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. 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. This story appears to be an example of modern day creation of hagiography that will be repeated in the future. But there are many lesser-known yet just as randy Zen teachers. 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 necessitates the production of virtual quotas of such highly exalted people, while in the realm of "spiritual attainment" it is rare to produce just one such person. Not only the work of Zen writers, but political analysts, social critics, sociologists, and my involvement with the practice have informed my thinking about the state of contemporary Zen in the West. Anderson became entangled in an incident in 1987 that reached back to 1983 just after Zentatsu Richard Baker had resigned as abbot. Downing interviewed roughly eighty people, most of them Baker's students, approximately eighteen years after Baker was forced to resign. . Spiritual authority is that second kind of authority. Around 1970, he began sitting regularly with a group in Santa Cruz that went on to form the Santa Cruz Zen Center. Bibliographical Notes Access to movies showing San Francisco Zen Center's founder, who died in 1971. In this way the teacher was like a deity, a minor god. This recommended class series offers listeners an overview of the fundamentals of Buddhism and Zen. The sangha was incorporated by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi and a group of his American students in 1962. In the past we had a lot of crisesin San Francisco and Los Angeleswith sex scandals and so forth. Zen Center members did not think there was any thought control or propaganda necessary to escape when it came to Zen. Asia is filled with monks and priests who know how to sit, chant, eat, bow, walk, dress, and live as a Buddhist. Used with permission. 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. 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. He served as Abbot there until 1978, moving the group to Jikoji in Los Gatos, California in 1979. It was considered "real" because it came from the saintly Suzuki and Suzuki made a point of saying it was "real." Not only is the book a compelling read; it also, more importantly perhaps, provides raw data for observing Zen mythmaking in action. But the Soto sect tries to have it both ways. 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. He exists freely in the fullness of his whole being. Was it all really such a big deal? My view of Zen as an institution, some of its problems, and how it operates is most completely expressed in my paper, "Means of Authorization: Establishing Hierarchy in Zen Buddhism in America", delivered as part of a panel on Chan at the American Academy of Religion Conference in Boston in 1999. One justification sometimes heard, glib to my ear, is that enlightenment is not about morality. Explore San Francisco Zen Center's newsletters and blogs. The Zen master is a role that stands as a representative of the entire Zen institution. The historical Zen masters we have all come to know are always presented in terms of supposedly real people, with names, dates, and locations, and reports of purportedly real conversations and interactions with other monks and sometimes lay people as if there is no doubt at all that we are dealing with historical individuals. Foulk doubts that the Chan sect existed as a separate sect with its own monastic institutions during the Tang dynasty. Foulk disagrees with this view. It was like a "game" of Zen where if any one speaks out or asks the wrong question, the "game" is ruined or finished, at least for that person. It was not mentioned in the interviews that Suzuki himself might be partially responsible for the ensuing trouble. [9] The building, designed by Julia Morgan, was built as the Emanu-el Residence Club in 1922 for the Emanu-el Sisterhood. [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. Also available are practice sessions with SF Zen Center teachers. These events are a helpful reminderboth to me and to othersof my vulnerability to arrogance and inflation. He worked for me, and if he didnt work for other people, then I just wanted them to go, and often hoped theyd go more quietly than they did., Quietly or not, many people did leave. (It should also be noted that Victoria is fluent in Japanese while Baker and Chadwick are not.) Anderson remembered stowing the revolver away in the San Francisco Zen Center's garage and quickly retrieved it. Zen Center businesses embodied other Bay Area delights. Why did Baker perpetuate such a simplistic view of Suzuki? Did it not occur to him that Richard had a family, too, as did many of the priests of Zen Center?" Zen Center members did not think there was any thought control or propaganda necessary to escape when it came to Zen. 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. In 2003 Paul Haller, who received transmission from Sojun Mel Weitsman in 1993, was installed as co-abbot with her. The idea of electing an abbot is, no doubt, a distinctively American innovation in a centuries-long pattern of religious authority. San Francisco Zen Center (SFZC), is a network of affiliated St Zen practice and retreat centers in the San Francisco Bay area, comprising City Center or Beginner's Mind Temple, Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, and Green Gulch Farm Zen Center. This new Buddha is also alive and homegrown and hence more immediate and real. Branching Streams is a network of affiliate Dharma centers and Sanghas in the Zen lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. Was he perhaps not a fully realized person? This is a very interesting piece of "history" which is no doubt destined to be repeated. 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? 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. His death came shortly after the publication of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, a collection of lectures translated into numerous languages and considered a classic of contemporary Zen literature. The implications of this authority in some ways far outstrip that bestowed upon the highest secular authorities, since there is the implication that the Zen master is enlightened, a fully attained being. I am thankful for Michael Downing's work, which is extremely valuable. Tassajara Bakery was a Zen Center venture promoted by Richard Baker as an extension of the baking practices at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. The leadership of San Francisco Zen Center required Anderson to take a leave of absence from his position as abbot. 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. Some people felt that I had committed an irrevocable betrayal of trust, and have discounted me and my teaching ever since. 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. However, I do not mean to imply there is no inner spiritual content to the Zen tradition. I too was a member of a Zen center where we also felt that our group and style of practice were in some ways unique. Sokojifounded by Hosen Isobe in 1934had been housed in a former Jewish synagogue that is now Kokoro Assisted Living. In time Suzuki, Baker, Hoitsu, and Unknown will blend into that "history" of immaculate patriarchs. It is a sanitized description wherein any one roshi is replaceable by any other roshi, which is really no person at all. They weren't so much about about money (Chapter 27, if that's your cup of tea). Suzuki indeed had ordinary and even tragic circumstances in his life, as is shown in Downing's book, who references David Chadwick's book, Crooked Cucumber, for the following details. 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. He was joined by his wife Mitsu (also from Japan) in 1961. Shoes Outside The Door, p.135. However, there is no surviving text of Pai-chang's Rules. These revelations led to community-wide pandemonium, and in 1984 Baker was forced to resign as abbot. After six months, he returned to his position. Suzuki surely knew that his fellow Japanese Soto roshi and priests would hardly accept Americans as examples for the reform of Zen, especially in Japan. Despite its iconoclastic image, Zen has in actuality been a remarkably conservative institution throughout its history, almost always tied to and controlled by the state and elite elements of society. This ancient twisted karma I now fully avow. In particular, Suzuki's San Francisco Zen Center lineage continues through his bureaucratic "transmission" to his son Hoitsu. Below is the information about san francisco zen center scandal . Was he hypocritical for reprimanding his students for flirting while he carried on numerous affairs with his female students, including one that ruptured his best friend's marriage? [2], In the late-1980s Baker also gave shiho to Issan Dorsey, whom he had ordained as a priest in 1975. And that gets the juices flowing. Excellent. Rather than report this to the police, Anderson returned to the body over several days to meditate over the corpse. Although his salary was reportedly modest, he lived a lifestyle which many perceived as extravagant. Classes and workshops from our Online Programs, resources for beginners, zazen (meditation) and chanting, Dharma talks, and live online practice sessions with teachers. Foulk, T. Griffith, "The Zen Institute in Modern Japan", pp.157-177. Suzuki's arrival came at the tail end of the Beat movement and just prior to the social movements of the 1960s, both of which had major roots in San Francisco. I said, I have to come back here. So I did one more semester of school and then dropped out. 13 reviews of San Francisco Zen Center "This place is really awesome! There he found the corpse of a man with a bullet wound to the head and a revolver nearby. The Church hierarchy has displayed a consistent concern for protecting and maintaining the eminence of the abusive priests and the holiness of the institution of the Catholic Church, rather than concern for the children and teenagers trusted to their care. All trouble at the Center was internalized and personalized by its members. Having wisdom, in the Zen view, is based on Dharma transmission, which implies that the person is an enlightened being. This group is by far the largest Zen group in France and is active in the U.S.A. as well as in other parts of Europe. One of the most interesting aspects of the Baker case is that the people at the SFZC did not change their fundamental understanding of the process they had gone through for, in some cases, twenty or more years. How San Francisco Zen Center Operates 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. Shoes Outside The Door, p.289. But Downing does approach the story with an open mind, and doesn't fall into the trap of trying to portray Baker as a monster or a saint. Shimanos womanizing is of the sleaziest sort: He is married, and he has often picked for his mistresses much younger and disturbed women, the kind particularly susceptible to his twisted charisma. Mark Oppenheimer hosts the podcast Unorthodox for Tablet magazine and writes for The New York Times Magazine, Mother Jones, and GQ, among other publications. This is not to imply that there is no value to be gained in the practice of Zen. The first is grounded in something tangible, concrete, observable: the soldier with his gun, or the scientist with her laboratory results. While leader of the SFZC, Baker's purchase of a new white BMW became a focal point for much of the anger and resentments that Zen Center members felt towards him. We may however, ask, "What commitment was Suzuki referring to?" One member quoted Baker as saying, "I always act from pure motives; I never worry about the world." 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. This 1987 incident has had a damaging impact on Anderson's reputation as a teacher, since his arrest received national media coverage. His American students accept this theme unquestioningly. 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. Stuart Lachs, October 2002 pp.347-379. If the past is any indication these present teachers will be referred to as honored patriarchs in the future. They will sit for five days or longer in the zendo before they are formally admitted into the monasterya physically daunting challenge. 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. Kai C. Half Moon Bay, California. [2] From 1968 to 1971, he traveled to Japan to practice at the primary St monasteries there, including Antaiji, Eiheiji, and Daitokuji. One student stated it as, "The one thing that seemed unquestionable was Richard's Transmission." "[12] And Baker, for his part, is quoted as having said in a 1994 interview with Sugata Schneider: I don't think that the gossipy or official versions of what happened are right, but I feel definitely that if I were back in the situation again as the person I am now, it wouldn't have happened.

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