Zen Nationalism Revisited by Robert H. Sharf To this end, Zen Center is engaged in numerous social and ecological initiatives. [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. However, there is no surviving text of Pai-chang's Rules. 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. This article is not saying that there is no place for a Zen teacher. I have copies of these letters. All the pieces don't start coming together until about halfway through the book, and it takes some patience to get there. At the same time, this supposed desireless image of the roshi is meant to invoke desire in us for him. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. 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. 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. I think this happened because Zen's teaching to avoid words and explanation was taken too literally and has fostered an unfortunate narrowing of perspective. I dont remember saying that., Schnyer maintains a tidy understanding of his personal Zen galaxy, in which Shimano is the sun, hot and dangerous but necessary. Classes and workshops from our Online Programs, resources for beginners, zazen (meditation) and chanting, Dharma talks, and live online practice sessions with teachers. There are also accounts of people receiving transmission from masters who were dead by the time the supposed transmission took place. Your support is crucial to sustain our practice centers and thriving online community. Please visit the Calendar page for more details or sign up for our weekly Sangha News email to receive notices of upcoming events. It was also mentioned that Suzuki believed that Dharma transmission must be "real", implying that there is "not real" Dharma transmission. It also spun off its business and stopped pretending that work without compensation was "spiritual practice.". 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. 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. 3. 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. 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. Shoes Outside The Door, p.289. ---Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human (1878) Trouble At the San Francisco Zen Center 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. At that time, Baker also became the official leader of the San Francisco Zen Center (SFZC). [6] Baker also penned the introduction to Suzuki's famous book, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. Shocked by the series of scandal involving its senior teachers, the organization decided to appoint two abbots, who would share the position at any one time. There he found the corpse of a man with a bullet wound to the head and a revolver nearby. It matters that we keep assenting to the stories. Find classes, retreats, practice periods, and many more offerings in the San Francisco Zen Center calendar of events. Dharma transmission has been awarded and is still awarded for many reasons besides spiritual attainment. This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. 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. 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. 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. 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. What was or was not implied in Baker's transmission from Suzuki? Despite its iconoclastic image, Zen has in actuality been a remarkably conservative institution throughout its history, almost always tied to and controlled by the state and elite elements of society. The student who enters the "practice" having read a myth will expect to find the myth, and will think they have found the myth. In the end, both teacher and student fall prey to these fantasies. 2002: 8-11. But the Americans didnt know that. San Francisco Zen Center practitioners did make a serious commitment to their practice. 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. Anderson became entangled in an incident in 1987 that reached back to 1983 just after Zentatsu Richard Baker had resigned as abbot. In this regard Mr. A vibrant community in an urban temple in the heart of San Francisco. Even though the bureaucratic "transmissions" in the Soto church have nothing to do with spiritual insight, the Soto institution does nothing to dissuade people thinking that there is a mind-to-mind connection between its "roshis" and the historical Buddha. And after his death, several students of Dainin Katagiri, the founding abbot of the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center, in Minneapolis, reported having affairs with their teacher, who had been married. Branching Streams is a network of affiliate Dharma centers and Sanghas in the Zen lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. 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." Sanbkydan Zen and the Way of the New Religions by Robert H. Sharf While jogging through Golden Gate Park, Anderson deviated from the path to urinate in some bushes. Ask Kai C about San Francisco Zen Center. This 1987 incident has had a damaging impact on Anderson's reputation as a teacher, since his arrest received national media coverage. This is not surprising, being, as it is, a natural result of the customs and environment created by the Zen institution. 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). At the time, Schnyer was just 24 years old, yet he had been a Shimano student since he was a teenager. This is a person without a defect, showing no self-interest, desire, interior calculation, or a shortcoming. It is clear from Downing's interviews that Zen Center members assumed that there was no ideology to be questioned, i.e., the unreliable history of Zen, the hagiographic picture of the lineage, along with its mythology of Dharma transmission, unbroken lineage, and enlightened Zen masters. There is certainly nothing anti-authoritarian about the notion of unbroken lineage going back to the historical Buddha. I assume that Downing would have included a broader view if he had heard it from any of the interviewees. Crooked Cucumber: The Life and Teachings of Shunryu Suzuki: this link will take you to the website buy this book now Explore hundreds of dharma talksby San Francisco Zen Center teachers, practice leaders, and speakers from the wider community. He was joined by his wife Mitsu (also from Japan) in 1961. But it always seemed as though the real story and the real scandal were about something else. In fact, David Chadwick, a student of both Suzuki and Baker, lent some credence to this assertion in his 1999 book about Suzuki, Crooked Cucumber. That made him the successor and dharma heir to Shunryu Suzuki, a Japanese Zen missionary who came to California in 1959 to serve immigrant families living in Japantown. It is clear that the senior members of Zen Center surrounding Baker were well-indoctrinated vessels of Zen ideology. If youre going to do this, youre going to do it on your own, but Im not going to nurse you. For me he was perfect Somebody looking from the outside could say thats why we stuck with him all the time. I have found the work of the following social analysts to be especially illuminating: Peter L. Berger, Pierre Bourdieu, Noam Chomsky, Edward Herman, David C. Korten, Thomas Lukach, Howard Zinn and Angela Zito. Americans needed somebody to teach them the rituals. Zen Mind, Beginners Mind by Shunryu Suzuki buy this book SteveSiesta. In some ways, it was an obvious choice. Importantly, the head of every Soto temple must have Dharma transmission. His death came shortly after the publication of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, a collection of lectures translated into numerous languages and considered a classic of contemporary Zen literature. 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. The fact is that almost everything about Zen's presentation, practice, and rituals is aimed at producing people who give up their good sense with the promise of a greater gain in the future. 1969 - The current SFZC building was purchased with the help of American students. 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. Members had not the slightest inkling that their view of Zen was controlled. Shocked by the series of scandals involving its senior teachers, the organization decided to appoint two abbots, who would share the position at any one time. And the teachings in it. Tenshin Reb Anderson-roshi, former abbot of City Zen Center, is senior Dharma teacher at Green Gulchtraining priests and laypeople, leading sesshins, giving talks and conducting workshops while also living onsite. [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. From Suzuki a teenager the official leader of the customs and environment created by the time the transmission. Sfzc ) Nationalism Revisited by Robert H. Sharf to this end, Mind. ) in 1961, Beginners Mind by Shunryu Suzuki buy this book SteveSiesta to receive notices of events. 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