One member quoted Baker as saying, "I always act from pure motives; I never worry about the world." 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. 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. And that very presentation is the freight of the Zen machine. 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. 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. And that gets the juices flowing. San Francisco is not mentioned in Newsom's plans, but Supervisor Dean Preston has proposed a similar action. 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. There's too much court intrigue and "monastic" gossip, and not enough effort to put the Zen Center and its scandal in the larger story of American Buddhism and the spiritual supermarket's never-ending list of gurus-gone-bad. [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. Institutional power, authority, hierarchy and order are, hence, accomplished through self-censorship by the members, a more effective method for controlling dissent and questioning than coercion by the leaders. That little piece of paradise in the Marin County headlands is just a short drive from the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge, perfect for a quick retreat. That Kapleau never received Dharma transmission was exposed in a public letter from Yamada roshi dated,1/16/86. 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. A student was also liable to believe that her teacher was conveying the one true form of Zen Buddhism. Without our assent to those stories, the country would not work. It allows bureaucratic transmission, but it also uses "historical" biographies of eminent masters presented as desireless beings, the koans, and the many Zen stories and dialogues (mondo) to legitimize and to enhance authority, that make clear that transmission is given because of a deep insight into reality or spiritual attainment. 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. 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. Zen Center Members 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. From the perspective of power and control, the political and the religious spheres overlap. He was neither. 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. . I see how my empowerment to protect and care for the Triple Treasure inflated my sense of personal authority, and thus detracted from and disparaged the Triple Treasure. 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. These recordings of zazen instruction feature a variety of teachers offering an introduction to meditation. [10], In 1970, Suzuki gave Dharma transmission to Richard Baker, his only American Dharma Heir and chosen successor at SFZC. One student stated it as, "The one thing that seemed unquestionable was Richard's Transmission." If you counted the blow-ups, youd say just a few [women,] but we think he ran his life like a Japanese businessmanlots of affairs, but most of them discreet. For an outstanding article on Sanbokyodan Zen, a Zen sect important in the West see, Sharf, Robert, "Sanbokyodan, Zen and the Way of New Religions", Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, Fall 1995, Vol. ---Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human (1878) I am thankful for Michael Downing's work, which is extremely valuable. Rather than report this to the police, Anderson returned to the body over several days to meditate over the corpse. My first reaction to the book was, "Why?" The conception of an unbroken lineage based on the idea of mind-to-mind transmission going back to the Buddha superceded a previous idea of authority that was based on texts, i.e., the sutras, which were understood to embody the words of the historical Buddha. This is very similar to the Japanese Soto Zen, with minor variances for social and cultural differences. Zen ascribes to Pai-chang (died 814) its earliest monastic code that supposedly set Chan apart as a separate sect in the Tang dynasty. This new Buddha is also alive and homegrown and hence more immediate and real. Unlike his predecessors, Suzuki was a fluent speaker of English who actually wanted to come to the United States. 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. In the case of Zen, students usually come to the teacher with a set of preconceptions, acquired mostly through reading, about the fully attained Zen master as being virtually beyond their comprehension. However, it should be noted, that he let interviewees voice any number of inaccuracies without comment. Zen Center members accepted and internalized most all of Zen's self definitions, history and social forms. Steve Hagen. Suzuki's prescription to "just sit" as a kind of medicine to answer all questions and problems apparently did not apply to his Dharma transmitted son Hoitsu. In the latter part of the book, Downing points out that the San Francisco Zen Center has beaucratized Dharma transmission so that in order to receive Dharma transmission a person must spend ten or twelve years going through the system. There are two kinds of authority. For an in-depth look at three special projects happening at SFZC, check out our new Impact Report. Suzuki Roshi A descendant of Thomas Dudley,[4] Baker was raised in a family of moderate wealth. After the founding of Dharma Sangha in New Mexico, Baker met with William Irwin Thompson, the founder of the Lindisfarne Association. Not only is the book a compelling read; it also, more importantly perhaps, provides raw data for observing Zen mythmaking in action. There he found the corpse of a man with a bullet wound to the head and a revolver nearby. Religion occupies a distinctive place in this enterprise." When it came to Baker's transmission from Suzuki, virtually all the students interviewed by Downing assumed that it was a "real" transmission. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. It matters that we keep assenting to the stories. Sasaki, of Rinzai-ji, a Zen center in Los Angeles, is now 106 years old and, as his board members finally admitted in 2013, was groping and fondling unwilling students well into his 11th decade. Most people think of Zen as being iconoclastic, anti-authoritarian, simple, direct, and unattached. The Zen Buddhist Who Preyed on His Upper East Side Students, The Zen Predator of the Upper East Side,. It is fashionable among practitioners in the West to consider critical thought as "un-Zen." They have a daughter, Sofia Baker, born on March 1, 2001, in Alamosa, Colorado. Hence, a number of questions were never openly raised: Was he acting in an arrogant fashion? By this time there had also been an abundance of scholarly writing and empirical evidence exposing much of the mythology surrounding Zen. Please see the Covid-Related Openings and Closings Updates page as well as the Calendar. Yet Baker certainly knew that, at best, few if any roshi are so fully realized. Before long, Sokoji had non-Japanese Americans mostly beatniks coming to the temple to sit zazen with him in the morning. 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. Baker and Suzuki themselves were rewarded by this system. 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. Tassajara Zen Mountain Center ("Zen Mind Temple" or Zenshinji) was the first Zen Buddhist monastery built in the United States, and the first in the world to allow co-ed practice. And perhaps most importantly, his authority will be understood with a taken-for-granted quality of being natural. And all of us worshipped him to a certain extent., Nobody was as worshipful as a student named David Schnyer. [6] Baker also penned the introduction to Suzuki's famous book, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. One student said that when the senior priests were questioned about some aspects of Baker's behavior, the answer was, "Richard has Transmission." 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. Suzuki-roshi, as his students called him, died of cancer in 1971. Your support is crucial to sustain our practice centers and thriving online community. Richard Baker also survived. Some former students say they were encouraged to believe that being groped by him was part of their. After a major fundraising effort led by Baker, Zen Center purchased the landwhich contained a rundown resort and mineral springs in 1967. With one or two exceptions, the only views expressed of Baker's errant behavior among the Center's members was in the context of their personal experience. In some of these biographies, people later classified as Chan monks were listed in other categories, such as Master Yantou Huo as an ascetic and Master Xingzhi as a benefactor. 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. 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. 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. But the Soto sect tries to have it both ways. 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. While jogging through Golden Gate Park, Anderson deviated from the path to urinate in some bushes. 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. Baker then quotes Trudy Dixon, the editor of the book, thus endorsing her words: San Francisco Zen Center has begun to offer on-site meditation, Dharma talks, programs, classes, and other events. Was he perhaps not a fully realized person? A large institution like Zen requires hundreds of such living role players. 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. Anderson became entangled in an incident in 1987 that reached back to 1983 just after Zentatsu Richard Baker had resigned as abbot. However, I do not mean to imply there is no inner spiritual content to the Zen tradition. 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. If some one would like copies, please email me at: slachs@worldnet.att.net . Was Baker's commitment to Zen practice much greater than a number of other of Suzuki's close, very committed senior disciples? This is also extremely disempowering which can lead to all sorts of problems, as the SFZC case clearly shows. 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. Their sins are far worse than what goes on in Zen circles. He was perfect for me, Schnyer said. Learn and Practice at San Francisco Zen Center, residential guest student practice opportunities, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility, Conflict, Complaint, and Ethical Review Processes. 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. At a meeting of the Board of Directors of Lindisfarne at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, Thompson convinced the board to donate the campus that he had establishedwith its passive solar Lindisfarne Fellows House, Founder's House, and Lindisfarne Chapelto Baker-roshi's Dharma Sangha. In his letter, Zournas, who had resigned the presidency in July, details for the lawyers benefit how the various board members reacted to a motion that Shimano and his wife, then the organizations treasurer, be fired. Besides Suzuki's chosen heir Baker's questionable behavior, Downing reveals many of the senior people scrambling for positions of authority, power, money and perks. In the wake of Baker's resignation, SFZC transitioned to a democratically elected leadership model, until in 2010 there was a new introduction of a predesignated slated of board members. His critics say Baker "still doesn't get it," doesn't understand the errors of his way. This is not surprising if we remember that in Soto Zen "spiritual attainment" is rarely a criterion for Dharma transmission. This ancient twisted karma I now fully avow. However, there is no surviving text of Pai-chang's Rules. He then arrived in San Francisco, California in 1960beginning to sit with Shunryu Suzuki in 1961. 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." It is an institutional dream that needs to be analyzed using its own description. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Suzuki, in so many ways an admirable person, had a large hand in the problems that followed his death. Koun Yamada was Yasutani roshi's Dharma heir. 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. See Alan Cole, "It's All in the Framing." With so many students and so much public attention, some felt Baker became less available to the members of the community. Importantly, the head of every Soto temple must have Dharma transmission. No one took the opportunity to stand back and view the entire affair from any sort of sociological, anthropological, psychological or religious-historical perspective. 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. We did something great. Months later Suzukiwith the help of his American studentspurchased the current (and larger) City Center building, located on 300 Page Street. It is this idealized version of Dharma transmission that claims the master is an enlightened being that is the source of the Zen master's extraordinary claim to authority. This is a very interesting piece of "history" which is no doubt destined to be repeated. 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. They believed their way of living and of practicing Zen was the best alternative available in America. Latest News. "To sum up the situation, we have no sources at all from the T'ang which mentions or describe explicitly "Chan" institutions," p. 267. Greens Restaurant, opened in 1979 in Fort Mason of San Francisco, was another business venture by SFZC under the influence of Baker. Established in 1962, the San Francisco Zen Center is one of the largest residential training Soto Zen Buddhist organizations outside of Asia. Another error is seen in the statement that Yasutani roshi rescinded the Dharma transmission he gave to Philip Kapleau. Baker adds he was "on a roll," was in love with his latest girlfriend and that his peers, est founder Werner Erhard and the well known Tibetan teacher Trungpa, had chauffeurs and large Mercedes, so "I thought I should buy a car." But the percentage of the Zen clergy implicated in sexual misdeeds is many times greater than that of the Catholic clergy. He became the leader of the Sanbokyodan school of Zen started by Yasutani. The duo published a book of recipes in 1987 titled The Greens Cookbook. Classes and workshops from our Online Programs, resources for beginners, zazen (meditation) and chanting, Dharma talks, and live online practice sessions with teachers. 837 501. One member suggested that the Shimanos instead be given an extended sabbatical. 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. 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These days, when we think of predatory clergy, we think of Roman Catholic priests. Anderson succeeded him as abbot, and later co-abbot. 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. 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. Is it any wonder that the inevitable abuses that we have seen for the last thirty years should follow? So it is natural to ask, why did Suzuki's and Baker's students mention this so often? 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. 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. This 1987 incident has had a damaging impact on Anderson's reputation as a teacher, since his arrest received national media coverage. At times, senior disciples needed to reassure newcomers who questioned Baker's behavior that all was in order. My view of Zen as an institution, some of its problems, and how it operates is most completely expressed in my paper, "Means of Authorization: Establishing Hierarchy in Zen Buddhism in America", delivered as part of a panel on Chan at the American Academy of Religion Conference in Boston in 1999. "Hollow" transmissions such as those between father and son are incorporated into the unbroken lineage to the Buddha. Suzuki died of cancer on December 4, 1971. However, crediting a teacher, by definition of their role or title, with exalted qualities he does not really possess, is begging for trouble. 4 Thank Kai C . 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 Zen Studies Society was marked by frequent turnover. His whole being testifies to what it means to live in the reality of the present. "The years people spent here were not wasted years of being duped. 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. However, for an in depth review of early Chan monastic codes and how early Chan viewed and supposedly treated errant behavior by monks see Foulk, T. Griffith, "The "Ch'an School" and Its Place In the Buddhist Monastic Tradition," Diss. Suzuki Roshi I highly recommend this book, especially the first 101 pages. 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. 22, no.3-4. [20] Zen Hospice Project provides hospice care for individuals of any or no religion who are looking for a compassionate end to their life. This scheme was later institutionalized through the ritual of Dharma transmission. 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. 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. Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, shortly before his death in December 1971, gave him Dharma transmission in the Soto sect of Zen, thereby making Baker, for his students and for all future people in his lineage, an authentic link to the Buddha. There is a saying, "It is difficult to convince a man of something if his paycheck depends on his not understanding it." [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. Some people felt that I had committed an irrevocable betrayal of trust, and have discounted me and my teaching ever since. Bibliographical Notes If the past is any indication these present teachers will be referred to as honored patriarchs in the future. On one visit he decided to take the revolver home with him. Foulk, T. Griffith, "The Zen Institute in Modern Japan", pp.157-177. It was considered "real" because it came from the saintly Suzuki and Suzuki made a point of saying it was "real." He was joined by his wife Mitsu (also from Japan) in 1961. 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. Desire, Devotion, and Excess at the San Francisco Zen Center. Explore hundreds of dharma talksby San Francisco Zen Center teachers, practice leaders, and speakers from the wider community. 1962 - SFZC is founded by Shunryu Suzuki and his Western students. Suzuki or any other Zen master only looks this way if we avoid looking at their real life. It is no longer ruled by an almighty abbott-for- life, but abbotts with term limits. Stuart Lachs, October 2002 The senior disciples consistently stressed that Baker's transmission was real; it made him into a "pure vessel of the Dharma," a man of wisdom, far beyond the questioner's obviously limited understanding and suspicion. 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. I finished high school early, and at 17 I went to college, Schnyer said. Importantly, teachers can inspire followers by setting a living example through interactions with their students and others and, with the conduct of their own life, demonstrate that Zen practice can make one a wiser and more compassionate human being. Some of the most senior members appeared afraid to raise difficult questions with Baker perhaps for fear of losing their own privileged positions. But in the end it is not the extraordinariness of the teacher that perplexes, intrigues, and deepens the student, it is the teacher's utter ordinariness. It is interesting to keep in mind that Suzuki's lineage is alive today at the San Francisco Zen Center because of transmissions through Hoitsu. I took a course at Rochester, an overview of Eastern religion and Confucianism. At the same time, this supposed desireless image of the roshi is meant to invoke desire in us for him. We see in Downing's book that it is precisely the idealized notion of Dharma transmission that pre-empted anything that Zen Center members saw for themselves when viewing Baker, their Dharma-transmitted leader, at least prior to the rupture in 1983. Downing reveals that by 1969 Suzuki had made it known to Baker and others at the Center that Baker was to be his Dharma heir. 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. One student expressed it as, "some of the senior priests were in it for a payoff-Transmission," another stated it as, "They were ambitious, and only Richard could give it [transmission] to them, because he was the only one who had it." A special note is given to the papers of Heine, Wright, Foulk, McRae, Welter, Schlutter, Michel Mohr and Ishii Shudo. In addition, the few American students of his who went to Japan came back disappointed, which upset Suzuki because he thought these students would then think less ofBuddhism. [34], Following Baker's resignation, Dainin Katagiri led the community until 1985. Surely others felt the same way, but only Schnyer and Kelly have been so bold or articulate, have made clear the amorality, and the misogyny, that can infect Zen practice and enable its malefactors. Interestingly, the later versions of the supposed events often have more detail than the earlier versions, implying that we are dealing with literary creations rather than historical biography. [2][6][14], A once controversial figure, Richard Baker was publicly criticized for his behavior at San Francisco Zen Center. 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. Therefore, in the need to remain at the Center, members had a powerful incentive to fully buy into Zen's mythology. 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. This formulaic collection of qualities of a Zen master, is not neutral. Not surprisingly, virtually 100% of the time these breaches of morality serve the pleasure and interests of the supposed enlightened one. Suzuki planned to give transmission to Bill Kwong but died before his completion. Baker met with William Irwin Thompson, the founder of the Sanbokyodan school of Zen as being iconoclastic,,... A teacher, since his arrest received national media coverage 's mythology teachers offering an introduction to 's! We have seen for the last thirty years should follow joined by his wife Mitsu ( also from )... 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