Seeing Through Zen by by John R. McRae book reviews buy this book, Coming Down from the Zen Clouds: A Critique of the Current State of American Zen, Means of Authorization: Establishing Hierarchy in Ch'an/Zen Buddhism in America, The Zen Master in America: Dressing the Donkey with Bells and Scarves, Holding the Lotus to the Rock: reflections on the future of the Zen sangha in the West, Sanbkydan Zen and the Way of the New Religions, Finding Safe Harbor: Buddhist Sexual Ethics in America, Shoes Outside the Door: Desire, Devotion, and Excess at San Francisco Zen Center, Crooked Cucumber: The Life and Teachings of Shunryu Suzuki, Not Always So: practicing the true spirit of Zen by Shunryu Suzuki. [27][28][29][30], In March 1983 Baker was accused of engaging in a sexual relationship with the wife of an influential sangha member. 837 501. He served as Abbot there until 1978, moving the group to Jikoji in Los Gatos, California in 1979. This formulaic collection of qualities of a Zen master, is not neutral. It is noted that after 1983 the study of sutras, Zen texts and history was instituted. Baker Sums It Up Baker presided over it all like a feudal lord, hosting dinner parties with then-Gov. He remained abbot there until 1984, the year he resigned his position after it was disclosed in the previous year that he and the wife of one of SFZC's benefactors had been having an ongoing affair. The number of practitioners at SFZC grew rapidly in the mid-sixties. This is also extremely disempowering which can lead to all sorts of problems, as the SFZC case clearly shows. By this time there had also been an abundance of scholarly writing and empirical evidence exposing much of the mythology surrounding Zen. And three of the four, Afable noted when we spoke, have caused major public sex scandals: first Maezumi, and more recently Shimano and Sasaki. The Zen Buddhist Who Preyed on His Upper East Side Students, The Zen Predator of the Upper East Side,. This is very similar to the Japanese Soto Zen, with minor variances for social and cultural differences. Interestingly, one of the oldest members of Zen Center, a psychologist, did an "informal poll" of people who had been at Zen Center for more than eight years. This 1987 incident has had a damaging impact on Anderson's reputation as a teacher, since his arrest received national media coverage. It could fairly be said that what is effectively transmitted by Dharma transmission is institutional authority, rather than religious wisdom. About. 1969 - Suzuki was asked to resign as priest at Sokoji by the temple's board of directors because he was spending more time with his Western students than the Japanese-American congregation. It was more about power, about finding another way to govern and manage an operation that was never sure if it was a California commune, a Japanese monastery or a New Age business. For a view from the political perspective that has application in the religious arena see Edwards, David, "A Chest of Tools for Intellectual Self-Defense" in Burning All Illusions, South End Press, pp.177-224. Zen Center businesses embodied other Bay Area delights. Sanbkydan Zen and the Way of the New Religions by Robert H. Sharf I have been involved with Zen in America for over thirty years during which time there have been many upheavals and problems, some similar to the Baker case described in Michael Downing's, Shoes Outside The Door, others more subtle and less obvious in nature. In this scheme, each teacher can trace his lineage and hence, authenticity, back to the historical Buddha. These days, when we think of predatory clergy, we think of Roman Catholic priests. The center received significant media coverage concerning the 1984 resignation of then abbot Zentatsu Richard Baker, who was ousted after it was alleged that he had been having an affair with the wife of a prominent Zen Center member. And all of us worshipped him to a certain extent., Nobody was as worshipful as a student named David Schnyer. For an outstanding article on Sanbokyodan Zen, a Zen sect important in the West see, Sharf, Robert, "Sanbokyodan, Zen and the Way of New Religions", Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, Fall 1995, Vol. He became the leader of the Sanbokyodan school of Zen started by Yasutani. The latter choice was too painful for many for any number of reasons, including: 1) many believed that the Center was the best place to practice Zen and so leaving meant giving up what made life seem most meaningful, 2) their self-identities as Zen practitioners were connected to the Center, 3) loyalty to Suzuki Roshi, 4) leaving close friendships established through communal living and especially through practicing meditation together, 5) loving the lifestyle and 6) fear of losing one's position in the hierarchy and the possibility for future higher positions culminating in being Dharma transmitted oneself. With this view in place, the entire spectrum of permissible thought is now caught and limited within Zen's mythological presentation, which was a completed creation by the eleventh century in China. Ironically, one may ask, is that what Suzuki hoped to reform? [1] Zen Hospice Project was the subject of the Netflix 2018 Academy Award-nominated[24] short documentary End Game,[25] about terminally ill patients in a San Francisco hospital as well as at the Zen Hospice Project house, featuring the work of palliative care physician BJ Miller and other palliative care clinicians. For a peek into a period only shortly before our own, we can use Brian Victoria's book Zen At War. Foulk gives translations of two versions of the text, side by side and analyses their internal structure and contents. Besides Suzuki's chosen heir Baker's questionable behavior, Downing reveals many of the senior people scrambling for positions of authority, power, money and perks. Brian Victoria was so interested in the possibility of a public pacifist/anti-war Soto monk that he contacted Suzuki's son Hoitsu who told him: "I don't know where all of this antiwar talk comes from, but my father and the rest of the family supported Japan's war effort just like everyone else." The fact is that almost everything about Zen's presentation, practice, and rituals is aimed at producing people who give up their good sense with the promise of a greater gain in the future. When it came to Baker's transmission from Suzuki, virtually all the students interviewed by Downing assumed that it was a "real" transmission. One justification sometimes heard, glib to my ear, is that enlightenment is not about morality. Obedience, subservience, and discipline were well rewarded at a large institution like the San Francisco Zen Center, as Downing's book amply shows. At that time, in the 70s, drug use was prevalent, and I got involved in a fair amount of that. Downing, who lives in Cambridge, Mass., provides an outsider's view into the incestuous circles at the first Buddhist monastery in the West. San Francisco Zen Center offers seven charming guest rooms for short-term stays. Introduction The past generations are presented in a saintly and exalted manner, which adds to the prestige of the tradition as a whole, but most importantly, to the prestige of the last name on the lineage chart, the living teacher. Zen Mind? Its waves of people who say, Im done with this, I got what I can out of it and then a new group comes in.. Downing adds, "Suzuki reminded Richard [Baker] that Hoitsu had a family and two children. In not clearly explaining the meaning, to his disciples at the SFZC, of his transmission to Baker, while stressing that it was "real;" Suzuki chose to perpetuate a fiction and to dishonor the trust they had given him. Had he misused confidences given to him in dokusan (a private meeting between teacher and student pertaining to the student's practice, an extremely important element in Zen training) for self-serving reasons? Suzuki-roshi, as his students called him, died of cancer in 1971. Steve Hagen. What was or was not implied in Baker's transmission from Suzuki? It is a performance meant to confirm and display the current master's significance, authority and attainment. In 1987 SFZC started the Zen Hospice Project, a volunteer hospice program run out of a guest house on Page Street with five residential beds. San Francisco from the 1960's into the 1980's was considered by many to be the freest city in America, especially when understanding "libre" as freedom from ideological constraints. Also see his forthcoming book on early Chan texts for a unique dissection of early lineage claims and their supporting texts . The organic farm at Green Gulch supplies local restaurants and food suppliers and sells flowers, produce and herbs at Ferry Plaza Farmers Market in San Francisco. Zen's highly ritualized activities added a visceral instantiation to the cognitive edifice. Baker manifested his authority by giving his followers two choices: obey his words without question or be marginalized, which was tantamount to being forced to leave. Zen Groups Distressed by Accusations Against Teacher Joshu Sasaki in New Mexico in 2007. Most people think of Zen as being iconoclastic, anti-authoritarian, simple, direct, and unattached. What they really found is another story of flawed human behavior. Nor did anyone even think to view the situation through the lens of the Buddhist teachings themselves or even the particular teachings of their beloved founder Suzuki. Ironically, what follows is in many ways a religious text. For an analysis of the inherent power relations in the one-dimensional description of a roshi and how it is taken for being natural, see "Symbolic Violence and Social Reproduction" and "Uses of Language" in, Jenkins, Richard, Pierre Bourdieu, Routledge, 1992, pp.103-110 and pp.152-162 respectively. Before Victoria's book was published these people, many who were influential in bringing Zen to the west, were routinely presented as flawless examples of Zen attainment. Zen at War by Brian Daizen A. Victoria: a link to varioius book reviews buy this book now The situation is now reversing, as the Japanese, in particular, abandon Buddhism as an old relic, while it continues to find adherents in the West. Others have told me that my view, informed by historical scholarship (as opposed to Zen's own fictional history), sociology, political and social analysis as well as long personal involvement, has been helpful in clarifying some of the illusion and in reducing some of the pain. From 1986 to 1988 he served as abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center, and from 1988 to 1995 he served there as co-abbot with Sojun Mel Weitsman. After six months, he returned to his position. I have copies of these letters. [21][22][23] Today SFZC is the largest Soto organization with a foothold in the West. For students of the San Francisco Zen Center, one of America's oldest and most prestigious Buddhist institutions, the world has already ended. 3-101 applies the social construction of reality theory to religion. [citation needed], Additional businesses run by SFZC were the Alaya Stitchery storefront, which made zafus, zabutons and clothing, and Green Gulch Grocery, which sold produce from Green Gulch Farm. However, for an in depth review of early Chan monastic codes and how early Chan viewed and supposedly treated errant behavior by monks see Foulk, T. Griffith, "The "Ch'an School" and Its Place In the Buddhist Monastic Tradition," Diss. Its raison d'etre is to produce people who possess a fundamental insight into life, people who are not fooled by appearances or ideas. Supporting tools to make this narrative seem real and unconstructed include the particular methods of meditation and interactions between teacher and student as well as an abundance of validating mythologies most often presented as history in the form of biography, along with accommodating literary and ritual devices. The issue here is not how individual students behave foolishly or even in a self-serving way, it is the admonition to "just sit" - even for twenty thousand hours - is no guarantee against foolishness or delusion. He also ran a temple virtually under the control of Japan's repressive fascist era government. Michel Foucault in "The Means of Correct Training" in Discipline and Punish, Trans. Mark Oppenheimeris the author of three other books, includinga memoir of high school debateand atravelogue about crashing bar mitzvahs. critical insights into Zen/Buddhism have strongly influenced my views: Robert Buswell, Alan Cole, Bernard Faure, T. Griffith Foulk, Robert M. Gimello, Peter N. Gregory, John Kieschnick, John R. McRae, A. Charles Muller, Mario Poceski, Robert H. Sharf, Morten Schlutter, Gregory Schopen, Brian Victoria, Albert Welter and Dale Wright. We agree that the Constitutional Convention made law for all the people, and for all generations to come; we agree that the government will back up our money, if no longer with gold, then with its promises. On one visit he decided to take the revolver home with him. Zen Mind? And stayed for 10 years.. It allows bureaucratic transmission, but it also uses "historical" biographies of eminent masters presented as desireless beings, the koans, and the many Zen stories and dialogues (mondo) to legitimize and to enhance authority, that make clear that transmission is given because of a deep insight into reality or spiritual attainment. Not what the holy man is but what he signifies in the eyes of those who are not holy gives him his world- historical value. They have a daughter, Sofia Baker, born on March 1, 2001, in Alamosa, Colorado. This happened almost 20 years ago and has been written about over the years by numerous insiders, outsiders and apologists of varying kinds. Institutional power, authority, hierarchy and order are, hence, accomplished through self-censorship by the members, a more effective method for controlling dissent and questioning than coercion by the leaders. Which means it's basically my fault. And he found them quite easily, because Westerners practicing Zen have an almost infantile relationship to what they perceive to be the authentic, Oriental father. Learn about the latest news from affiliate sanghas with Tova's newsettes and other timely articles. This paper can also serve the non-scholar as an overview or introduction to modern Zen scholarship and introduce a critical view of the important Zen ideas of master, Dharma transmission, and unbroken lineage. He was not a sticky kind of emotional person. Suzuki had asked Baker to locate a farm in the area for entire families to live a Buddhist life while working together. Founded in 1972 by the San Francisco Zen Center and Zentatsu Richard Baker, the site is located on 115 acres (0.47 km 2) in a valley seventeen miles (27 km) north of San Francisco [1] and offers a variety of workshops and classes throughout the year. defending Deshimaru's teacher Sawaki roshi's wartime involvement dating from 1905 through WWII is available on the internet at, http://www.zen-azi.org/html/guerre_e.html#replybyb. His first wife contracted tuberculosis and returned to her parents shortly after marriage; his second wife was brutally murdered by an erratic, antisocial monk whom Suzuki had retained as a temple assistant, despite contrary advise from neighbors and colleagues. [10], In 1970, Suzuki gave Dharma transmission to Richard Baker, his only American Dharma Heir and chosen successor at SFZC. Under the Zen approach, the Chan masters are clearly more potent than the monastics of other Buddhist sects, who merely explicate the Dharma through texts, often texts that are further distanced from their authoritative origins by the act of translation. Newcomers naturally looked to senior priests as guides or friends, but in doing so, they may have been mistaken. Tenshin Reb Anderson-roshi, former abbot of City Zen Center, is senior Dharma teacher at Green Gulchtraining priests and laypeople, leading sesshins, giving talks and conducting workshops while also living onsite. Was he acting primarily with his own self-interest in mind? I welcome any comments from the reader. Whose Zen? I think this happened because Zen's teaching to avoid words and explanation was taken too literally and has fostered an unfortunate narrowing of perspective. This was likely prompted by a conversation between Robert Baker Aitken and Baker at San Francisco Zen Center concerning the question of Zen's availability to interested gays, for Dorsey went on to become abbot of the Hartford Street Zen Center. The deal I cut with him, Kelly told me, was that he stop sleeping with Western women and only sleep with Japanese women, because they dont tell.. Therefore, in the living world of flesh and blood we have people with some very limited level of attainment occupying a role that is defined as Buddha-like, actualizing perfect freedom and unfathomable compassion beyond the ordinary person's understanding and hence above question. Zen ascribes to Pai-chang (died 814) its earliest monastic code that supposedly set Chan apart as a separate sect in the Tang dynasty. Yet we all know that no human is like this. I highly recommend this book, especially the first 101 pages. In the wake of Baker's resignation, SFZC transitioned to a democratically elected leadership model, until in 2010 there was a new introduction of a predesignated slated of board members. Money, too, is worth something because we believe it iswe give the $20 bill the magical properties of being worth more than the $1 bill, even though the paper and ink are identical. In fact, Kapleau never received Dharma transmission in the first place, so there was nothing to rescind. Downing reveals that by 1969 Suzuki had made it known to Baker and others at the Center that Baker was to be his Dharma heir. Even newer students, who come to Zen Center and find out about these incidents, are sometimes confused and question whether I can be their teacher. He was neither. Anderson remembered stowing the revolver away in the San Francisco Zen Center's garage and quickly retrieved it. The duo published a book of recipes in 1987 titled The Greens Cookbook. I feel sorry for anybody who's bitter. It is common talk around Zen Centers to hear that the Master can tell your state of mind just in hearing your footsteps in going to sanzen/dokusan, in simply seeing you in any activity, seeing you with a single glance, or in the most idealized version, "he just knows from a distance!" Zen is a Chinese invention roughly beginning in the seventh or eighth century of this era. He is now a professor of psychology at the University of Texas, and in December 2012 I spoke with him by telephone. This "history" has added weight because it is presented as biographical fact. Why should we think that Suzuki chose Baker as his only American Dharma heir based on his level of "spiritual attainment?" In this regard Mr. Coming Down from the Zen Clouds: A Critique of the Current State of American Zen Zen Center members accepted and internalized most all of Zen's self definitions, history and social forms. Despite the controversy connected with his resignation, Baker was instrumental in helping the San Francisco Zen Center to become one of the most successful Zen institutions in the United States. Right now, Manhattans Zen Studies Society, perhaps the most prestigious Zen Buddhist center in the United States, is being torn apart by lawsuits, backstabbing, and infighting. Under Baker's leadership, it appears that the Center functioned as a dysfunctional family, denying that anything was wrong or problematic. Zen Mind, Beginners Mind by Shunryu Suzuki buy this book In the end, Baker's problems at the Zen Center weren't so much about his seven or eight sexual affairs over a 20-year span (Chapter 23, if you get impatient). One student expressed it as, "some of the senior priests were in it for a payoff-Transmission," another stated it as, "They were ambitious, and only Richard could give it [transmission] to them, because he was the only one who had it." It did not matter that Baker did not appear to offer his students the "living proof that the seemingly impossible goal [of Zen] can be realized in this lifetime" as Baker himself described the function of the teacher. [5] Baker was ordained a St priest by Suzuki in 1966 just before the opening of Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. Also see his Zen War Stories to be published December 2002. We see in Downing's book that it is precisely the idealized notion of Dharma transmission that pre-empted anything that Zen Center members saw for themselves when viewing Baker, their Dharma-transmitted leader, at least prior to the rupture in 1983. One of Shimanos greatest advantages has been that he is Japanese. The meeting, which Zournas had hoped would mark the end of Shimanos tenure, turned out to be another show of support. For a history of early Soto Zen as well as how the Soto sect has understood Dharma transmission since roughly 1700, see Bodiford, William M., Soto Zen in Medieval Japan, University of Hawaii Press, 1993, p. 215. A descendant of Thomas Dudley,[4] Baker was raised in a family of moderate wealth. This change in demography caused a rift in the Sokoji community. For a many sided view of the Zen koan see, The Koan, Ed. San Francisco Zen Center has begun to offer on-site meditation, Dharma talks, programs, classes, and other events. Berger begins, "Every human society is an enterprise of world-building. He exists freely in the fullness of his whole being. Americans needed somebody to teach them the rituals. Institutional and personal motives played an important part in the composing of Buddhist biographical collections; this was especially so in earl Chan lineage texts. The finances are terrible, and the beautiful carriage house on East 67th Street may have to be sold to pay legal debtsor, if he wins the lawsuit, to pay damages to Eido Shimano, the 82-year-old Zen master who built the society up but also, in a way, has destroyed it. Zen priest Mel Weitsman served with Anderson as a co-abbot during the remainder of his term, and the tradition of two sitting Abbots continued for the next few decades. Public opinion shows that while parishioners are, of course, disturbed by priests' abuse of children and young teens, they are more upset by the institutional cover up and denial of that behavior. But the Americans didnt know that. While jogging through Golden Gate Park, Anderson deviated from the path to urinate in some bushes. The current crisis in the Catholic Church proves the need for such an institutional analysis. Also see, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, Trans.and Ed. This is a convenient and economical way to stay in the city while experiencing life in a Zen Buddhist temple and enjoying the serene elegance of a building designed by Julia Morgan. Baker claimed the Center was "denying 2,500 years of how Buddhism was developed and continued" He made a number of other historically inaccurate claims, and finally dropped the suit saying that he was pressured to institute the threat by a lawyer student of his: "There was a lawyer who kept bugging me." This would have led any impartial observer to question the spiritual implications of Dharma transmission. is co-abbess of the San Francisco Zen Center. Before our eyes we have a living person becoming a faceless, a-historical person. In Northern California, Zen chic peaked in the early 1980s, and its rise and fall has much to do with the stories of two lives -- another Japanese man named Suzuki and another Westerner with a brilliant mind and roving eye. Political authority can function in this second way. So why did none of Baker's students, as expressed in their interviews with Downing, show any awareness that institutional self-definition encouraged their idealization of Baker, which allowed, perhaps even fostered, the occurrence of many of the alleged abuses? No one took the opportunity to stand back and view the entire affair from any sort of sociological, anthropological, psychological or religious-historical perspective. He was perfect for me, Schnyer said. Also see, Brown, Edward Espe, Not Always So: Practicing the True Spirit of Zen, Harper Collins, 2002, Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness: Zen Talks on the Sandokai, Ed. You have to ask whether Suzuki was aware of the claims made by Baker and, if so, why he permitted them to stand without correction. In 1983 Tenshin Reb Anderson received shih from Zentatsu Richard Baker, becoming Baker's first Dharma heir (though Baker disputes this). Berkeley, March 17th, 2002. Today, one could reasonably assert that of the 30 or 40 important Zen centers in the country, at least 10 have employed head teachers who have been accused of groping, propositioning, seducing, or otherwise exploiting students. When Kelly grew frustrated with Shimanos womanizing, he made a proposition. Baker was a charismatic leader, brilliant lecturer and dedicated Buddhist. It should be kept in mind that the senior members, by 1982, were often over forty years old and had been practicing at Zen Center for fifteen or more years. People interviewed had the luxury of hindsight. All of this authority and potency is manifested in the rituals of the Zen master commenting on and judging the words and actions of not only their disciples, but also of anyone in the lineage going all the way back to and including, the historical Buddha. Therefore, in the need to remain at the Center, members had a powerful incentive to fully buy into Zen's mythology. With this investment it is understandable that one might not want to question too closely the teacher's behavior. Some people felt that I had committed an irrevocable betrayal of trust, and have discounted me and my teaching ever since. [6] Baker also penned the introduction to Suzuki's famous book, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. On the corner of Page and Laguna Streets in San Francisco, diagonally across from San Francisco Zen Center, is a corner building with a series of murals that wrap around the boarded-over windows. I dont remember saying that., Schnyer maintains a tidy understanding of his personal Zen galaxy, in which Shimano is the sun, hot and dangerous but necessary. Visceral instantiation to the cognitive edifice to remain at the University of,... The SFZC case clearly shows but in doing so, they may have been mistaken for a many view. [ Baker ] that Hoitsu had a powerful incentive to fully buy into 's. 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