san francisco zen center scandal

We agree that the Constitutional Convention made law for all the people, and for all generations to come; we agree that the government will back up our money, if no longer with gold, then with its promises. 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. Perhaps tellingly, Baker made this claim at the height of the Vietnam War, when virtually 100% of Zen followers were opposed to the war and hence having an anti-war/anti -government roshi in his lineage was good currency. Americans needed somebody to teach them the rituals. 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. He was perfect for me, Schnyer said. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews. He does not sit zazen and only chants when he has a service to do for someone." Guests stay at the Lindisfarne Guest House, a traditional Japanese building with a wood-burning stove as the heating source. Baker claimed the Center was "denying 2,500 years of how Buddhism was developed and continued" He made a number of other historically inaccurate claims, and finally dropped the suit saying that he was pressured to institute the threat by a lawyer student of his: "There was a lawyer who kept bugging me." His focus on having the Center grow quickly and on reforming Soto Zen in Japan may also have contributed to the problems. It is a sanitized description wherein any one roshi is replaceable by any other roshi, which is really no person at all. 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. Under Baker's leadership, it appears that the Center functioned as a dysfunctional family, denying that anything was wrong or problematic. And what was Suzuki's intention here? By saying this, he was emphasizing his guarantee that the essence of the Zen lineage resides in Baker. However, it should be noted, that he let interviewees voice any number of inaccuracies without comment. 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. 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. 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. Zen Nationalism Revisited by Robert H. Sharf Baker presided over it all like a feudal lord, hosting dinner parties with then-Gov. As long as it was understood that Baker was the only Dharma heir of Suzuki, it was exceedingly difficult for any one to question Baker's behavior and style. After the founding of Dharma Sangha in New Mexico, Baker met with William Irwin Thompson, the founder of the Lindisfarne Association. Eighteen years later, there is still lingering bitterness about his overthrow. Yet for reasons known only to him he proceeded to make Baker his only American Dharma heir. We may however, ask, "What commitment was Suzuki referring to?" This is very similar to the Japanese Soto Zen, with minor variances for social and cultural differences. [10] The Residence combined residential rooms that could house 70 women on the upper floors, with public spaces for spiritual, recreational, and educational uses on the ground floor and basement. 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. During Baker-roshi's tenure, San Francisco Zen Center, the most highly visible of all American Zen institutions, bought ever more real estate, transformed ever more Bay Area buildings. They also have a lot of other awesome Saturday morning programs for zen noobs (znoobs!!). 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. These events are a helpful reminderboth to me and to othersof my vulnerability to arrogance and inflation. 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. . 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. Baker Sums It Up In this way the teacher was like a deity, a minor god. 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. 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. The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion, Doubleday, 1967, pp. 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. 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? This 1987 incident has had a damaging impact on Anderson's reputation as a teacher, since his arrest received national media coverage. He then arrived in San Francisco, California in 1960beginning to sit with Shunryu Suzuki in 1961. An interesting debate between Victoria and members of the Deshimaru group (A.Z.I.) The film was directed by veteran filmmakers Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman and executive produced by physician, Shoshana R. It is important to remember now that the interviews Downing conducted in 1998-2000 were long after the events at the SFZC took place. He remained abbot there until 1984, the year he resigned his position after it was disclosed in the previous year that he and the wife of one of SFZC's benefactors had been having an ongoing affair. What unites the several panels is a stream of monarch butterflies, often seen in spring at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, one of SFZC's three temples. 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. Also see the public letter from Mr. Kapleau toYamada, dated 2/17/86. Coming Down from the Zen Clouds: A Critique of the Current State of American Zen This ancient twisted karma I now fully avow. 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. This "non-person" i.e., a roshi, is a generic person, who supposedly is a real member of the Buddha's family, the holder of absolute truth, whose function besides producing an heir to keep the lineage alive, is to wield authority: to be listened to, obeyed and bowed down to. 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. 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). It allows us a much closer look than we get through, say, looking at the many biographies of past masters from Chan in China during the Tang dynasty (CE 618-907). More commonly it is bestowed or given by a teacher to some one with limited attainment in order to keep his lineage alive. It was high. 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. San Francisco Zen Center offers seven charming guest rooms for short-term stays. Suzuki-roshi, as his students called him, died of cancer in 1971. Baker also claimed that he was trying "to protect Suzuki Roshi's legacy and lineage." San Francisco Zen Center SFZC Online Welcome to SFZC Online Below you'll find information about our online offerings: resources for beginners, zazen (meditation) and chanting, Dharma talks, live online practice sessions with teachers, as well as classes and workshops from our Online Programs. [3] Because his family moved around frequently, he lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Indiana, and Pittsburgh growing up. Remember the senior student who quoted Suzuki as saying, " Dick's commitment is at another level, so the rest of us simply were not in a position to criticize him." In short, the biographical approach to history seems to be used because it has intimate real-life immediacy. [17], Last edited on 21 December 2022, at 18:50, Timeline of Zen Buddhism in the United States, "The Long Learning Curve: An Interview With Richard Baker Roshi", Zentatsu Richard Baker page on the Crestone Mountain Zen Center website, Richard Baker and the Myth of the Zen Roshi, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Richard_Baker_(Zen_teacher)&oldid=1128738434, This page was last edited on 21 December 2022, at 18:50. I am thankful for Michael Downing's work, which is extremely valuable. Access to movies showing San Francisco Zen Center's founder, who died in 1971. But there is another kind of authority, an opposite kind, grounded in the invisible, the faith-based, the fictional. Therefore, in the living world of flesh and blood we have people with some very limited level of attainment occupying a role that is defined as Buddha-like, actualizing perfect freedom and unfathomable compassion beyond the ordinary person's understanding and hence above question. A good place to begin to examine the scholarly view of early Chan history and development is Foulk, T. Griffith, Myth, Ritual, and Monastic Practice in Sung Ch'an Buddhism in, Religion and Society in T'ang and Sung China, Ed by Patricia Buckley Ebrey and Peter N. Gregory, University of Hawaii Press, 1993, pp147-205. When Kelly grew frustrated with Shimanos womanizing, he made a proposition. 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. The experience of legitimacy, realness and of being believable hides the underlying power relations. Whose Zen? According to the dust jacket, Downing spent three years interviewing 80 people at the center of the Zen Center scandal. Great Experience with Western Zen Practice. While we remain committed to the health and safety of our residential and wider sangha, we deeply value the importance of gathering in person and sharing the Dharma in proximity with others. 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 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. Suzuki's prestige grew enormously. 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. [7], Baker received Dharma transmission from Suzuki in 1970,[2] and then was installed as abbot of San Francisco Zen Center during the "Mountain Seat Ceremony" on November 21, 1971. 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. The focus itself is on the master. !! ) Sangha in New Mexico, Baker met with William Irwin Thompson the. The Japanese Soto Zen, with minor variances for social and cultural differences, his! Center of the Zen Clouds: a Critique of the Deshimaru group (.! Minor god programs for Zen noobs ( znoobs!! ) which is no. Extremely valuable a helpful reminderboth to me and to othersof my vulnerability arrogance... History seems to be used Because it has intimate real-life immediacy then arrived in Francisco... Order to keep his lineage alive frustrated with Shimanos womanizing, he was trying `` to protect Suzuki roshi legacy... 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