Soon these Westerners participated in regular services, and new non-Asian students came to outnumber the Japanese-American congregation. In 1995 Zoketsu Norman Fischer was installed as Abbot at SFZC, and in 1996 Zenkai Blanche Hartman was appointed as co-Abbot with him (becoming the first female Abbot in SFZC history). 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. Katagiri would go on to establish his own practice centerthe Minnesota Zen Centerin 1972 in Minneapolis. He writes, " The perfect disciplinary apparatus would make it possible for a single gaze to see everything constantly." Asia is filled with monks and priests who know how to sit, chant, eat, bow, walk, dress, and live as a Buddhist. Suzuki Roshi There he found the corpse of a man with a bullet wound to the head and a revolver nearby. A Zen teacher can certainly assist his students in their practice, can encourage the students to be diligent, guide their meditation practice in both public and private meetings, offer aid in difficult times, talk about Zen texts to enrich the student's sense of the tradition and explicate Buddhist and Zen ideas. I finally asked Schnyer if he had said what Zournas attributed to him: He hasnt raped anyone yet, has he? Richard Baker is a man who through the ritual of Dharma transmission has been installed in the Soto Zen sect's "authentic" unbroken lineage going back to the historical Buddha. His critics say Baker "still doesn't get it," doesn't understand the errors of his way. For example there was the claim that Zen monasteries in China were self- sufficient, which makes it seem that they were not dependent on the state and elite elements of society and were not actively promoting themselves to get this support and patronage. "Hollow" transmissions such as those between father and son are incorporated into the unbroken lineage to the Buddha. I believe the trouble at the San Francisco Zen Center, and at many other prominent Zen Centers, across the country to this day, is caused by a lack of understanding as to how the ideas of Dharma transmission, unbroken lineage, and Zen master have been used historically. 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. His focus on having the Center grow quickly and on reforming Soto Zen in Japan may also have contributed to the problems. Zen Center Members This is not surprising if we remember that in Soto Zen "spiritual attainment" is rarely a criterion for Dharma transmission. 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!" This article is not saying that there is no place for a Zen teacher. It all came tumbling down in a 1983 event known in Zen Center circles as "the Apocalypse." It was a spiritual scandal starring the usual suspects -- sex, money and the abuse of religious. One component of Buddhism is to recognize cause and effect. Kobun was resident teacher at the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center until 1970. For example, the San Francisco Zen Center, after a scandal involving Suzuki-roshi's dharma heir Richard Baker-roshi, decided to elect its two abbots to four-year terms. Baker also claimed that he was trying "to protect Suzuki Roshi's legacy and lineage." After six months, he returned to his position. San Francisco Zen Center's purpose is to make the teachings and practice of Soto Zen Buddhism widely available, to train teachers, and to help cultivate mindfulness and compassion in the world. 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. But the Americans didnt know that. Others were more forgiving, but their trust in me and my integrity was permanently shaken. By Kurt Wolff, Free Press Paperback, 1950 for a discussion of authority, prestige, subordination, and sociability. He may have slept with dozens; I personally have identified over a dozen, and spoken to many of them. One justification sometimes heard, glib to my ear, is that enlightenment is not about morality. 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. He served as Abbot there until 1978, moving the group to Jikoji in Los Gatos, California in 1979. How bad was Shimanos womanizing? I asked Schnyer. It means, "Don't ask. Access to movies showing San Francisco Zen Center's founder, who died in 1971. [Note: This section offers background mostly not covered in Downing's book.] But in the 1960s and 70s, American Buddhists needed the foreigners. Zen Mind, Beginners Mind by Shunryu Suzuki buy this book It is clear that the senior members of Zen Center surrounding Baker were well-indoctrinated vessels of Zen ideology. This has a direct bearing on the Baker story and the way mythology continues to be constructed even in the present. 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. Introduction And that very presentation is the freight of the Zen machine. Over the past 10 years, San Francisco Zen Center has devoted time and energy to studying the best practices around conflict resolution, difficult conversations, sexual harassment prevention, appropriate teacher/student boundaries, giving and receiving feedback, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, working with trauma, and Right Use of Power trainings. 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. 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. 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 by James Ishmael Ford 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. It was considered "real" because it came from the saintly Suzuki and Suzuki made a point of saying it was "real." 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. Some people felt that I had committed an irrevocable betrayal of trust, and have discounted me and my teaching ever since. The film was directed by veteran filmmakers Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman and executive produced by physician, Shoshana R. 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. 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. David Hume said in his Of the First principles of Government (1758) that "Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few, and the implicit submission with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers." For a many sided view of the Zen koan see, The Koan, Ed. And the teachings in it. 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. 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. He became the leader of the Sanbokyodan school of Zen started by Yasutani. According to this model, mind-to-mind transmission began with an encounter between the historical Buddha Sakyamuni and Mahakasyapa, and continued, in an unbroken lineage, through twenty-eight Indian Patriarchs. 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. Shoes Outside The Door, p.237. This would have led any impartial observer to question the spiritual implications of Dharma transmission. 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. Writings featured as biography in Zen are most often an idealized presentation of how a master should perform his role rather than the life of a real person. Foulk doubts that the Chan sect existed as a separate sect with its own monastic institutions during the Tang dynasty. ", Lachs, Stuart: Zen Center members did not think there was any thought control or propaganda necessary to escape when it came to Zen. 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. I welcome any comments from the reader. He was leader of the largest Zen center in the United States and founder of Tassajara, the first Zen monastery in America; he sent a number of American disciples to study in Japan and was surrounded, as was Baker, by hundreds of devoted, unquestioning, often young and energetic followers. What I mean by the "Zen" institution, for the simple purpose of this conversation, is the organized set of structures that support the standard model of Zen. As the American Dharma heir to Shunryu Suzuki, Baker assumed abbotship of the San Francisco Zen Center (SFZC) shortly before Suzuki's death in 1971. Downing quotes a prominent older student who expressed it differently, "Dick tried to take over Zen Center again." Ruling year info. More commonly it is bestowed or given by a teacher to some one with limited attainment in order to keep his lineage alive. #28 of 84 Specialty lodging in San Francisco. One member suggested that the Shimanos instead be given an extended sabbatical. For an analysis of the idealized, one-dimensional style of describing a roshi, the one of Suzuki in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind being just one contemporary example, see "Simpleness" in Alan Cole's previously mentioned paper, "It's All in the Framing", p.6. Mind-to-mind transmission implies that the student has attained an understanding equal to his Zen master/roshi and so on backwards, hence being equal to the original, unmediated wordless understanding that supposedly passed between Sakyamuni and Mahakasyapa. [9] In the midst of the growth, Baker became a popular public figure. 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 Baker's commitment to Zen practice much greater than a number of other of Suzuki's close, very committed senior disciples? Also see his Zen War Stories to be published December 2002. Interestingly, Suzuki did not mention "spiritual attainment," but rather commitment. Anderson succeeded him as abbot, and later co-abbot. Bibliographical Notes When Kelly grew frustrated with Shimanos womanizing, he made a proposition. Without anything said or done, just the impact of meeting a personality so developed can be enough to change another's whole way of life. 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. The Zen understanding of wisdom imputes Foucault's "single gaze to see everything constantly" to the Master. I see how my empowerment to protect and care for the Triple Treasure inflated my sense of personal authority, and thus detracted from and disparaged the Triple Treasure. Eighteen years later, there is still lingering bitterness about his overthrow. is co-abbess of the San Francisco Zen Center. Baker's introduction to Suzuki's edited words in the well known book, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind gives a description of Suzuki as the ideal of a fully realized Zen master. Baker is the sole western heir of Suzuki Roshi, a Japanese Zen teacher who founded the SFZC and its mountain training center, Tassajara established in 1967. If the past is any indication these present teachers will be referred to as honored patriarchs in the future. Suzuki enabled the ensuing trouble by transmitting only to Baker to the exclusion of other westerners, by failing to understand Baker's character, by failing to mitigate his authority in any way, and by failing to explain clearly the historical and common way that Dharma transmission was and is used in Soto Zen. Today SFZC is the largest St organization in the West. [2][6][14], A once controversial figure, Richard Baker was publicly criticized for his behavior at San Francisco Zen Center. This imputation of power and attainment has given one Zen roshi after another the power to abuse their position while remaining beyond reproach. It was also mentioned that Suzuki believed that Dharma transmission must be "real", implying that there is "not real" Dharma transmission. In particular, Berger, Peter,L. In this sect, Dharma transmission is commonly a father-son transmission ritual culminating in the son's inheritance of the family temple. Berger begins, "Every human society is an enterprise of world-building. Zen ascribes to Pai-chang (died 814) its earliest monastic code that supposedly set Chan apart as a separate sect in the Tang dynasty. The first is grounded in something tangible, concrete, observable: the soldier with his gun, or the scientist with her laboratory results. Importantly, the head of every Soto temple must have Dharma transmission. San Francisco Zen Center offers seven charming guest rooms for short-term stays. One member quoted Baker as saying, "I always act from pure motives; I never worry about the world." A gem! Why do we need to rehash this one again? There he found the corpse of a man with a bullet wound to the head and a revolver nearby. Baker claimed that the Center, in evicting him, was "denying 2,500 years of how Buddhism was developed and continued" However, Baker's sleight of hand replaces Buddhism's 2,500-year tradition with Zen's fictional account of unbroken lineage going back to the Buddha. Me and my friend always had suspicions he had ongoing relationships with Japanese women that were kept quiet, and were more or less continuous. These and any number of other questions, complaints, hurts or criticisms harbored by his disciples, were not raised. Established in 1962, the San Francisco Zen Center is one of the largest residential training Soto Zen Buddhist organizations outside of Asia. Located atop a bumpy 10-mile (16km) road which is difficult for some vehicles to climb, Tassajara offers shuttles to and from the retreat for those inclined to forgo trying to make the trek on their own. 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. The Zen master is a role that stands as a representative of the entire Zen institution. The volunteer project's founding director was Frank Ostaseski, who served until 2004. 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. This "history" has added weight because it is presented as biographical fact. 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. Yet for reasons known only to him he proceeded to make Baker his only American Dharma heir. Suzuki died of cancer on December 4, 1971. The meeting, which Zournas had hoped would mark the end of Shimanos tenure, turned out to be another show of support. In the future, his name will be used as proof of authenticity for someone else that is also claiming this authentic connection to the Buddha. The teacher knew all; the American knew nothing. Baker Sums It Up Baker and the senior priests dismissed any questioning of Baker's behavior or activities as a lack of insight into enlightenment on the part of the questioner. Suzuki Roshi [1] San Francisco Zen Center's web site now comments: "Although the circumstances leading to his resignation as abbot in 1984 were difficult and complex, in recent years, there has been increased contact; a renewal of friendship and dharma relations. 1967 also saw the arrival of Kobun Chino Otogawa of Eiheiji, who served as assistant to Suzuki. Live the Temple Life Shimanos Japanese ways suited Schnyer. Hence, roughly 95% of all Soto priests in Japan have Dharma transmission, most receiving it after spending at most three years in a monastery, some with as little as six months. Cases like this are important simply because the study of Zen history has shown us the whole lineage tradition is built so heavily on questionable written and word-of-mouth accounts; what is said in the present will surely be repeated long into the future. "[33], In the 1980s Baker ordained Issan Dorsey as a priest. In this way the teacher was like a deity, a minor god. In his letter, Zournas, who had resigned the presidency in July, details for the lawyers benefit how the various board members reacted to a motion that Shimano and his wife, then the organizations treasurer, be fired. 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. One of the greatest reasons that Shimano could sleep with so many women is that it bothered the men so little. I approached it with a searching spirituality aspect, reading Huxley and Timothy Leary, and that leads you down the road to the Beat generation and Zen. Finding Safe Harbor: Buddhist Sexual Ethics in America by Stephanie Kaza, Shoes Outside the Door: Desire, Devotion, and Excess at San Francisco Zen Center by Michael Downing: book review by Vladimir K. buy this book 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? Besides the personal power of his position Baker lived with paid travel, an abundance of high-priced worldly goods, a number of well-appointed residences, a steady supply of household help and assistants, sex with his students and access to high profile friends. 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. Five years later (in 1988), roughly fifteen months after Anderson had become abbot of the San Francisco, Anderson was arrested for brandishing this same firearm in public. In addition, the few American students of his who went to Japan came back disappointed, which upset Suzuki because he thought these students would then think less ofBuddhism. There is a whole lineage built on the idea that Kapleau had transmission. Institutional and personal motives played an important part in the composing of Buddhist biographical collections; this was especially so in earl Chan lineage texts. I feel sorry for anybody who's bitter. He occupies an authoritative place in East Asian cultures that have already been imbued with a special level of hierarchy since ancient times. Foulk gives translations of two versions of the text, side by side and analyses their internal structure and contents. "[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. That's what we made of it." [3] He has two daughters, Sally and Elizabeth, from a prior marriage to Virginia Baker. Unfortunately, the Western Zen community has not explored the many important questions implied by Zen At War. Explore San Francisco Zen Center's newsletters and blogs. Although Baker claimed that his relationship was a love-affair which had not yet been consummated, the outcry surrounding the incident led to accusations of impropriety, including the admissions by several female members of the community that they had had affairs with Baker before or during his tenure as abbot. 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. [10], In 1970, Suzuki gave Dharma transmission to Richard Baker, his only American Dharma Heir and chosen successor at SFZC. Though these themes are mentioned a number of times by students, it seems curious that in Downing's interviews, no one ever questioned what this meant, no one mentioned what Suzuki meant, why Baker's transmission was supposedly real or if Suzuki or Baker ever explained the difference between "real" and unreal transmissions. This was because Aitkin, being a foreigner, was forbidden by the new leader Kubota Roshi, from giving Dharma transmission, while Japanese of equal standing in the organization were permitted this privilege (p.451). All of this discontent emerged when it was made public that Baker had allegedly been having an affair with the wife of an influential sangha member. 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.. This is not ancient history. 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 student who enters the "practice" having read a myth will expect to find the myth, and will think they have found the myth. But there is another kind of authority, an opposite kind, grounded in the invisible, the faith-based, the fictional. I see how my empowerment to protect and care for the Triple Treasure inflated my sense of personal authority, and thus detracted from and disparaged the Triple Treasure. It matters that we keep assenting to the stories. After failing to re-create his Zen empire in Santa Fe, N.M., he settled in Crestone, Colo., where he presides over a much smaller Zen center. 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. "If you scratch under the bitterness, there's a lot of beauty there," says Norman Fischer, abbott of the Zen Center from 1995 to 2000. Look, theres a certain type of person that is looking for something else in another culture, said Ed Glassing, the former resident monk at both Zen Studies Society locations, whom Shimano maligned as a homosexual. Sort of like, something they dont have, so its mysterious, exotic, its like whoa. 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. A full overview of what is open can be found here. 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. Is a role that stands as a priest prestige, subordination, and have me!, Sally and Elizabeth, from a prior marriage to Virginia Baker would the... Indication these present teachers will be referred to as honored patriarchs in the invisible the... 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