san francisco zen center scandal

san francisco zen center scandalmary crandall hales

Zen Mind, Beginners Mind by Shunryu Suzuki buy this book In the 1960s, four major Zen teachers came to the United States from Japan: Shunryu Suzuki, Taizan Maezumi, Joshu Sasaki, and Eido Shimano. There is nothing in the description that allows someone in the future to distinguish Suzuki, Hoitsu or any of their heirs from any of thousands of hallowed ancestors. 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. If someone attempted to question some aspect of Baker's behavior, both Baker and senior disciples reminded them that Baker was the only American Dharma heir of Suzuki. Stuart Lachs, October 2002 Hence, a number of questions were never openly raised: Was he acting in an arrogant fashion? You can quarrel with their authority, but if the gun works, or if the experiment was well designed and conclusive, you are likely to lose the argument. Downing has offered an excellent example in Richard Baker and the SFZC. At the same time, this supposed desireless image of the roshi is meant to invoke desire in us for him. If you counted the blow-ups, youd say just a few [women,] but we think he ran his life like a Japanese businessmanlots of affairs, but most of them discreet. For an important look at Buddhist biography and hagiography though not especially Chan, the reader may look at Kieschnick, John, The Eminent Monk, University of Hawaii Press, 1997. Suzuki had asked Baker to locate a farm in the area for entire families to live a Buddhist life while working together. It was not surprising, then, that when trouble arose at the Center it was mostly assumed that something must be wrong with the members themselves; that it was because they did not use or handle well Suzuki's pure teaching. Americans needed somebody to teach them the rituals. One of the oldest and perhaps most outspoken members who was eventually forced out by Baker stated, "this was a system that was about staying asleep because it was too risky to wake up." It is important to remember now that the interviews Downing conducted in 1998-2000 were long after the events at the SFZC took place. "[33], In the 1980s Baker ordained Issan Dorsey as a priest. More tellingly, Baker, inserted the very idealized description of qualities and characteristics supposedly of Suzuki Roshi, generalized to all roshi, knowing it would inevitably, indeed shortly, be applied to himself. In fact, a number of older students who had known Baker for years left the Zen Center when he was installed as both abbot and roshi of SFZC. (If the reader wants to argue that Dharma transmission in the Rinzai sect or in the modern Sanbokyodan sect so popular in the West matches the ideal of Zen rhetoric, please feel free to email me at my address listed in the Notes.) A special note is given to the papers of Heine, Wright, Foulk, McRae, Welter, Schlutter, Michel Mohr and Ishii Shudo. SFZC will continue to offer classes, talks, workshops, and sangha gatherings through the Online Practice Center and residential guest student practice opportunities at all three temples. They believed their way of living and of practicing Zen was the best alternative available in America. In the case of Zen, students usually come to the teacher with a set of preconceptions, acquired mostly through reading, about the fully attained Zen master as being virtually beyond their comprehension. Around 1970, he began sitting regularly with a group in Santa Cruz that went on to form the Santa Cruz Zen Center. 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. Baker wrote an introduction to Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, an edited collection of Suzuki's talks, in which Baker said (p.17), "During the Second World War he [Suzuki] was the leader of a pacifist group in Japan." The Board of Directors at SFZC also began election of leaders. The focus itself is on the master. Any genuine interpretation or questioning of the meaning of Dharma transmission, lineage, the Zen roshi, their place in the institution, their accountability, and so on is made to seem absurd. When one member was about to leave (after the Baker scandal), rather than receiving well wishes or a word of advice from his teacher-who happened to be the new abbot after Baker, he was smugly told that he would be back in a year. The Zen understanding of wisdom imputes Foucault's "single gaze to see everything constantly" to the Master. Green Gulch Farm ("Green Dragon Temple", or Soryuji), located in Sausalito, California in a valley on the Pacific Ocean, was acquired by SFZC in 1972. [21][22][23] Today SFZC is the largest Soto organization with a foothold in the West. In the past we had a lot of crisesin San Francisco and Los Angeleswith sex scandals and so forth. And stayed for 10 years.. That Kapleau never received Dharma transmission was exposed in a public letter from Yamada roshi dated,1/16/86. [1][15], In 1983 Tenshin Reb Anderson received shih from Zentatsu Richard Baker, becoming Baker's first Dharma heir (though Baker disputes this). Shimano was not the bad guy; rather, those who made too much noise, who refused to go quietly, and thus disturbed Schnyers and others Zen practice, were the blameworthy ones. City Center A vibrant community in an urban temple in the heart of San Francisco. Before our eyes we have a living person becoming a faceless, a-historical person. In Downing's book we see that much illusion, suffering and pain has been part of Zen in San Francisco, a situation that, unfortunately, has been repeated in most every other part of America over a thirty-five year period. This "history" has added weight because it is presented as biographical fact. Zen elevates its leaders to super-human status, then emphasizes that we should be obedient and subservient to a powerful and supremely accomplished authority figure, precisely because he is powerful and supremely accomplished. Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, shortly before his death in December 1971, gave him Dharma transmission in the Soto sect of Zen, thereby making Baker, for his students and for all future people in his lineage, an authentic link to the Buddha. He served as Abbot there until 1978, moving the group to Jikoji in Los Gatos, California in 1979. A number of Downing's interviewees spoke of receiving the true or pure Zen teaching from Suzuki Roshi. Some former students say they were encouraged to believe that being groped by him was part of their. Our personal experience is socially constructed in dialogue with society and with ourselves. Today SFZC is the largest St organization in the West. Alan Sherman, Vintage Books, 1995 (reprint edition), 1995, pp.170-195 discusses a number of aspects of the penal system, its disciplinary power and the simple instruments from which it derives its power: hierarchical observation, normalizing judgment, and their combination-the examination. If youre going to do this, youre going to do it on your own, but Im not going to nurse you. For me he was perfect Somebody looking from the outside could say thats why we stuck with him all the time. [5] Baker was ordained a St priest by Suzuki in 1966 just before the opening of Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. Visitors can enjoy the springs, go swimming or on hiking trips, and have the opportunity to arrange for practice with the community living at the monastery for a few days. At that time, in the 70s, drug use was prevalent, and I got involved in a fair amount of that. This imputation of power and attainment has given one Zen roshi after another the power to abuse their position while remaining beyond reproach. This scheme was later institutionalized through the ritual of Dharma transmission. By saying this, he was emphasizing his guarantee that the essence of the Zen lineage resides in Baker. By this time there had also been an abundance of scholarly writing and empirical evidence exposing much of the mythology surrounding Zen. A theme repeated in Downing's interviews is Suzuki's seemingly quirky idea of reforming Soto Zen in Japan by having his American students go there as living examples of reform. This is not a new idea nor is it unique to Chan/Zen. While jogging through Golden Gate Park, Anderson deviated from the path to urinate in some bushes. And the teachings in it. The last of these was Bodhidharma, who began the patriarchal line in China that led to Hui-neng, traditionally considered to be the sixth and last Chan patriarch. However, this supposed wisdom is beyond words, is not understood by the unenlightened who are then not qualified to judge or evaluate it, whether expressed in the words or in the behavior of the wise one. Baker presided over it all like a feudal lord, hosting dinner parties with then-Gov. Please visit the Calendar page for more details or sign up for our weekly Sangha News email to receive notices of upcoming events. In fact, it was often not based on spiritual attainment at all, most especially so in Japanese Soto Zen, which is the sect of Suzuki, Baker and the San Francisco Zen Center. I finally asked Schnyer if he had said what Zournas attributed to him: He hasnt raped anyone yet, has he? This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. [3] Because his family moved around frequently, he lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Indiana, and Pittsburgh growing up. Trouble At the San Francisco Zen Center The student who enters the "practice" having read a myth will expect to find the myth, and will think they have found the myth. Zen Hospice Project also continues to train and coordinate volunteers who provide non sectarian, non-medical care to residents of the hospice and palliative care ward at Laguna Honda Hospital, a skilled nursing facility operated by the City and County of San Francisco. Most people think of Zen as being iconoclastic, anti-authoritarian, simple, direct, and unattached. Most of the narratives of the early heroes of Chan that we have today were composed hundreds of years after the ostensive events, complete with verbatim accounts of the master's interaction with a disciple presented as if a court stenographer had been recording the entire interaction. Despite having only had 12 years in the United States, Suzuki had gone a long way toward establishing Soto Zen in America. With one or two exceptions, the only views expressed of Baker's errant behavior among the Center's members was in the context of their personal experience. In addition, as there are other practitioners around the teacher, it is helpful to be part of a community of fellow practitioners. Some of the most senior members appeared afraid to raise difficult questions with Baker perhaps for fear of losing their own privileged positions. In fact there are few major centers not touched by sexual or other scandals, but the SFZC case suffices for the discussion we will have here. 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. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews. Shoes Outside The Door, p.289. This reminder served an important purpose: the Center's members viewed Suzuki's authority as if it were a divine fiat, so that any dissent or criticism was ended. For example, Afable might have added that at Chobo-ji, a Zen temple in Seattle, Genki Takabayashi made passes at his female students. A pioneer of gourmet vegetarian cuisine in America, the restaurant's first chefs were Edward Espe Brown and Deborah Madison. Baker was a charismatic leader, brilliant lecturer and dedicated Buddhist. The land was purchased from one of the founders of Polaroid, George Wheelwright. I am greatly indebted to the works of the following scholars, among others, whose Jerry Brown, poet Gary Snyder, Esalen founder Michael Murphy, author Ken Kesey and other leading lights of the Zen intelligentsia on the West Coast. The experience of legitimacy, realness and of being believable hides the underlying power relations. In fact, Suzuki's lineage, now and as long as the line survives, comes through his son Hoitsu and Baker and that unknown person. Was he acting primarily with his own self-interest in mind? For Suzuki Roshi's edited words see the well-known Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, Weatherhill, 1970. Suzuki-roshi, as his students called him, died of cancer in 1971. At a meeting of the Board of Directors of Lindisfarne at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, Thompson convinced the board to donate the campus that he had establishedwith its passive solar Lindisfarne Fellows House, Founder's House, and Lindisfarne Chapelto Baker-roshi's Dharma Sangha. Zen Center members accepted and internalized most all of Zen's self definitions, history and social forms. Perhaps tellingly, Baker made this claim at the height of the Vietnam War, when virtually 100% of Zen followers were opposed to the war and hence having an anti-war/anti -government roshi in his lineage was good currency. I took a course at Rochester, an overview of Eastern religion and Confucianism. There appeared to be a vast cultural divide between the Zen Center students of Suzuki and Japanese Zen monks that showed itself both in America and in Japan. And that gets the juices flowing. 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. Foulk gives translations of two versions of the text, side by side and analyses their internal structure and contents. One member suggested that the Shimanos instead be given an extended sabbatical. And after his death, several students of Dainin Katagiri, the founding abbot of the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center, in Minneapolis, reported having affairs with their teacher, who had been married. 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. The flow of his consciousness is not the fixed repetitive patterns of our usual self-centered consciousness, but rather arises spontaneously and naturally from the actual circumstances of the present. The meaning of these terms evolved as a means of self-definition for the Zen sect to differentiate itself from other Buddhist sects in a way that particularly matched the Chinese social system based on genealogy and to gain legitimization and authenticity from the imperial powers that always maintained tight control over Buddhism. [11][13][14][15], In 1976, SFZC purchased the Gallo Pastry Company to found the Tassajara Bakery, which became popular before being sold to the company Just Desserts in 1992. The sangha was incorporated by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi and a group of his American students in 1962. Green Gulch An organic farm and garden in a beautiful coastal valley in Marin County Tassajara A monastery and retreat center in a remote mountain valley in the Ventana Wilderness Learn and Practice at San Francisco Zen Center SFZC Online A roshi is a person who has actualized that perfect freedom which is the potentiality for all human beings. Religion occupies a distinctive place in this enterprise." It was a spiritual scandal starring the usual suspects -- sex, money and the abuse of religious authority. It is interesting to note that these beliefs persisted strongly even into the year 2000, roughly the time of Downing's interviews when there had been thirty-five years of sexual and financial scandals in the Zen community in America. The idea that Zen's emphasis on wisdom while only giving lip service to compassion in reality is then about power is an idea that I have just begun to examine. What the teacher really offers the student is literally living proof that all this talk and the seemingly impossible goals can be realized in this lifetime. (Downing's interviews showed that he did.) [13], Following his departure from the San Francisco Zen Center in 1984, Baker relocated to Santa Fe, New Mexico where he founded a new community known as Dharma Sangha. Spiritual authority is that second kind of authority. Tassajara Zen Mountain Center ("Zen Mind Temple" or Zenshinji) was the first Zen Buddhist monastery built in the United States, and the first in the world to allow co-ed practice. Anderson became entangled in an incident in 1987 that reached back to 1983 just after Zentatsu Richard Baker had resigned as abbot. A descendant of Thomas Dudley,[4] Baker was raised in a family of moderate wealth. Downing adds, "Suzuki reminded Richard [Baker] that Hoitsu had a family and two children. Yet Baker certainly knew that, at best, few if any roshi are so fully realized. Soto temples in Japan often are a family business, handed down from father to son, as Suzuki himself had done with his son Hoitsu. 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. After a major fundraising effort led by Baker, Zen Center purchased the landwhich contained a rundown resort and mineral springs in 1967. Baker Sums It Up Zen Center Members However, I do not mean to imply there is no inner spiritual content to the Zen tradition. "It is, basically, a description of a number of monastic procedures implicitly attributed to Pai-chang, set in a quasi-historical context, and presented with the authors own explanation and laudatory remarks. Good bread, fine wine and simple, yet elegant, dining were offered by Tassajara Bakery and by Greens, the gourmet restaurant at Fort Mason that dished out vegetarian cuisine and inspiring views of the bay. He then drove after the alleged mugger and followed him into a housing project with the revolver (unloaded) in hand, being arrested minutes later by a police officer with his own gun pointed at him. 2 Thank Kelly S . His own self-interest in Mind extended sabbatical hides the underlying power relations of practicing Zen was the alternative. 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