The idea of the enlightened Zen master authenticated through the ritual of dharma transmission and maintained by an unbroken lineage going back to the historical Buddha is at the heart of the Zen tradition. Victoria describes how the most prominent roshis from all sects of Japanese Zen interpreted Zen's teachings to support the imperial and militaristic goals of Japan from the early twentieth century through the end of World War II and beyond. Richard Baker also survived. In particular, Suzuki's San Francisco Zen Center lineage continues through his bureaucratic "transmission" to his son Hoitsu. In this regard Mr. The San Francisco Zen Center "scandal" was not unique in American Zen history. [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. The land was purchased from one of the founders of Polaroid, George Wheelwright. 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. Thanks to Mr. Oppenheimer's efforts, women have come forward, some even using their names; we think this kind of courage can only embolden other survivors of abuse to speak out. Baker's use of Dixon's words begins the description of Suzuki Roshi, with the strange phrasing "a roshi is" This substitutes what is supposed to be a description of their close and beloved teacher Suzuki Roshi, a real person, with an abstraction, "a roshi." 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. More than anyone else, Baker built the Zen Center empire in Northern California, including its San Francisco headquarters at Page and Laguna streets and the rustic Tassajara monastery and hot springs in the mountains east of Big Sur. All trouble at the Center was internalized and personalized by its members. The sangha was incorporated by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi and a group of his American students in 1962. [8] Within a very short period of time Baker broadened the scope of SFZC, starting first with the acquisition of Green Gulch Farm in southern Marin county, in 1972. And perhaps most importantly, his authority will be understood with a taken-for-granted quality of being natural. This is the consistent view of the master presented by Zen, the pure, simple, desireless and self-contained roshi, and was accepted unquestioningly by Zen Center members. It depends not on miracles or mystical figures or discoveries of secret books, but merely on our willingness to believe, against evidence if need be, that those things were real. Throughout the 1980s Greens, which obtained produce from Green Gulch Farm, was one of the most popular restaurants in San Francisco. It will not do for future generations if there are gaps in the line of saintly figures. One was to make the state consider Chan the primary sect of Buddhism. [2] However, San Francisco Zen Center's website 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. The other was to establish Chan's primacy over the indigenous teachings of Confucianism and Taoism in the eyes of the state and the elite of society. Students that come to practice at the monastery from September through April must undergo the tradition known as tangaryo. 145 41. [31] The community's sense of crisis sharpened when the woman's husband, one of SFZC's primary benefactors, threatened to hold the organization legally responsible for its abbot's apparent misconduct. 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. To legitimize the various family lines within Zen, Zen's self-definition necessitates establishing a continuing unbroken lineage of transmitted masters connected to the historical Buddha. This is not surprising, being, as it is, a natural result of the customs and environment created by the Zen institution. Members had not the slightest inkling that their view of Zen was controlled. Members along with Baker literally built their world based on the language and view of Zen accompanied by ritualized behavior that added to the sense of being embedded in and being an active participant of that sacred world. Unfortunately, this issue is not raised or considered by any of the Zen Center members interviewed in the book. 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 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. Downing has offered an excellent example in Richard Baker and the SFZC. While this is obviously a general statement that demands further qualification, it serves to introduce some of the basic problems to be dealt with here. However, I do not mean to imply there is no inner spiritual content to the Zen tradition. Cole, who teaches at Lewis and Clark College, also has two very provocative books soon to be published, one on the Mahayana sutras and the other on early Chan texts and the "birth" of Chinese Buddhas. "[33], In the 1980s Baker ordained Issan Dorsey as a priest. Great Experience with Western Zen Practice. Downing shows that even in their every day negotiations for used restaurant equipment when they were opening Green's Restaurant, they held a disproportionate sense of their own importance in the wider community. But the percentage of the Zen clergy implicated in sexual misdeeds is many times greater than that of the Catholic clergy. He was neither. Understandably, Suzuki may not have been able to read across the Japanese-American cultural divide and therefore not see the character flaws of Baker that were obvious to some of his unenlightened American students. In particular, Berger, Peter,L. 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. Anderson succeeded him as abbot, and later co-abbot. 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. The idea and ritual of Dharma transmission rather than the meaning or content of that transmission, becomes the prominent and meaningful fact. Michael Downing's book, Shoes Outside the Door: Desire, Devotion, and Excess at San Francisco Zen Center (2001) describes much of the sexual scandal surrounding Richard Baker, as well as financial problems and Baker's generally arrogant behavior. Religion occupies a distinctive place in this enterprise." Join the San Francisco Zen Center Membership Program. Examining the work of any of the above-mentioned scholars will greatly reward the interested reader who would like to explore contemporary Zen/Buddhist scholarship. I welcome any comments from the reader. This dissertation also asks whether the Chan sect existed at all as a separate and distinct sect in the Tang dynasty, the supposed "golden age of Chan"). What they really found is another story of flawed human behavior. 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. At the time of the purchase, Baker claimed he needed so expensive a car because of the amount of driving he did. Crooked Cucumber: The Life and Teachings of Shunryu Suzuki: this link will take you to the website buy this book now (See Foulk, "Myth, Ritual, and Monastic Practice," listed in the notes for a fuller discussion.) No one took the opportunity to stand back and view the entire affair from any sort of sociological, anthropological, psychological or religious-historical perspective. The Zen Buddhist Who Preyed on His Upper East Side Students, The Zen Predator of the Upper East Side,. By the seventies he calculates 10-15,000 hours and that by 1987 the most senior practitioners had each meditated some 20- 25,000 hours on the cushion. With so many students and so much public attention, some felt Baker became less available to the members of the community. 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. In some ways, it was an obvious choice. 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. 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. Some people felt that I had committed an irrevocable betrayal of trust, and have discounted me and my teaching ever since. A student was also liable to believe that her teacher was conveying the one true form of Zen Buddhism. In this way the teacher was like a deity, a minor god. 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. Downing interviewed roughly eighty people, most of them Baker's students, approximately eighteen years after Baker was forced to resign. "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. [21][22][23] Today SFZC is the largest Soto organization with a foothold in the West. Yet, after Tatsugami Roshi, one of the important training teachers from Eiheji, one of the two main Soto Zen training monasteries in Japan, conducted only one training period at Tassajara, Zen Center's monastery in California, Suzuki "arranged" for him not to return because his American students were so dissatisfied. Generations if there are gaps in the 1980s Greens, which obtained produce from Gulch. 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