This is one reason why we are looking at his case, to see how the system works, how it has always worked. What was or was not implied in Baker's transmission from Suzuki? 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. His critics say Baker "still doesn't get it," doesn't understand the errors of his way. It is a sanitized description wherein any one roshi is replaceable by any other roshi, which is really no person at all. One member suggested that the Shimanos instead be given an extended sabbatical. Students that come to practice at the monastery from September through April must undergo the tradition known as tangaryo. Newcomers naturally looked to senior priests as guides or friends, but in doing so, they may have been mistaken. Access to movies showing San Francisco Zen Center's founder, who died in 1971. 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. For example, Afable might have added that at Chobo-ji, a Zen temple in Seattle, Genki Takabayashi made passes at his female students. I remember many heated arguments, he told me, and no doubt one of my many arguments was: this is personal behavior, not illegal behavior., Denis Kelly, a former Dai Bosatsu vice abbot, and himself no model of sexual continencehe too has had affairs, he told me, including one that almost broke up his current sanghashared Schnyers understanding of the proper hierarchical relationship between the Zen master and his female students. City Center A vibrant community in an urban temple in the heart of San Francisco. This "history" has added weight because it is presented as biographical fact. 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. The monastery is closed to outsiders from the months of September through April, then opens to the public by reservation from May through August - offering retreats, seminars, and workshops. 2015. 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? What passes for "knowledge" in society is built on the foundation of language. During his interview with Downing, Baker Roshi explains that having a "nice car," girlfriends and going out to dinner were implementations of Suzuki Roshi's commitment to lay practice. Reviewed December 27, 2012 . Anybody who traveled to Japan, as many American Buddhists would, quickly learned that every monastery there had its own variations on the traditionas with any other religious practice, there is no one true form. 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." However, I do not mean to imply there is no inner spiritual content to the Zen tradition. 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. This would have led any impartial observer to question the spiritual implications of Dharma transmission. Kai C. Half Moon Bay, California. 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. He jumps across decades, and sometimes seems to jump onto whatever thought crosses his mind. 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. And what was Suzuki's intention here? He reported being mugged at knifepoint by a man just a block away from the San Francisco Zen Center at 300 Page Street. Ironically, what follows is in many ways a religious text. The San Francisco Zen Center community includes residents and non-residents at all three centers, priests and lay practitioners, long-term and short-term participants, and opportunities to attend a wide variety of events and programs. The idea of electing an abbot is, no doubt, a distinctively American innovation in a centuries-long pattern of religious authority. Zen's highly ritualized activities added a visceral instantiation to the cognitive edifice. 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. One older student expressed it this way, "In our hands, and it was in our hands, it [Suzuki's pure teaching] became a bludgeon of power, a source of competition, jealousy, and paranoia. [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. Yet we all know that no human is like this. And three of the four, Afable noted when we spoke, have caused major public sex scandals: first Maezumi, and more recently Shimano and Sasaki. 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. And as complete neophytes in Buddhism, they were apt to believe most anything a teacher said: The Americans had no competing knowledge, no critical faculties, no grounds to challenge the teacher, no fixed point on which to stand. He was a very traditional Rinzai master: stern when he needed to be, very rarely encouraging. Furthermore, Chadwick told Victoria that when he (Chadwick) had once asked Baker himself about the basis for the claim, Baker replied that he could not remember! Read any of these texts of Zen, The Book of Serenity, a Soto sect koan collection, being one prominent example, and this will be abundantly clear. Yet for reasons known only to him he proceeded to make Baker his only American Dharma heir. Yet, I have found that within the Zen community there is little self-examination about Zen as an institution and its self-definitions and what the effects of these are in the world of flesh and blood people. According to the dust jacket, Downing spent three years interviewing 80 people at the center of the Zen Center scandal. Dorsey went on to serve as abbot of the Hartford Street Zen Center in San Francisco, where he worked to develop hospice care for AIDS patients. For a look at how religious fantasies may cause trouble, especially with leaders, see "Religion and Alienation" in Berger, Peter L., The Sacred Canopy, pp, 81-101. 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. Ask Kelly S about San Francisco Zen Center. 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? In reality it means, "don't question, don't look!" [Note: This section offers background mostly not covered in Downing's book.] 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. The supposed enlightened Master gets the last word in judging not only the student's behavior and verbal responses, but also the whole of the past enlightened lineage including the historical Buddha by commenting on and judging any and all of the past Masters in the old cases (koan) and in their recorded sayings. Foulk doubts that the Chan sect existed as a separate sect with its own monastic institutions during the Tang dynasty. Was Baker's commitment to Zen practice much greater than a number of other of Suzuki's close, very committed senior disciples? But in truth, neither Suzuki nor Baker fit the saintly mold. He was joined by his wife Mitsu (also from Japan) in 1961. Not Always So: practicing the true spirit of Zen by Shunryu Suzuki book review buy this book There are also accounts of people receiving transmission from masters who were dead by the time the supposed transmission took place. It is clear that the senior members of Zen Center surrounding Baker were well-indoctrinated vessels of Zen ideology. 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. The sangha was incorporated by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi and a group of his American students in 1962. 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." 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. 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. Yet Baker certainly knew that, at best, few if any roshi are so fully realized. They believed their way of living and of practicing Zen was the best alternative available in America. It simply means that a power structure has evolved that will perpetuate itself even if it means imputing "attainment" to people who don't really have it. Another error is seen in the statement that Yasutani roshi rescinded the Dharma transmission he gave to Philip Kapleau. Members soon raised funds for a zendo to be built there, and over time the farm transformed into a monastery and retreat center for residents and guests with an organic farm, flower gardens, a teahouse and a plant nursery. Trouble At The San Francisco Zen Center Katagiri would go on to establish his own practice centerthe Minnesota Zen Centerin 1972 in Minneapolis. Political authority can function in this second way. The teacher knew all; the American knew nothing. Not only is the book a compelling read; it also, more importantly perhaps, provides raw data for observing Zen mythmaking in action. Baker also claimed that he was trying "to protect Suzuki Roshi's legacy and lineage." 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. Anderson became entangled in an incident in 1987 that reached back to 1983 just after Zentatsu Richard Baker had resigned as abbot. Shoes Outside The Door, p.289. But there is another kind of authority, an opposite kind, grounded in the invisible, the faith-based, the fictional. Before long, Sokoji had non-Japanese Americans mostly beatniks coming to the temple to sit zazen with him in the morning. My first reaction to the book was, "Why?" While jogging through Golden Gate Park, Anderson deviated from the path to urinate in some bushes. Definitely worth checking them out on their website and trying to attend the beginners lesson! University of Michigan, 1987. 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. 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. If you are new to Zazen, they have a great Saturday morning tutorial session every week. The Zen Studies Society was marked by frequent turnover. [9] The building, designed by Julia Morgan, was built as the Emanu-el Residence Club in 1922 for the Emanu-el Sisterhood. I said, I have to come back here. So I did one more semester of school and then dropped out. But how real is this history? Mark Oppenheimeris the author of three other books, includinga memoir of high school debateand atravelogue about crashing bar mitzvahs. For an earlier view of the immediate events surrounding Baker, see Butler, Katy, "Events Are The Teachers", The CoEvolution Quarterly, winter 1983, pp.112-123. You can see how much more potent it is to have a teacher presented as a living Buddha or at least Buddha-like, who, instead of simply interpreting and explaining the words of the Buddha, actually speaks with the same voice as the Buddha. Mel Weitsman and Michael Wenger, University of California Press,1999 and for a biography of Suzuki's life see, Chadwick, David, Crooked Cucumber: The Life and Zen Teaching of Shunyru Suzuki, Broadway Books, 1999. 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. There was a widespread conceit in their thinking that they were the center or "cutting edge" of Zen in America, not cognizant that many other Zen groups were forming city/country Centers and also experimenting with the ideas of setting up monasteries, group practice, communal living and forming a sangha. Its raison d'etre is to produce people who possess a fundamental insight into life, people who are not fooled by appearances or ideas. The Board of Directors at SFZC also began election of leaders. The question is: How do so many Zen Buddhist teachers get away with it, and for so long? And then I went back and basically never left. So it is natural to ask, why did Suzuki's and Baker's students mention this so often? Upon his final visit he found the body no longer there, and a fellow priest in whom he had confided showed him a newspaper article covering the apparent suicide. Guests stay at the Lindisfarne Guest House, a traditional Japanese building with a wood-burning stove as the heating source. 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. Zen Center survived, reorganizing in a manner that made it more democratic, but also more bureaucratic. 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. 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. These events are a helpful reminderboth to me and to othersof my vulnerability to arrogance and inflation. The student who enters the "practice" having read a myth will expect to find the myth, and will think they have found the myth. A senior member relates in Downing's book that Suzuki himself refused to hear criticism of Baker by other members of the Center because, as he said, " To his [Suzuki's] way of thinking, Dick's commitment was at another level, so the rest of us were not in a position to criticize him." 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. 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. After the founding of Dharma Sangha in New Mexico, Baker met with William Irwin Thompson, the founder of the Lindisfarne Association. To this end, Zen Center is engaged in numerous social and ecological initiatives. It may be Zen-like, but it can also be annoying. 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. 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. 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.. For more on the Soto Zen institution in Japan see Foulk, T. Griffith, "The Zen Institute in Modern Japan", pp.157-177, Zen, Tradition and Transition, Kenneth Kraft ed., NY, Grove Press, 1988. Covid-Related Openings and Closings Updates page, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility, Conflict, Complaint, and Ethical Review Processes. About. The idea and ritual of Dharma transmission rather than the meaning or content of that transmission, becomes the prominent and meaningful fact. 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. "On both a personal and a professional level, I am still dealing with the consequences of this episode. Berger begins, "Every human society is an enterprise of world-building. Richard Baker is an extremely bright and talented person and a born salesman. Original Dwelling Place by Robert Aitken book review by Robert Goss buy this book now There was an article and follow up piece by Brian Victoria discussing anti-Semitic remarks made by Yasutani roshi in Tricycle magazine (Fall and Winter 1999). 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. Some people felt that I had committed an irrevocable betrayal of trust, and have discounted me and my teaching ever since. 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. This ancient twisted karma I now fully avow. Zen Center businesses embodied other Bay Area delights. 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. "On both a personal and a professional level, I am still dealing with the consequences of this episode. A full overview of what is open can be found here. Baker himself was quick to remind his flock that he was the only American to receive Dharma transmission from Suzuki Roshi. Latest News. 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. This is a mythology of Zen, a pure fiction. Maezumi, affiliated with another West Coast zendo, the Zen Center of Los Angeles, was a philanderer and an alcoholic, as the scholar Dale S. Wright has detailed at length. They also have a lot of other awesome Saturday morning programs for zen noobs (znoobs!!). But in the 1960s and 70s, American Buddhists needed the foreigners. 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 People interviewed had the luxury of hindsight. I took a course at Rochester, an overview of Eastern religion and Confucianism. It will not do for future generations if there are gaps in the line of saintly figures. His focus on having the Center grow quickly and on reforming Soto Zen in Japan may also have contributed to the problems. This 1987 incident has had a damaging impact on Anderson's reputation as a teacher, since his arrest received national media coverage. Numerous social and ecological initiatives survived, reorganizing in a centuries-long pattern religious. Flock that he was the best alternative available in America sangha was incorporated Shunryu. 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