san francisco zen center scandal

Tassajara Bakery was a Zen Center venture promoted by Richard Baker as an extension of the baking practices at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. Students in their early 30s, even younger, could find themselves among the senior monks at Dai Bosatsu, in a tradition that is supposed to be ungraspable even after a whole lifetime of study. 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. In the West in general, but particularly in America, we place great importance on each person's individuality and uniqueness and hence on our personal experience. Richard Baker also survived. Baker and Suzuki themselves were rewarded by this system. by Steven Heine and Dale S. Wright, Oxford University Press, 2000. Zen Mind? Interestingly, Suzuki did not mention "spiritual attainment," but rather commitment. Some former students say they were encouraged to believe that being groped by him was part of their. At the same time, this supposed desireless image of the roshi is meant to invoke desire in us for him. [7] Thich Nhat Hanh wrote of Baker, "To me, he embodies very much the future of Buddhism in the West with his creative intelligence and his aliveness. He reported being mugged at knifepoint by a man just a block away from the San Francisco Zen Center at 300 Page Street. "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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Under Baker's leadership, it appears that the Center functioned as a dysfunctional family, denying that anything was wrong or problematic. 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). In 2003 Paul Haller, who received transmission from Sojun Mel Weitsman in 1993, was installed as co-abbot with her. (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.) In fact, Suzuki's lineage, now and as long as the line survives, comes through his son Hoitsu and Baker and that unknown person. A vibrant community in an urban temple in the heart of San Francisco. And then I went back and basically never left. 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. This imputation of power and attainment has given one Zen roshi after another the power to abuse their position while remaining beyond reproach. In addition, as there are other practitioners around the teacher, it is helpful to be part of a community of fellow practitioners. 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 article was excerpted from the new e-bookThe Zen Predator of the Upper East Side,out now. 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. ---Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human (1878) 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. Shoes Outside The Door, p.289. 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Despite hesitance of some members of SFZC due to the size of 80 acres (320,000m2), Baker felt that acquiring Green Gulch Farm was very important for Buddhism in America. 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. [5], In 1969, Sokoji's board of directors asked Suzuki to resign his position as the temple's priest, asserting that he was spending more time with his Western students than the Japanese-American congregation. With this investment it is understandable that one might not want to question too closely the teacher's behavior. For a most interesting examination of early Chan lineage and truth claims read from a critical textual analysis rather than reading them "for information about Truth and Practice" or about "historical claims to own truth", see Cole, Alan, "It's All in the Framing", a paper given at U.C. San Francisco from the 1960's into the 1980's was considered by many to be the freest city in America, especially when understanding "libre" as freedom from ideological constraints. It is noted that after 1983 the study of sutras, Zen texts and history was instituted. City Center A vibrant community in an urban temple in the heart of San Francisco. 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). To see how the most prominent Japanese Zen roshi as well as some of the roshi associated with bringing Zen to America, in spite of the rhetoric of the standard model of Zen, functioned in Japan from roughly 1911 through WWII, see Victoria, Brian, Zen At War , Weatherhill, 1997. Ungerleider.[26]. Students that come to practice at the monastery from September through April must undergo the tradition known as tangaryo. Trouble At the San Francisco Zen Center 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." 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. (It should also be noted that Victoria is fluent in Japanese while Baker and Chadwick are not.) I suspect I probably said something like that, Schnyer said. After all, the only two previous Dharma transmissions Suzuki gave, to his son Hoitsu and to Unknown, were not based on attainment at all. 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. Zen is a Chinese invention roughly beginning in the seventh or eighth century of this era. Foulk doubts that the Chan sect existed as a separate sect with its own monastic institutions during the Tang dynasty. He occupies an authoritative place in East Asian cultures that have already been imbued with a special level of hierarchy since ancient times. 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 And all of us worshipped him to a certain extent., Nobody was as worshipful as a student named David Schnyer. It is a performance meant to confirm and display the current master's significance, authority and attainment. 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. However, there is no surviving text of Pai-chang's Rules. Suzuki Roshi 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. 145 41. He writes a religion column forThe New York Timesand is on Twitter@markopp1. What passes for "knowledge" in society is built on the foundation of language. Members had not the slightest inkling that their view of Zen was controlled. More commonly it is bestowed or given by a teacher to some one with limited attainment in order to keep his lineage alive. On one visit he decided to take the revolver home with him. [6] One student who followed him to his new community was the priest Philip Whalen (ordained by Baker as a priest in 1973), who became tanto (head monk) of the new center. 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. Reviewed July 20, 2014 . 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. [5][6][7][8], Another assistant priest at SFZC was Dainin Katagiri-roshi, who served there from 1969 to 1971. 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." 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. And three of the four, Afable noted when we spoke, have caused major public sex scandals: first Maezumi, and more recently Shimano and Sasaki. This is a mythology of Zen, a pure fiction. Anderson remembered stowing the revolver away in the San Francisco Zen Center's garage and quickly retrieved it. But Shimano is hardly alone; his is not an isolated case. It means, "Don't ask. But, given that no one interviewed in the book expressed any view outside of the standard Zen model, one may ask, was the Zen history taught at the Zen Center just more of Zen legend? If Suzuki was California's Zen messiah, then Richard Baker was his Apostle Paul. 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. But the Soto sect tries to have it both ways. This new Buddha is also alive and homegrown and hence more immediate and real. If you're looking for some information that's important to you (such as research for work or learning how to manage your money), then the advice here is to first write down the relevant keywords on a piece of paper to figure out exactly what you want, which will be a lot more efficient. Unfortunately, the Western Zen community has not explored the many important questions implied by Zen At War. It is because one was wrong about him, because one misinterpreted the states of his soul and drew as sharp a line as is possible between oneself and him, as if he were something utterly incomparable and strangely superhuman-that he gained that extraordinary power with which he could dominate the imagination of whole peoples and ages. There he found the corpse of a man with a bullet wound to the head and a revolver nearby. And stayed for 10 years.. Suzuki or any other Zen master only looks this way if we avoid looking at their real life. [32], These revelations led Baker to resign as abbot in 1984. One member suggested that the Shimanos instead be given an extended sabbatical. Original Dwelling Place by Robert Aitken book review by Robert Goss buy this book now Soto temples in Japan often are a family business, handed down from father to son, as Suzuki himself had done with his son Hoitsu. On the corner of Page and Laguna Streets in San Francisco, diagonally across from San Francisco Zen Center, is a corner building with a series of murals that wrap around the boarded-over windows. [1][15], In 1983 Tenshin Reb Anderson received shih from Zentatsu Richard Baker, becoming Baker's first Dharma heir (though Baker disputes this). 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. The sangha was incorporated by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi and a group of his American students in 1962. [3] Because his family moved around frequently, he lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Indiana, and Pittsburgh growing up. Ask Kelly S about San Francisco Zen Center. Money, too, is worth something because we believe it iswe give the $20 bill the magical properties of being worth more than the $1 bill, even though the paper and ink are identical. Latest News. 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. 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. 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. [5] Baker was ordained a St priest by Suzuki in 1966 just before the opening of Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. 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. 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? 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. 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. Way if we avoid looking at their real life Center 's garage and quickly retrieved.. He found the corpse of a community of fellow practitioners `` spiritual,! Was California 's Zen messiah, then Richard Baker was his Apostle Paul in Cambridge san francisco zen center scandal Massachusetts Indiana!, who received transmission from Sojun Mel Weitsman in 1993, was installed as co-abbot with her the of. 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