brad Warner an Enlightened Zen Master? Or is he a transphobic piece of shit who never should have been given a set of Buddhist robes? Or is he the bassist for Zero Defex (his preferred definition)? Is he white as most people assume? Or is he of mixed race, which he knows to be true given his family history? Is he an angry rebellious punk, like in his books? Or is he kind of a goofball, as he often comes across when you see him in person?

My first response is that while written language has evolved to where gender is expressed pretty much universally, it isn't uniformly so with spoken forms of the language; e.g., in Chinese, "He" is rendered  "他"  and "she" is rendered "她," and both are pronounced, in Pinyin encoding, "Tā."  For this reason native Chinese speakers speaking English often mix up "she" and "he." (The hànzì BTW, are a little sexist there, as happens in several hànzì/kanji but I digress.)  Chinese speakers mean no disrespect when they do this; they have to consciously remember to assign the right word to the right gender.  However, it's one thing to make a language error of this kind; it's another thing to be in-your-face about not calling someone as they wish to be called, because you fundamentally deny who they are as people "in the relative sense," in their flesh-and-blood quotidian existences.  I'll come back to that point.

Ven. Warner also writes:

What I think I am is often at odds with what other people think I am. Who is right? Is it useful to try to make everyone I encounter agree with the identity I have chosen for myself? Should there be a law requiring them to see me the way I see me? Or is that just a lot of wasted effort?

Ven. Warner, despite being Sōtō and all that, ought to be familiar with Bodhidharma's famous reply to Emperor Wu when he asked Bodhidharma who he was:  不識  - No knowing, often rendered in English as "I don't know."  Of course he's familiar with what Suzuki-roshi said: When you become you Zen becomes Zen.

Both Bodhidharma's and Suzuki-roshi's responses to "Who are you?" in effect point to the Absolute - Emptiness, as a response to the question, as to "keep the question" "Who are you?" is to affirm and express in a certain sense the Absolute or Emptiness.

But...I agree with these folks more or less.  It is a cop-out, a shirking of responsibility to appeal to the Absolute when there are things that need a response in the Relative world.  It is "banging the law" when one cannot bang the facts.   

I could cite a number of other kōans in this regard, which Ven. Warner must surely be aware.

But let me get to the point,  in particular regarding people who are in-your-face not calling someone as they see themselves, because you fundamentally deny who they are as people "in the relative sense," in their flesh-and-blood quotidian existences.  Ven Warner also writes:

Whenever I was unsuccessful at convincing someone else to see me as I saw myself I felt a terrible need to fix the situation. This often proved impossible and so I was left wondering if maybe I really was whatever they said I was, and if I was, in fact, wrong about myself. For me, the first step toward a more Buddhist sort of understanding of identity was seeing how much of a waste of effort it was to try to convince others to see me the way I saw myself. 

What Ven. Warner is doing is implying the appeal to the Absolute I mentioned earlier, as though the answer to the question  "How do I refer to Brad Warner's gender identity colloquially?" is 不識.  That's bullshit in the Relative sense.

We are being polite when we address people by the conventions of polite language. We are impolite when we refer to someone with profanities instead of by their names.   Ven. Warner or I may like some things a certain pundit might say, but if that pundit uses language to deny the existence of or otherwise denigrate an entire class of people then we fall short in not responding to such denigration,  and we fall even further short if our response is 不識.  

This is not to say that those who engage in identity politics don't make this same error; as noted on this blog, the folks at the Portland Buddhist festival have made the same error with respect to Falun Da Fa.   It's something we as Buddhists have to constantly be aware of: Are we shirking some view or responsibility by conflating Absolute and Relative? 

Buddhist Ethics?

Via Buddhist Geeks, I came across this piece on (")Buddhist ethics(") by David Chapman, who I have to say is a guy I haven't heard about before.

Mr. Chapman notes:

I use “Buddhist ethics” (with scare quotes) to refer to the ethics taught by Consensus Buddhism. (Consensus Buddhism is the American synthesis of the ideals of the 1960s youth movement with Asian Buddhist modernism.) Traditional Buddhist morality is quite different, as I’ll explain in upcoming posts.

As I understand it,  Mr. Chapman sees it "Buddhist ethics" is somewhat indistinguishable from some kind of bourgeois Whole Foods kind of progressive hipster ethos, or something like that, or at least something a college left-leaning Californian non-Buddhist might ought to find as different from his ethics, even if it's not the case.

I beg to differ.   And I think Brad Warner would too.

There’s a damned good reason the early Buddhists taught ethical precepts along with meditation. They understood right from the start that meditation without ethics can be a very bad thing indeed. For the meditator as much as for anyone else. But now we have to make our meditation courses completely secular. So a whole generation is learning to meditate without any training in ethics to go along with it.

Mr. Chapman is correct in asserting  that by and large, traditional Buddhist morality wasn't all that great.  However, although traditional Buddhist behavior of clergy was often intimately related to political intrigue and horrors such as slavery,  considering that there was no such thing as Western enlightenment philosophy from which to build (which itself carries a whole bunch of horrible baggage, e.g., as can be found from Marxist critiques of Locke),  it probably was more or less the best thing out there religion-wise at the time.  In fact,  later philosophies built on Buddhism as a religious tradition in the West.  Then there's the real likelihood that at least some aspects of New Testament Christianity were influenced by Buddhism (see for example, the Prodigal Son parables of the Lotus Sutra and the New Testament.)

But about that hypothetical Californian, I still beg to differ.

First of all,  Buddhist ethics - at least to me anyway - proceeds from something far more fundamental than the straw-man Californian ethics Mr. Chapman posits as identical to (")Buddhist ethics.(") It implies karma and compassion, but the fundamental thing is the emptiness of all phenomena.  There is a reason the Heart Sutra is written the way it is, and its point is not to promote a touchy-feely New Age kumbayasity.   All dharmas are fundamentally without an essential substance.    Buddhist ethics, as a dharma, is not non-existent, but perennially "in play."

I doubt the empty nature of ethics as a dharma is going to one day unfold into making us all regular Kodos the Executioners however.  Why do I say this? Well, folks wiser than me, and more learned than I am have been considering Buddhist ethics for a while. (Why, there's even a Wikipedia page on it. Though I admit it is ironic that a page on Buddhist ethics features Dennis Genpo Merzel.  But just because there's bugs in the system doesn't mean the system doesn't exist.)  Much of what has been written as Buddhist ethics does rely on textual analysis and criticism.  But regardless, ethics is a little like science or history, or case law.  One of the cool things about being a bipedal ape-descended life form called homo sapiens is that we are really good at using information as a tool to preserve learning across generations.  (Notice I didn't say we're unique in that.  I don't know about whether chimpanzees can do something like that, but slime molds might be able to do such a thing, for example.  It's just we're really good at using information.)

So naturally what is seen as Buddhist ethics in one century is going to have the potential to look quite different 1000 years later!  People, being people, are going to revisit questions about how to live and they're going to compare it to what people wrote down previously about the subject!  Based on this alone, there's really no difference in the relative "fixedness" of Buddhist ethics compared to any other ethics!

Secondly,  like a lot of Western Buddhist writing, it kind of ignores the fact that there are Asian practitioners of Buddhism, who would tell you that their own appropriation of Buddhist ethics might not be yours or mine.  Yes, there are no deep ethical treatises in Buddhism, at least none that I know about,  and in English.  But that does not mean that there is an obliviousness to wrongdoing or that there is no such thing as wrongdoing.  It is just that especially from a Buddhist perspective  emptiness + the nature of learning → what we see as acceptable behavior today might be unacceptable tomorrow and vice versa.   That's not a rightish or leftish thing, although to paraphrase Stephen Colbert the accumulation and advancement of knowledge might well have a liberal bias.

But more than that,  if a David Chapman writes "there's no such thing as Buddhist ethics,"  I do think that there is inherent in that statement an erasure of norms of Buddhist behavior or "case ethics" l as practiced by non-Western Buddhists.  There's literally millions of people who practice Buddhism who engage in certain behaviors because they see it as morally and ethically beneficial from a Buddhist perspective.  Would a "leftish" California person see the point of going vegetarian or Vegan depending on phases of the moon?  Yet quite educated and intelligent Chinese people do such a thing and could explain to you why they do such a thing.  And they and their clergy would look at you like you were from the planet Ogo if you were to tell them that their ethics and moral practices came from some "Consensus" Buddhist fusion of some Western stuff with some Buddhist stuff.  Or they might roll their eyes at the White Convert Buddhist-splaining of their take on ethics and morality.

Yeah, it's an elephant and we're all blind.

And if "case ethics" is "situational ethics" to you so be it.  Buddhist "absolutes" - that which in Western terms one would juxtapose against "situational ethics" or "moral relativism,"  - would be sunyata itself.  It's one of my many beefs with conservative moralists who inveigh against the lack of respect for "moral absolutes" that they have no idea what is absolute.  But I digress, except perhaps to say maybe a better idea for an essay is "There's no such thing as Western ethics."

Thirdly, what Brad Warner said.   Clearly it was the intent of early Buddhist monks to convey some type of behavioral norms.   And there were reasons why these behavioral norms were  conveyed, not the least of which was to try to get a bunch of mendicants not to go all People's Temple, I suppose.  Moreover, I think the privileging of meditation over ethics as is often represented in Western Convert Buddhist circles has consequences.  Mr. Chapman might say that's a trite statement, but experience has shown meditation without ethics is associated with certain problems arising from a lack of ethical practice, trite or not.


Fourthly, Chapman writes:

What’s missing is justifications: the “whys” and “wherefores” that are the substance of Western ethics. Mostly, Westerners take the “whats” as given; we don’t need to be told not to kill, steal, and lie. That’s kindergarten stuff. What we want to know is how to use principles to resolve conflicting moral considerations.

Coincidentally,  I was watching Richard Dawkins talking about science versus religion and he made the point that in regard to questions concerning things like how we got here, and such "why" is not an meaningful question to ask.  "Why" is not the same thing as "what is  the cause?"

In my apprehension of Buddhism,  my take on Mahayana Zen Buddhism,  a similar point applies. Cases of how to act when conflicting moral considerations are in play are dealt with based on our awareness of them, and our understanding of the implications of how to act in such cases.  Pay attention! And if you can't wrap your head around the Parable of the Burning House in the Lotus Sutra, or have to ask "Why?" about that,  I submit that yes, there's ethical issues, but it's not because there's an issue with the existence or nonexistence of Buddhist ethics.

Why?

If you're asking that question you're probably not paying attention.

I think this is a good start for now.  I see that as part of this series Mr. Chapman has a take on the mindfulness movement.   I might respond to that too, later. But this is good for now.

Get dressed, get blessed. Try to be a success. Please her, please him, buy gifts. Or,on being a 臥龍

Brad Warner has an interesting piece out that deals with issues that have been on my mind for quite a while.

Success depends on measurement and comparison. On the one hand, I am successful because I have six books out, all of which are still in print including the first one I published over ten years ago. I don’t have to punch a clock every day. I’m my own boss. I earn enough to pay my rent and my bills and have some left over to buy old records over at the Goodwill.

On the other hand, I am unsuccessful because none of my books has ever won a literary prize. They don’t sell as well as those by many other writers in my field. I’ve never been reviewed in the New York Times and no doubt never will. I’ll never be on Oprah’s Super Spiritual Sunday. NPR routinely ignores every book I put out. Bill Maher doesn’t want me on his show even though every other person who writes a book about religion gets on. I was once told by someone who deals with the big names on the spiritual scene that I am “not even on the radar” when it comes to the real stars of the meditation world. My retreats don’t pack ‘em in like those run by the big boys in the scene.

The sangha to which I belong is a very small sangha.  We've had one or two new members in the past 10 years. Yet, the osho of my sangha is a pretty accomplished guy.   It's just that in the US he's even less on the radar than Mr. Warner. (Japan is a bit different, let's just say.)

So sometimes I get the feeling that my osho's Zen doesn't get the attention it deserves. It probably won't appear in Adam Kōshin (meaning "Shining Heart") Tebbe's documentary on Zen in America if that ever gets made.  Our sangha doesn't get any mention on Sweeping Zen, though pretty much all the Rinzai osho's I've spoken with in the Pacific Northwest have heard of him.  We've never put up a booth at the Portland Buddhist Festival. 

There's reasons why my osho's sangha is small.  Part of that has to do with the fact that our sittings are done at his residence, and it would be kind of unusual for 60 people to suddenly show up for a zazenkai.  It also has to do with the fact that my osho also manages a temple in Japan, so much of the year he is not in the US.  Finally, it has to do with the fact that we have a really minimal internet presence.  We could actually have more of an internet presence, but we don't have one as of now.

Yet,  none of that really matters all that much.  It doesn't matter all that much because it's not the point of the sangha.  It's not the point of sitting, as Brad Warner points out either. 

This blog has been around for over 10 years.  I have something like 40 followers, and when I tweet about a post,  I might get a hundred or so readers, occasionally more if I'm posting something about a Zen scandal.   Adam Kōshin (meaning "Shining Heart") Tebbe might still disagree with me, but from the analytics it's obvious even in Zen Buddhism, scandal sells.  But I want this blog to be a bit more than about scandals, and besides, if it's only about scandals, then your source of content is exhausted once scandals die down.

I'm pretty successful, as the world defines success, in my career.  Substantially less so in other areas of my life.   But I really stopped worrying so much whether we have a "name" sangha or such.  This also has to do with something that Hakuin mentioned more or less: If you do this practice for enough years,  and with good intent, and attempt at least to be ethical, it can't not benefit you. That's not the same thing as having an explicit goal to make what I think is an obvious point.

In fact, I think some of the issues with American Zen/Convert Zen/... stem from the desire of some oshos to want their sanghas to grow and be popular or "successful." (You might think you know who I'm talking about, but besides them there's others.)

I should mention one other thing.  My osho's temple in Japan sits on a large hill (small mountain?) called 臥龍山, (がりゅうさん, garyūsan), which means "unrecognized genius," "exceptional person hidden among the masses," or "dragon laying down," or more colloquially, "sleeping dragon."  The word がりゅう is also a homonym for 我流, which has the kanji for "self," and "flow," and means, "self taught," or "one's own way."  That's a pretty apt name for a mountain on which to put a Zen temple, no?  It's finding one's way, and being a sleeping dragon, or as Lin Chi put it, a person of no rank.

Japanese Zen Culture, and American Zen Culture

I wanted to write a bit on this piece I found by Koun Franz on Zen Culture, from my perspective as a guy who's been doing Rinzai Zen practice for more than a couple of decades or so now, and as a guy who's practiced at temples in China, Japan, and the US, although not regularly outside of the US.

I don't think Franz's piece is necessarily wrong, but rather that it's self referential in kind of a way.  The blog Speculative Non-Buddhism might have more to say about this topic from their perspective than I would (but see self-referentiality with respect to them as well.)

Franz writes:

... I’ve noticed, especially recently, that one of the defining characteristics of Zen culture is a tendency to speak negatively about Zen. It’s built in. It’s fashionable. I cannot count how many conversations I’ve heard in Japan in which priests lament the state of the tradition, of the priesthood, of the monasteries. Someone I know once asked her teacher (a very high-ranking and respected Japanese monk in his own right, a teacher of teachers), “Are there any Zen masters in Japan?” He thought about it and replied, “No, I guess not. Well, maybe that guy in…. No, well, no. Maybe not right now.” Older monks love to talk about how the young monks just don’t get it, and the young monks can see that a lot of the old monks seem to be all talk and no action*. Everyone knows that the monastic standards have gone lax — again, there are exceptions, but one doesn’t have to look far to find an authorized training monastery that is a monastery in name only, where even zazen practice is maintained at only the most basic, basic level (once a day, maybe). 

If you’re new to Zen, this may all sound a bit shocking (or just sad), but it goes way, way back. 800 years ago, Dōgen (the founder of the Soto school in Japan) spent a good amount of ink complaining about how Buddhism has gone down the drain, how the people in authority have no idea what they’re talking about. Of course, Dōgen believed that the teachings he had received from his teacher, at least, were authentic; he just felt that he was more or less alone in what he was carrying. 

Some of these complaints about Japanese Zen are absolutely real — I am deeply pessimistic about the trends I see here. But some of this way of talking is also cultural — in a country where self-deprecation is as fundamental as gravity, one shouldn’t be surprised that so few people are prepared to say, “This is the real deal.” I suspect that in his time, a lot of Dōgen’s enemies despised him not for what he was teaching, but for the unapologetic confidence with which he taught it.

First of all, the * in the quoted text references a piece by Noriyuki Ueda-san on Zen in Japan (page 8).   I will make a few comments about that piece, too.  But, as I live in America, and Sweeping Zen has a wish to be somewhat authoritative in on-line Zen matters, I'll deal with them first.

There's a tendency amongst American Sōtō Zen oshos and practitioners to view Sōtō Zen as the Zen and Dōgen as the guy, the authority from which argument can be justified.  It's kind of strange from my vantage point, because from that vantage point Dōgen is not separate from the Buddha or the ten thousand things.  Dōgen was a pretty brilliant guy, but a lot of people want to make an icon out of him it seems to me.

Moreover,  when it comes to the bit about how "Dōgen's enemies despised him not for what he was teaching..." this needs a bit of unpacking because it's a bit oblivious to history.  Dōgen lived during the Kamakura shogunate.  The "official" Buddhism during that period was originally Tendai Buddhism, but Shingon Buddhism was also in Japan for quite a while as well.  However, as Wikipedia helpfully points out, during the Kamakura period other schools started to flourish as well, and the Zen schools arose in part from the Tendai school. 

Moreover, the Tendai school during this time was politically connected to the Shogunate, so naturally Dōgen (as well as Nichiren) wouldn't fare well challenging the status quo, especially, in Dōgen's case, because Zen would challenge the ecosystem wherein Tendai Buddhism was accommodationist with respect to Shinto.  Which is another way of saying it wasn't Dōgen's confidence that was the issue,  but rather the status quo, and Dōgen being the "nail that sticks out."

Next though, let's get to the main point of the quoted text: Is Japanese Zen "in decline?"  I don't know about Soto Zen, other than to say that at Sengakuji, they only have sitting for lay people once a month, and if you go to Sengakuji during a weekday, you'll find that most of the visitors are older people (because, duh, people are working during the day generally).  I'm also told it's a place to go for school field trips. Yet if you go during a weekend, you'll find that yes, there are younger people there. 

(A similar dynamic exists in Chinese temples whether they're more Pure Land or more Zen, though I don't know if schools have field trips to them; I sort of doubt they do.)

As for my recent visit to Engakuji, as I wrote elsewhere,  there were scores of practitioners, many beginners on the Sunday on which I visited.   That temples like Engakuji are also tourist meccas makes it somewhat wrong to me to conclude that Rinzai Zen is dying out in Japan faster than the decline of population of Japan in general (though that's a serious issue.)

And to me, the very question of the "decline of Zen in Japan" is irrelevant.  Why oh why, in a practice which purports to be one "not founded on words and letters, but pointing directly to one's mind," is so much verbiage spent on "whether they're doing it well," and "is it in decline?"  It seems to me to go there in thought is to self-confirm the decline itself! 

Moreover, even though the narrative of Zen in America as a reboot of "real" Japanese Zen, was definitely a narrative that was used,  it seems to have been problematic to even make that narrative as it was a bit of a case of adding another head to one's own.

I don't entirely disagree with Franz, but I would offer that the way Rinzai Zen has evolved in Japan (and its presence in Korea as well) has been "tuned" so that this non-reliance on words and letters and direct pointing to the mind is kind of baked into the practices in my experience, despite the variations from temple to temple and school to school.

Don't get me wrong; there are indeed mediocre oshos in Zen schools, and there are still the real history of scandals in the US, especially in Rinzai Zen in the US.  But that doesn't indicate a "decline of Zen practice" in either Japan or the US. (For some reason, probably because it's an example of what I'm trying to point out, but for whatever reason I want to note that although I didn't understand the teisho given at Engakuji except for words here and there, the osho who gave it gave it in such a way that various sections of it were chanted, and done with great energy.)

With regard to Ueda-san's piece, yes, there's such a thing as Funeral Buddhism in Japan, and because of Funeral Buddhism, there's a critical view of Japanese Buddhist clergy amongst Japanese.  That is definitely true.  But that's more an issue with Japanese culture than Japanese Buddhism actually.  There is so much that Japanese culture has evolved through that they've kind of forgotten how Japanese Buddhism - and Japanese Zen Buddhism in particular informs their culture.  And in those areas I'd cite: 

• The way Japanese use personal space - and space in general - compared to other cultures
• The way in which Japanese language tends to avoidance of conflict, and promotion of the "flow" of conversation
• The continued existence of Japanese arts related to Zen

But at the same time there have been trends in their culture that have stifled growth (via excessive bureaucracy)  and trivialized aspects about life.  There's a place for trivializing aspects of life, of course.   But the kind of thing I'm trying to talk about here you can see at Sengakuji: Lord Asano's death was avenged by having his antagonist's head placed upon his grave at Sengakuji.  In the museum you can see the receipt they got for giving back his head.   Even then, Japanese culture required receipts for such things. 

In addition, I should note that Funeral Buddhism in Japan is closely tied to the Confucian notions of family;  families having ancestral burial grounds going back ten generations is not unheard of, to say the least, so that kind of bakes in a necessity of Funeral Buddhism culturally.

And finally, all of that said, we in America, whether convert Buddhist or Buddhists by ethnic heritage have our own problems, and one answer to those problems is to transmit Buddhism with and without words in our daily lives.

It's very difficult as Japanese might say, but still must be attempted because of endemic suffering.

Alienation from the Buddhist Blogosphere...

Obviously, because I haven't been blogging much lately other stuff has filled the time; some good, some not so good.  Lately though I've been doing more on my practice, and I'm looking at some of the old Buddhist blogosphere haunts.

I still think Brad Warner's blog is one of the most useful ones to read out there, even if it is a bit Dogen-centric. 

I don't plan on linking to others, or even mentioning some of them by name.  But here's some stuff:

• What happened to dannyfisher.org?  Oh, he went to Patheos.com of course, and then is likely on a hiatus or working outside the blogosphere.   Good for him! I have to add editing this blog structure on my to-do list. 
• Tricycle just keeps getting weirder and weirder.   I think Tricycle is in large measure responsible for the commoditization of mindfulness.  
• Buddhist Geeks.   Is this still a thing?   Regardless,  the folks there keep putting stuff out there, and are evidently into "branding" Buddhist Geeks as some kind of technically hip form of "American" Buddhism.  Buddhist Geeks is tempting me to re-title and perhaps re-purpose this blog as "Old School Zen," or perhaps "May True Dharma Continue."  The reason I am tempted is that so much of Buddhist Geeks appears to be irrelevant to the project of Buddhism, especially Zen Buddhism.  To put it another way, trying to express Buddhist meditation practice using the memes of computer programming, is just a more constrained form of scratching one's foot through one's shoe.  Ditto for meditation research.  I think the proprietors of Buddhist Geeks have good intentions.  But I also think that "Old School" Zen practices are what they are because they've evolved over centuries to be that way.   There are some aspects to those practices that might seem out of step with Western culture, but, so what?  I think it's a valid question to raise: Can those aspects of  "Old School" Zen practices really be ported over to modern, Western ways of practice without reference to the benefits and characteristics of "Old School" practice? (And either way, why or why not is that bad cultural appropriation?) That seems to be a topic largely unexplored in Western Zen and Western Buddhism in general, except in regards to concerns about decolonialization (which is kind of strange if we're talking about Japanese Zen, in a multitude of directions).   As an example, the relationship between Zen and the deepest meaning of kung fu is pretty much wide open territory. 
• Also they should put more transcripts in.  Reading is often a quicker way of assimilating information. 
• "Engaged" Buddhism:  I used to do that on this blog, and wouldn't forswear doing it again.  But in this political season, I've posted those opinions copiously elsewhere, especially in places that aren't a Western Buddhist echochamber.  Yeah, we have one too.   But that aside, I'm coming to think there's more useful "Old School" Zen Buddhist things to write about than politics, except, perhaps, where somebody's trying to hijack progressive politics one way or another, in a way that doesn't bring everyone along.   Or when, out of political considerations, one wants to call charlatans such as Frederick Lenz or Li Hongzhi Buddhists. 
• That said, I also think it's extremely useful to explore the issues of ethnicity and race in Western American Buddhism.   Too much of it comes across as the Buddhist equivalent of P.F. Chang's, or, alternatively, like one must completely reflexively abandon from Asian paradigms.  That also impinges on my "Old School" writing inclinations.
• Kōans:  I've seen a nonsensical site wherein some guy purported to give "answers" to kōans, which completely, and totally misses the entire point of kōans!
• Sweeping Zen:  A while back Adam Tebbe was rather, um, characteristic of himself at the time toward me, regarding the scandals at the time of Eido Shimano and Joshu Sasaki.   I believe the point of contention involved lots of questions about how Buddhists might respond to the situations presented by Shimano and Sasaki, and to what extent Sweeping Zen might be "tabloidizing" these scandals.  My understanding is that Mr. Tebbe was in a better place these days, and his blog kind of reflects it, though it is a bit Sōtō heavy.  But they have Genjō Marinello on there, and the Kwan Um folks, so lately it's been more or less OK.   That said, I still think the whole affair points to, yes, sick Zen authorities that abused their power flowing with a whole goulash of Orientalism, misunderstanding about the Dharma, and harmful innocence in the sense that Rollo May indicated. And I still agree with Brad Warner about Myoan Grace Schireson. I also still agree with him on the futility of standardized certification of Zen teachers beyond one's own teacher or tradition. 
• MOOC-derived/On line/Cloud-based sanghas:  It might be helpful for people to practice where there are no "teachers" or temples around, and it might be useful to rank beginners, but eventually you must come face to face with someone.

So I guess yeah, there's some alienation from what the Buddhist blogosphere is these days on my part, though if anyone knows of any blogs that address some of the points above that I'm not currently following,  please let me know!

Beyond the clichés...

I have at least one post pending on one Robert Sharf, who, I would submit,  despite his academic credentials doesn't get it.

That's a post for another day.

This blog-by-a-Buddhist has been going, on and off, for almost ten years.  I have tried to make this blog not merely some repetition of European-American Buddhist  paradigms.  I've tried to fit it to how an American Buddhist lives his life when he's somewhere between or among various cultures.  Unlike some bloggers I can't remember the last time I've ever removed something from this blog, if ever.

I just read a snippet of someone's blog post where it kind of sort of seemed they thought they were in the know because they knew a story about some old Buddha long ago, and then they go on to paraphrase thoughts and ideas that are in some of the more popular European-American Buddhist books.

If you go back in this blog, you can find some of that too, - you certainly can.   I won't delete that junk, and I would encourage the writer of that other blog post not to delete that junk either.  In fact, generally I would say don't delete your blog junk...at least not for a year or so, if at all. 

There might be people who are marginally stable mentally and who might post things on blogs they would not like posted on their resumé, especially if they underemployed, and the victims of this current economy.   They ought to think twice about what they put out in cyberspace.

I  have been more outspoken of late about our Middle East policy; it I think is the great moral challenge of our time.  But I try to think before I post; but I also do want things to be said that ought to be said. 

But - in general - censor less.  You're not going to get your dream job, nor are you going to get the 見性 you deny you want to experience if you just stick within the realm of insider jargon, whether it's business/marketing speak or Zen.  From a Zen perspective, censorship can be a kind of attachment.

The conversation moves on...

I was sitting the first mini-retreat I'd been able to have in years  - or returning therefrom - when Joshu Sasaki died.

Brad Warner somewhere talks about saying something about Sasaki and getting a bunch of vitriol in return.

The vitriol was in hindsight reasonable to have been expected.

But...  the retreat....

We have an essence that is fundamentally empty and awake, and we can know that fundamental emptiness and awareness of subject and object, host and guest,  ailing and caregiver.  Putting all thoughts and conceptions away - including the one about putting all thoughts and conceptions away - is key to this awareness.

This awareness is very....important...it's sort of the thing that is.

In view of that, your transgressions, my transgressions, Joshu Sasaki's transgressions are not excused,  and are certainly not condoned or encouraged, but they're also ... harmonized, or in a sense "justified."  By justified I don't mean that it was in any way morally or ethically correct for any of us to transgress, but rather by justified I mean that word in the sense that the transgressions are exactly in the place and time they are in, and in the presence of boundless compassion, are not really so problematic.

It presents a couple of new koans though... such as OK, so we're all awake fundamentally, so what to do with perpetrators of transgressions, those who've done things significantly more harmful than dropping cigarette ashes on a stone Buddha?  And what to do with those who can't even get to the vantage point to be able to ask the last question?

It's why I had some questions recently about some teachers' "teaching," in response to the scandal thing.

But I must say I don't have great pat one-size-fits-all answers to those questions, and perhaps we're not supposed to have them.  Your view? 

People are actually asking this question?

"Will enlightenment save the world?"

I find it very difficult to think that in this day and age people have to address these issues, though I'm kind of glad Warner did - though I did not read all the way through.

Though any reference to Eckart Tolle should tell you enough (though again I am supportive of the sentiments of the author of that last linked piece too.)

But...Eckart Tolle is not what Zen Buddhism is about.   As to the author of that piece writing this:

This was the case with Zen Buddhism in Japan during and before WWII, the cultivation of stillness, compassion and love can co-exist with the worst fascism and imperialism. The entire institution of Zen Buddhism – the masters, monks and professors supported the cruel and colonizing efforts of the state and emperor. They defended the “wars of compassion,” gorged themselves in killing and advocated merging the small self with the larger self of the state. This was all done within the monastical, academic and ethical systems of Zen Buddhism.

Some of it was.   Some of those folks lacked ethics and some did not.   This does not mean those who lacked a practice of ethics were not Zen Buddhists; but the ethics is a real thing with Zen Buddhism.

But let's put it this way: when one has understanding - which is one way in which awakening is put - one really can move about the world in a way to more effectively help people - or hurt them if one lacks an ethical practice.

If you're relying on Eckart Tolle for any kind of "wisdom" you already have difficulties.  Not only because of what Warner & Ms. Scofield say, but rather because things like what Tolle is saying have nothing to do with awakening, as far as I can tell.

I disagree with Warner though - meditation by itself won't save the world.   It can help, for sure, but it's in the day-to-day conscious life practice that world changing actually happens.

I'm still around...Let True Dharma Continue

It's been a while since I posted something here; there's been major "life" stuff happening of late.

I am hoping to have a substantial post next week about My Experience with Federal Jury Duty, but that won't appear before Wednesday.  But it might be a few days later.

I think there's still a need for a blog like this.  In some Rinzai based temples in the United States they still chant "Let true Dharma Continue.  [ Temple name ] become complete.  The fact that some abbots have become discredited because of scandal does not mean the invocation is a bad idea, but instead underscores the need for wholeness. 

Too, there are still points to be made about clarifying practice given the predominance of certain practices in the West and some of the statements by some of their prominent "teachers."  Not to mention points to be made in response to certain superficial "Buddhist" publications in the West.  (On the lower right hand corner of my version of the Tricycle website, there's still an ad shilling Frederick Lenz's dreck.)

And then there are the big mistakes I make and sometimes make and bake into this blog.  There's a need to get past them.

Let true Dharma Continue.

Watch where you're aiming that thing. You could hurt yourself.

One of the best things about the internet is that it is possible to juxtapose things that in their "native" contexts would not be against one another; you can contextualize almost anything with anything.

Here's a few links today:

• Nathan has a great article on the commodification and the co-option of mindfulness by techies in "Silicon Valley" (which, I understand, these days is a state of mind to many rather than the actual place).
• Nathan links to another critique of "Wisdom 2.0" gobbledygook,  which rightly points out that this whole meditation thing isn't doing much to deal with the whole feral capitalism thing.
• In case you missed it, some folks at Princeton have concluded that the US is no longer a functioning democracy, but rather an oligarchy.   That seems about right.

I could link more, but I have enough links here to make my point, or rather points:

• Inviting the wealthy to tread a path that transforms greed, hatred, and ignorance into wisdom, generosity and love is not a harmful or bad thing.
• That said, that path needs to involve ethical behavior.  That includes concepts of great compassion (大悲, だいじ ),  and benevolence 慈悲心 (じひしん) or  (仁、じん ).
• I haven't taken any polls, and have no demographic information per se, but I would wager the folks who are going to those Wisdom 2.0 conferences as well as the large majority of folks working in that imaginary Oz called "Silicon Valley"  are in agreement with the above points, as well as their critics.   Why do I say this? Well, for one thing,  though I'm not "in the Valley," I am not doing badly relative to most of the country and I agree with most of the critics.  Yeah, I'm one data point, but I know other people too, evidently.    Plus, in the "Wisdom 2.0" link above there's a quote from New Age person Marianne Williamson - I suspect her tirade about wealth was not badly received, at least because the article doesn't mention an adverse reaction on the part of her audience.

Which brings me to my main point: the real, ultimate issue in the wealth disparity issue is not addressed by attacking your natural allies, just as racism, religious bigotry,  and sexual identity oppression are not addressed by attacking one's natural allies either.  It benefits an oligarch to have those who are not in the club squabbling with each other,  and I'd suspect the folks at Wisdom 2.0 aren't in that club.  That club goes to Davos, or elsewhere. They would not  stand for having the usual mindfulness suspects hawking their "wisdom."  Don't get me wrong, I fully agree; a lot of that "Wisdom" stuff is shallow, and if it takes Marianne Williamson to make a dancing monkey remark, you know there's problems.  But I don't see the point of assuming that the folks at Wisdom 2.0 are responsible for the conditions under which electronics are manufactured, at least any more than anyone else.

And even in the case of a Steve Jobs (who gets way too much credit and blame for everything, even now),  as flawed as he was, not budging an millimeter from a position seeking care and justice for all, we should not wallow in the "No true Scotsman" fallacy.  Jobs was a Buddhist.  Maybe Jobs didn't move the world in a direction that produced utopia (Nicholas Kristof has an opposing view that I don't think needs expounding here, other than to point out that  such views exist, and I abhor them, frankly.)   But that did not mean he was not a Buddhist.

And if you're a Buddhist, chances are you're still suffering as well. There's always a potential that class enemies can be identified a little too close to home, if we're in the business of hunting down class enemies who are called that because they're not the poorest of the poor, or the most marginalized of the marginalized.  

I applaud Nathan's views about the commodification of mindfulness (though he should change the word "gates" in his post to "entrances.")   I would go in a slightly different direction, and not want to posit an "us versus them" scenario, but at the same time I, too, insist that progressives actually make progress, which is what I would expect of myself in my own life. 

I've updated the list of blogs I follow...

I realize that a couple of the blogs mentioned I wouldn't recommend to the casual visiter to this site.   I've had specific reservations - rather deep reservations about some of the stuff posted on some of the sites on my list.  I've added a couple too.  In case you didn't know, one of the ancestors of my part of the Rinzai school, Soen Shaku, spent a significant portion of time with Theravadin monks; I definitely feel an affinity to a lot of what they put forth (though not everything in all cases).  Soen Shaku, contrary to narratives of Japanese Zen adepts whose heirs and teachers reached the West, namely  Nyogen Senzaki and Ryobo-an Sokatsu  were scandal-free.

I think it's better to not promote those questionable blogs in my own way.   In two cases especially it appeared that what was being promoted was so at variance with Zen Buddhism as I've apprehended it that it's better not to promote it as a blog I recommend, even if listing it only as "one I follow." Barry Ritholtz is a more reliable Zen guide, even if he never blogs about Zen (and I recommend his writings, even when I disagree with them if you're tasked with managing your retirement).   I will probably have a more in-depth post on it later, but to make a long story short (for now), there's a lot of people that want to "make Zen better,"  and they're not doing sentient beings many favors in doing so.

Right Speech, Right Livelihood, and the Exploitation of Zen Sexual Abusers for Profit and Leisure

The problem of leisure
What to do for pleasure
Ideal love a new purchase
A market of the senses
Dream of the perfect life
Economic circumstances
The body is good business
Sell out, maintain the interest
Remember Lot's wife
Renounce all sin and vice
Dream of the perfect life
This heaven gives me migraine
The problem of leisure
What to do for pleasure

Coercion of the senses
We are not so gullible
Our great expectations
A future for the good
Fornication makes you happy
No escape from society
Natural is not in it
Your relations are of power
We all have good intentions
But all with strings attached

Repackaged sex keeps your interest
Repackaged sex keeps your interest
Repackaged sex keeps your interest
Repackaged sex keeps your interest
Repackaged sex keeps your interest
Repackaged sex keeps your interest

The problem of leisure
What to do for pleasure
Ideal love a new purchase
A market of the senses
Dream of the perfect life
Economic circumstances
The body is good business
Sell out maintain the interest
Remember Lot's wife
Renounce all sin and vice
Dream of the perfect life
This heaven gives me migraine
This heaven gives me migraine
This heaven gives me migraine                          - Gang of Four

I had an interesting exchange yesterday  regarding Sweeping Zen and whatever Adam's latest scandal du jour.  They've become Adam's scandals as much as Sasaki's or Shimano's scandals by now, because of his association with his propensity to propagate these stories.  

To what end?

Hearing the Sutras, Proper Belief...

Nathan quotes  and comments a bit from Chapter 6 of the Diamond Sutra, and I wanted to comment on that as well.

The relevant part of Chapter 6 is:

Subhåti said to the Buddha, “World Honored One, in the future will there be living beings, who, when they hear such phrases spoken will truly believe?"

The Buddha told Subhåti, “do not speak in such a way! After the Tathàgata’s extinction, in the last five hundred years, there will be those who hold the precepts and cultivate blessings who will believe such phrases and accept them as true.

“You should know that such people will have planted good roots with not just one Buddha, two Buddhas, three, four, or five Buddhas, but will have planted good roots with measureless millions of Buddhas. All who hear such phrases and produce even one thought of pure faith are completely known and completely seen by the Tathàgata. Such living beings thus obtain measureless blessings and virtue. And why? Those living beings have no further mark of self, of others, of living beings, or of a life; no mark of dharmas and no mark of no dharmas. If living beings’ hearts grasp at marks, then that is attachment to self, to others, to living beings, and to a life. For that reason you should not grasp at dharmas, nor should you grasp at no dharmas. Regarding that principle, the Tathàgata often says, ‘all you bhikùus should know that the Dharma which I speak is like a raft. Even dharmas should be re- linquished, how much the more so no dharmas.’

The heading of the chapter I'm quoting from says "Proper Belief is Rare."  The thing about Buddhist texts is that they tend to be more mentally challenging than the monotheists' writings; there's more subtlety going on here than might meet the eye at first.  In Subhåti's  question to the Buddha,  "such phrases" mean the teaching of the Diamond Sutra itself.  Like the Lotus Sutra, it's simultaneously self-referential and pointing outside of, that is, beyond the text of the Sutra itself.   As has been commented by others,  this pointing refers to one's appropriation and manifestation of the Dharma (including lack of attachment to it) in one's own life. 

There's one other point I'll make here: the rare "proper belief" is the mindset of not being concerned about any outcome here.   Furthermore the "people who have planted good roots" are those who have belief in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, but that belief is a belief borne of observation having first taken refuge, as can be seen by reading a little further down in text I've not quoted.

But this is way too too much analysis.  It has so much analysis, that in fact what I wrote has nothing whatsoever to do meaningfully with reality.

Let me put it this way.  Consider Case 29 of the Hekigan Roku:

A monk asked Daizui,
"When the great kalpa fire is inflamed, the whole universe¹ will be
destroyed. I wonder if 'that' will also be destroyed or not."
Daizui said,
"Destroyed."
The monk said,
"If so, will 'that' be gone with the other?"²
Daizui said,
"Gone with the other."

This is clearly related to the same thing mentioned in the Diamond Sutra. (For what it's worth, you can read a Sanbo Kyōdan commentary by Yamada Koun here.)

A "proper belief" mindset is one in which belief,  the question of belief,  doubt, and/or lack of doubt just doesn't arise.  It just does not matter in relation to the resolution of the Great Matter. This is not to say that one is not practicing good deeds, nor does one stop practice/refuge.  Of course not.   But this "proper belief" mindset is  not even like  not being aware of being wet when swimming.

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.