Sweeping Zen Under Attack

Posted on October 2, 2012 by Seth Segall

Readers may be familiar with Adam Tebbe, the senior editor at Sweeping Zen, which calls itself the “Definitive Online Who’s Who of Zen.” The website aims to be a comprehensive archive of biographies of, interviews with, and teachings, videos, blogs and podcasts by Western Zen teachers from all the various and diverse lineages and traditions.

Adam Tebbe

Adam Tebbe and Sweeping Zen are now under assault, and everyone in the Buddhist community needs to be aware of the situation.

Here’s the story.

A former student of Ken McLeod’s, a Canadian social worker with a Ph.D. in philosophy, alleges that an inappropriate romantic and sexual relationship developed between her and Ken McLeod ^[1] the principal teacher and executive director of Unfettered Mind, an affair which contributed to the eventual dissolution of her marriage. In August, 2012 the former student published a copy of a letter which she sent to Unfettered Mind Board Member Robert Conrad discussing Ken McLeod’s and Unfettered Mind’s alleged unresponsiveness to her grievance about the relationship. The former student also established a website devoted to reforming the grievance procedure at Unfettered Mind. She alleges that she is not the only one of Ken McLeod’s students to complain of an inappropriate relationship. In addition, one long-time member of the Unfettered Mind community has come forward to allege that he was present when Ken McLeod acknowledged that “emotional entanglement and physical intimacies” had in fact occurred.

So far this is just the story of an allegation and a grievance. A sad set of circumstances, but a private matter that would not ordinarily be discussed in The Existential Buddhist.

How did Sweeping Zen get swept up into all of this?

In August 2012, Buddhist Abbess Myoan Grace Schireson, a Dharma heir in the Suzuki Roshi lineage and head teacher with the Central Valley Zen Foundation, posted an essay called Those Misbehaving Zen Monks in a Sweeping Zen hosted blog, a thoughtful and beautifully written essay which I whole-heartedly recommend to everyone. The article discusses misbehavior in Zen communities in general and concludes:

Buddhism has a long history of authentic practice and a long history of corruption, child sexual abuse in monasteries, war-mongering, and personal financial gain through accumulation of sangha resources. Along with all the Buddhist saints, you can read about these behaviors in Japanese history (Zen at War by Brian Victoria, and Lust for Enlightenment by John Stevens). Through information, study and honest self-examination we may come out of our clouds and dreams about Zen practice, we may be more able to actually define, identify and establish a more wholesome and nourishing Western Zen.

Her lengthy essay includes one sole sentence referring to Ken McLeod, to wit:

Recent disclosures about the sexual misconduct of Ken McLeod at Unfettered Mind… and Fusho Al Rapaport^[2] of Open Mind Zen… point out how much help Buddhist teachers and their sanghas need to develop a wholesome practice in the West.”

Should her article have included the word “alleged” before the words “sexual misconduct?” Prudence might have dictated it, but let’s move on.

As it turns out, Unfettered Mind Board Member Robert Conrad is also Ken McLeod’s personal attorney. He sent Adam Tebbe a letter stating:

This office represents Ken McLeod. I understand that you are the registered owner of the domain name and website www.sweepingzen.org. I am enclosing a copy of my  letter dated September 7, 2012, to Abbess Myoan Grace Schireson regarding her  libelous article posted on the sweepingzen.org website on August 24, 2012, of and concerning Ken McLeod. I have not received any response from Abbess Schireson and surmise that she has ignored my letter to her – a potentially very costly mistake.

Demand is hereby made that you at once issue an open apology to Mr. McLeod, a retraction of all statements made about him and delete all references to Mr. McLeod  from the August 24, 2012 post by Abbess Myoan Grace Schireson….

Because the internet exists throughout the United States, the courts in Los Angeles, California, have jurisdiction over you; should a lawsuit be filed, it will be filed here. I  estimate that the legal cost of defending any libel action is likely to exceed $100,000, to  say nothing of the damages you and your organization may sustain….

So Ken McLeod’s attorney is threatening Adam Tebbe and Sweeping Zen with an expensive lawsuit.

I don’t know what happened or didn’t happen between Ken McLeod and his former student. If McLeod is guilty of violating his role as teacher he should man up, admit imperfection, apologize, and learn from his mistakes. (Why is it so hard for Buddhist teachers to do just this?^[3]) Regardless of the truth of the allegations, Unfettered Mind should establish an ethics code and a more transparent grievance procedure.

If McLeod is innocent of blame and responsibility, he should still call off his attack dog. In my opinion, threats and intimidation are no way for Buddhists to resolve their differences. Sweeping Zen is a great asset to the Buddhist community and Adam Tebbe labors tirelessly to bring important issues into the open for free and unfettered discussion. I suspect that Adam would happily allow Mr. McLeod to post his own open letter to Sweeping Zen explaining his position if Mr. McLeod wishes to do so.

There is a well known Zen story that provides some guidance on how to deal with false accusations of sexual misconduct. The story concerns the famous Japanese Zen Master Hakuin Ekaku (1686 -1768)

A girl’s family lived near Zen Master Hakuin. One day her parents discovered she was pregnant. The girl wouldn’t divulge the name of the father, but under duress finally blamed Hakuin. The parents accused Hakuin, who only replied ”Is that so?”

Untroubled by the loss of his reputation, Hakuin raised the child himself. A year later the girl confessed that the real father was a young man in the village. The parents apologized to Hakuin, requesting the child back. Hakuin only replied “Is that so?” as he returned the child.

Whatever the truth status of the former student’s allegations, threatening Sweeping Zen is an inappropriate action. Problems like these should be resolved through mediation if possible, and not by threats to third parties.

In the meantime, I encourage the Buddhist community to support Adam. Justin Whitaker has done a fine job reporting this story here and here in his American Buddhist Perspective. I hope we can continue to publicize this issue until Unfettered Mind realizes it is pursuing a counter-productive strategy. You can lend financial support to Sweeping Zen here.

Disclaimer: I have never met anyone associated with Unfettered Mind, have no special insight into what has occurred or not occurred there, and have never met Adam Tebbe in person. Adam and I are Facebook friends, however, and he has previously generously allowed me to republish one of his cartoons without compensation.

Technorati Tags: Adam Tebbe, Hakuin, Ken McLeod

^[1] Ken McLeod is not a Zen teacher. He trained extensively in a variety of Tibetan traditions and received authorization to teach from Kalu Rinpoche. Unfettered Mind is his own amalgam of Tibetan Buddhism, Theravada and Zen and not, to my knowledge, associated with any traditional lineage. ↩
^[2] Fusho Al Rapaport at Open Mind Zen owned up to the allegation against him and took appropriate responsibility for his actions. ↩
^[3] See my previous post here. ↩

A True Man of No-Rank

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Seth Segall

Linji (by Hakuin)

Soto Zen’s 7th Grave Precept calls for not “praising or elevating” oneself while “blaming or abusing” others. It seems like good advice — don’t be so self centered, don’t create disharmony, look to your own faults before blaming others. It also reflects Buddhism’s emphasis on non-self and non-duality — if there’s no division between self and other — if there’s just one vast field of practice — if one can’t claim credit for one’s strengths and virtues because they arise dependently from “outside” the self — and if the faults of others are also dependently arisen — then what sense does elevating the self or blaming others make? None, ultimately.

But there’s more of interest here.

Whenever we interact with another person, three dimensions of experience spontaneously emerge. We can call those dimensions “In/Out,” “Up/Down,” and “Near/Far.” “In/Out” reflects the degree to which we accept each other as belonging to the same tribe — are we family, friends, allies, and members-of-the-club, or are we strangers, enemies, and/or rejects? “Up/Down” reflects where we stand in the pecking order: leaders, followers, rebels, or mascots. “Near/Far” reflects our degree of mutual intimacy. How transparent can we be? Can we take off our masks and let down our hair? Do we have an “I-Thou” or “I-It” relationship? All three of these dimensions are unavoidable. They emerge at the moment of “Hello.”

An up/down dimension lies within every interpersonal transaction. If someone knocks on my door and asks if he may come in, he acknowledges my power to permit or deny his entrance. If I say, “Come in, take a seat,” I confirm my authority to control what happens in my space. If he replies, “I’d rather stand,” he’s attempting to re-renegotiate control. If I reply “suit yourself,” I let the challenge pass, but reserve my future rights. And so it goes. At any given moment we’re either one-up, one-down, or sharing status as coequals.

The Chinese Zen Master Linji famously observed “I, a mountain monk, tell you clearly… there is a true man with no-rank always present not even a hair’s breadth away.” Linji wasn’t talking about interpersonal relations. He was saying something enigmatic about self-view and enlightened being. But let’s take Linji more literally (and out of context). In our everyday existence where we’re always one-up, one-down, or co-equal, what does it mean to be a “true man of no-rank?”

Imagine walking into an encounter with no idea of your status in the relationship. I don’t mean being oblivious to what you imagine the other person thinks of you. I mean having no evaluation, positive or negative, about your own worth. You just are who you happen to be in this moment. Any concerns about what the other person thinks about you are irrelevant to your own worth since you have none. You don’t exist anywhere on that scale. The other person’s evaluations only matter in terms of how they’ll affect the likely outcome of the transaction.

You are now free to do whatever seems necessary or skillful. You don’t have to ask whether it’s your place or right to say something. You don’t have to worry about how you’ll feel if the other person thinks poorly of you. You only have to ask if it’s skillful and likely to turn out well.

What would it be like to negotiate the world in this way, moment after moment? We can simply be what is needed in each situation to the degree our energy and judgment permit. We would go through life neither up nor down but just here. Like Mitt Romney’s trees, we would always be just the right height.

Every now and then I run across a tale of a Zen Master and a Warrior in medieval China or Japan. I suspect the tale is bogus because I can’t track down its original source. (Where is the Zen Snopes when you need it?) As the story goes, the Warrior tries to intimidate the Zen Master by announcing he’s the man who can “run a sword through” the Zen Master “without blinking an eye.” In his mind he’s one-up; he’s in control. The Zen Master looks at if differently, however. He responds that he’s the man who “can be run through with a sword without blinking an eye.” As far as he’s concerned, that’s not a one-down status. It’s just a fact. Now that we’ve established who we are and have been properly introduced we can get on with the business at hand. The Zen Master isn’t ignorant of the brute facts, he just exists outside of the power differential. He’s a true man of no-rank.

Daisan (the teacher-student interview) is a good place to explore this issue. What’s it like when you sit and meet with your teacher? Who are you when you sit on the cushion face to face? Is the teacher up? Are you down? Can you say/ask whatever needs saying/asking for the benefit of your practice? Can you exist in a space that’s neither up nor down?

Thoughts of “up” and “down,” acceptance and rejection, closeness and distance always arise. They’re hard-wired into us, part of our humanness. The question is whether we can let these thoughts come and go without attaching to them, without believing them, without making more of them then what they are — simply words and concepts arising in the mind — clouds scurrying across the vast expanse of blue sky which leave no traces of themselves behind.

Technorati Tags: Buddhist Ethics, Linji, precepts

Everything Changes. Buddhism, too.

Posted on October 11, 2011 by Seth Segall

Glass Buddha (Susan Gott, 2011)

Religions and philosophies thrive, wither, or die according to their ability to address the existential concerns of a particular time and place. As religions evolve, traditionalists strive to maintain ideas and practices which have lost their resonance, while modernizers strive to reinvent the religion to meet the needs of the moment. Religions that survive over millennia manage to thread the needle between these two extremes.

Judaism, for example, evolved over time from the worship of a local semitic tribal deity, to a monotheism based on ritual animal sacrifice, to a rabbinic religion based on prayer, sacred texts, charity, and moral observance. There was plenty of in-fighting along the way between traditionalists and reformers — Hellenists vs. Maccabees, Nisnagdim vs. Hasidim, Orthodoxy vs. Reform.

Buddhism has also evolved in response to changing circumstances. Many Buddhisms are long extinct — who remembers the Hemavatika or Rajagiriya? — while newer forms emerge with predictable regularity. Today we honor many of the re-inventors (e.g., Nāgārjuna, Dōgen, Hakuin), but there was plenty of in-fighting along the way — Theravāda vs. Mahāyāna, Kamalaśila vs. Moheyan, Nichiren vs. Ryōkan, Wallace vs. Batchelor.

As we explore Buddhist evolution, it can be useful to examine how Buddhism has adapted — and continues to adapt — to changed existential circumstances. We can ask, for example, “What concerns did Buddhism address in 500 B.C.E. India?” and “What concerns does it address in the West today?” Answers to these questions may help us understand the trajectory of Buddhism’s ongoing evolution.

Speculation about the existential concerns of a vanished culture and era is always perilous, but we can at least explore the concerns that animated the philosophical debates of that time and place. All of the philosophical systems that emerged from the Indian subcontinent (e.g., Buddhism, Jainism, Advaita Vedanta, Yoga) were concerned with pretty much the same thing: liberation from cyclical existence. Life was suffering, the endless cycle of rebirth was meaningless, and the doctrine of karma, based as it was on a set of Brahmanic ritual practices, had lost credibility. The Buddha provided a way to moralize karma and elucidated a path for ending cyclical existence that resonated with his time.

Those primary concerns no longer resonate with us today, at least not in the West. It’s not so much that a maximalist, unnaturalized view of karma and a literal doctrine of rebirth have been proven false. It’s just that these ideas no longer have much traction. Most Westerners are satisfied with some alternative belief of what happens after death, either some Abrahamic version of the afterlife, or a Naturalist view of cessation of consciousness. Since most Westerners don’t believe in cyclical rebirth, the question of how to end it is not a front-burner issue. A Buddhism that insists on unnaturalized karma and literal rebirth as essential core teachings is irrelevant to primary Western concerns. Westerners don’t become Buddhists because they want to end the cycle of rebirth – they’re motivated by some other inner disquiet. While a naturalized version of karma and a metaphorical version of rebirth can be acceptable to Westerners, they will never be the core features that motivate Westerners to practice.

What, then, are the primary existential concerns that contemporary religions/philosophies have to address to acquire relevance? Any such list would probably include the following:

Naturalism and Materialism have seriously undermined Theism’s authority. It’s harder today to define what’s right and meaningful by relying on “God’s word.” At the same time, Naturalism and Materialism can’t fill the void left by Theism’s demise because they can’t — on their own — address fundamental questions of meaning and goodness.
Western emphases on individualism, competition, achievement, and acquisition have driven rising living standards, but have also fostered a spiritual vacuum.
Technological advances have raised the specter of global extinction, but our social and political arrangements have failed to rise to the challenge. At the same time, an exponential increase in the rate of technological change is driving an increased rate of social change. How can we address the global challenges of nuclear proliferation and climate change, and how can we adapt to the rapid pace of technological and social change?
The Global Village thrusts peoples with vastly different histories, concerns, grievances, and perspectives into more intimate contact, straining traditional allegiances and identifications, increasing potential conflict, and increasing demands that we be able to adopt multiple perspectives.
As the problems of infectious disease and subsistence-level poverty gradually recede in importance in the developed world — albeit, much too slowly! — problems of inequality, overindulgence, and chronic disease move to the foreground. At the same time, global inequality and the difficulty of integrating emerging societies into the established international order persist.

Does Buddhism have core features that directly address these concerns? I think it does.

Buddhism provides a non-theistic ground for defining the desirable and ethical.
Buddhist teachings on impermanence, interdependence, and the constructed nature of the self resonate with Naturalist accounts of the physical world and emerging ideas from the fields of ecology and neuroscience.
While a maximalist, unnaturalized view of karma with supernatural connotations rubs against the grain of Western thought, a naturalized view of karma can reinforce the reality that our thoughts and actions have consequences in terms of our character development, relations with others, and long-term well-being.
Buddhism offers an effective set of tools to help people accept pain, mitigate suffering and increase their personal sense of well-being, meaning, and fulfillment. It builds core cognitive skills of mindfulness and discernment, decreases cognitive rigidity, and helps develop internal resources.
Buddhist teachings on compassion, non-identification, non-greed, non-harming, and mindful listening can help resolve conflicts within the Global Village. These same values can also facilitate the further taming and civilizing of social structures Steven Pinker has described in The Better Angels of Our Nature.
Buddhist teachings on impermanence can foster resilience in the face of change, while teachings on interdependence can deepen ecological awareness.
Buddhism can help the West overcome its one-sidedness. Buddhist teachings on non-greed, generosity, and compassion counterbalance Western consumerist and acquisitive values, ameliorating economic inequality and existential emptiness. The Buddhist cultivation of inner being balances the Western emphasis on doing and achieving, while its teachings on interdependence balance the Western over-emphasis on individualism.

We shouldn’t be surprised by the direction Western Buddhism is taking. Its emphasis on human thriving and well-being, mindfulness, values, ethics, and social engagement is entirely predictable. For most Westerners, a modest meditation practice will suffice to improve their subjective sense of well-being. While there will always be adepts who will access deeper meditative states and make greater commitments on the path of Awakening, the average Western Buddhist will most likely make do with less. This is the way Buddhism has always been – One path for the householder, one for the ordinary monk, a third for the exceptional adept.

Some will be dissatisfied with a naturalized Buddhism that focuses on human well-being. Fortunately, more traditional forms of Buddhism will still exist for them to turn to. They’ve been around for a long time and aren’t going anywhere soon. If Hasidic, Orthodox, Reform, and Secular Judaism can exist side by side in our modern era (as do Liberal and Fundamentalist forms of Christianity), so can traditional and naturalized forms of Buddhism.

It’s just that most of us will opt for a Buddhism that speaks our own language and addresses our deepest concerns.

The Buddha image used in this post is my photo of a copyrighted work of art by Susan Gott, used with her permission.

Technorati Tags: Naturalism, Western Buddhism

About “Speculative Non-Buddhism”

Posted on September 7, 2011 by Seth Segall

109

In music something exciting happens when traditions cross-breed. African music’s encounter with the European tradition gave birth to gospel, blues, and jazz; Chicago and Memphis electrified blues and made it rock; Rock-a-Billy merged Rock and Country; Bernstein melded classical and jazz and put it on Broadway; Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project furthers the cross fertilization of Eastern and Western traditions.

Similarly, Modern Buddhism (or “Protestant Buddhism,” or “Western Buddhism”) continues to emerge from ongoing dialogues between East and West, traditionalism and modernity, Buddhism and science, romanticism, and existentialism. Purists deride emergent forms as heretical, inauthentic, and watered-down. Skeptics think the emergent forms don’t go far enough in a modernist (or post-modernist) direction. Charismatic con men, hucksters, and self-appointed gurus ride the emergent wave along with a spectrum of sincere seekers, scholars, teachers, bloggers, reformers, and critics. In the midst of this ferment, Buddhist influence on American culture continues to grow (and vice versa). According to the Pew Foundation’s 2007 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, “Buddhism” (whatever that means) is now the fastest growing religion in America.

In staking out my own position regarding American Dharma – - loving practice, affectionate towards tradition, skeptical of dogma, favoring transparency, appreciating scholarship’s demythologizing of received narratives — I’ve recently come across a number of contributors to the Buddhist Blogosphere who take a position towards Buddhism somewhat more radical than my own. I am thinking of writers like Ted Meissner (The Secular Buddhist) who is atheist where I am merely agnostic, of David Chapman (Meaningness) who rues the incorporation of Western Romanticism into Modern Buddhism, and Glenn Wallis (Speculative Non-Buddhism), a long-term practitioner and scholar who, having found the Buddhist project “fruitlessly tedious,” makes no assumptions about the validity or value of any Buddhist practice or tenet, wishing to open everything to the “coruscating gaze” of reason.

I want to focus this particular post on Glenn Wallis, who holds a Ph.D. in Buddhist studies from Harvard. He’s taught at the University of Georgia, Brown University, Bowdoin College, RISD, and (currently) the Won Institute of Graduate Studies, and has written a number of books including Basic Teachings of the Buddha (Random House, 2007), The Dhammapada: Verses on the Way (Random House, Modern Library, 2004), Mediating the Power of Buddhas (State University of New York Press, 2002), and, most recently, Buddhavacana: A Pali Reader (Pariyatti Press, 2011). Clearly Glenn Wallis knows more about Buddhism than I can ever hope to know.

I welcome Wallis’s intention to examine Buddhism dispassionately — neither as insider nor outsider — from a distance sufficient to obtain clarity, but close enough to know the material intimately. He brings an interesting and provocative mind to the online mix. It’s his tone, however, that I find disquieting. He intends his gaze to be coruscating, but his voice tends toward the corrosive – arrogant, scornful, and dismissive of those holding differing beliefs and attitudes. Now I’m not one of those who believes, along with Alice’s Dodo, that “everybody has won and all must have prizes.” Not all opinions are created equal — some are clearly wrong. (As Daniel Patrick Moynahan famously observed, we are entitled to our own opinions but not our own facts.) It’s fine to engage in robust discussion and critical discourse, to call things as you see them. I draw the line, however, at sneering derision that impugns the intelligence and motivation of one’s peers. Buddhist (and Non-Buddhist!) values call us to a higher standard.

Let me cite examples from two of his recent posts on Speculative Non-Buddhism. Wallis begins a post entitled “The Elixir of Mindfulness” with the following paragraph:

“The mighty “Mindfulness” juggernaut continues to roll joyously throughout the wounded world of late-capitalism. And why shouldn’t it? The Mindfulness Industry is claiming territory once held by the great occupying force of assorted self-help gurus, shrinks, health care workers, hypnotists, preachers, Theosophists, the church, the synagogue, actual gurus, yogis, meditation teachers, and even—gasp!— Buddhists themselves. Who, after all, can compete with an industry that claims to offer a veritable fountain of bounty, an elixir to life’s ills?”

He concludes:

“By re-packaging age-old optimisms, the Mindfulness Industry feeds off of the multi-billion dollar addiction of the desiccated twenty-first century middle classes for anything that will lead them to the promised land of ‘well-being.’”

Not content to skewer would-be healers who have jumped aboard the mindfulness train without sufficient grounding in practice, Wallis goes right for the jugular in attacking its founder, stating “the vacuity of the term ‘mindfulness’ can be traced, in fact, to the vague, platitudinous, and circular definition given it by Jon Kabat-Zinn.”

Now Mindfulness is not sacrosanct. There are plenty of unresolved questions about what to properly include in its definition, how best to measure it, differentiating state and trait aspects, discriminating active ingredients from placebo, and understanding who might best benefit from it. There is already a substantial and mind-numbingly voluminous body of research and scientific literature exploring all of these questions.

Having followed a great deal of that scientific literature (which I doubt Wallis has), having contributed to it, having participated in an MBSR internship at the Center for Mindfulness in Healthcare, Medicine, and Society, and having had the experience of teaching mindfulness to clinicians, medical patients, and psychiatric patients over the years, I have a different perspective on mindfulness than Wallis has. I found it to be personally transformative and of great benefit to a variety of my clients with problems as diverse as anger management, chronic pain, borderline personality disorder, and dissociative disorder. The research literature has found it helpful in a great variety of other disorders, as well as in simply relieving stress, and has begun to explore the biological correlates of mindfulness practice, including its effects of brain structure and function and immune function. This is not trivial work.

Nowhere, however, does Wallis acknowledge Kabat-Zinn’s depth of understanding of the Dharma, sincerity, intelligence, and commitment to the scientific method as a means of exploring the nature and value of mindfulness. I find Kabat-Zinn’s definition of mindfulness to be perfectly intelligible and clear as a guide to practice, if not sufficiently operationalized for research purposes. I’ve always found him, and the researchers associated with the Center for Mindfulness in Healthcare, Medicine and Society, to be open to critique and willing to follow wherever the data leads. These are serious people engaged in a serious project.

Why the animus against them? Why question the relationship of mindfulness practice to Buddhist practice in general? Are Thich Nhat Hanh (who wrote The Miracle of Mindfulness and Bhante Gunaratana (who wrote Mindfulness in Plain English) not sufficiently Buddhist-y for Wallis? Who meets his qualifications?

In the second example, Wallis accuses Buddhism (in general) and Zen teacher Barry Magid (in particular) of “flinching” because of its/his claim that practice leads to deep joy. Wallis begins by expressing admiration for Magid (and his teacher, Charlotte Joko Beck), but then quotes Magid’s “In Memoriam” piece for Beck in Buddhadharma:

“When students were preoccupied with transformation, she took what was in danger of becoming a toothless Zen cliché—being just this moment—and turned it into the challenge of having no hope—a radical acceptance of the totality of the present. Yet she never failed to emphasize that at the bottom of the well of self was deep joy. A lifetime of teaching about death and dying was summed up as ‘this too is joy.’”

Wallis, apparently, objects to all this “joy” talk, writing:

“He, Beck, and all of Buddhism shore up the existential nullity… with what amounts to an ideological sandbag: “deep joy.” The “bottom of the well” and the “deep” are not given in the equation. They are smuggled into to it by merchants of hope. They are instances of a transcendent, specular, all-seeing-from-above dharmic dream of what should be/we would like to be the case. They are not, by any means, necessarily what is. The “deep joy” at the “bottom of the well of self” is a new, uniquely self-help-obsessed-American Zen cliché; one, moreover, that flashes the sharp teeth of all “spiritual” salesmen—and saleswomen. For it locks the practitioner into the endless pay loop of should-could-want-would-like-deep-joy.”

Toni Packer, one of the teachers who has deeply influenced me, shares a great deal in common with Joko Beck. Like Joko, she makes all of life grounds for investigation and questions the value of many traditional Buddhist practices. She also went one further than Joko, leaving even words like “Buddhism” and “Zen” behind. For Toni, there is truly “just this.”

I can’t remember Toni ever using the word “joy” per se, but this ^[1] is her interpretation of her own experience:

“Sitting quietly, without desire or fear, beyond the sense of time, is vast, boundless being, not belonging to you or me. It is free and unattached, shedding light on conditioned being, beholding it, and yet not meddling with it…. It is not what is seen that matters, but that there is seeing, revealing what is as it is, in the light of wisdom and compassion too marvelous to comprehend.

I suspect this description of “vast, boundless being” and “wisdom and compassion too marvelous to comprehend” is what Beck and Magid mean by “joy.” It’s what Shabkar Tsodruk Rangdrol meant when he described the mind’s nature as “intrinsically empty, naturally radiant, and ceaselessly responsive.” It’s quite all right to say that never having experienced what they experienced, one wonders whether their view of the way things are is real. Its quite another to say that in presenting their own experience they are “flinching,” in other words, being intellectually dishonest and evasive. I never thought Toni was offering up a “new, uniquely self-help-obsessed-American Zen cliché” or acting as a “spiritual” saleswoman. She was just sharing her own experience, and her belief that if others would only look they might discover the same.

Magid responded to Wallis in this way:

“The Buddha might have said Life is Suffering and left it at that. Impermanence is inescapable and our practice is first and foremost a confrontation with our avoidance of this reality. But Zen is not just a matter of swallowing bad tasting medicine. The experience of long sitting also opens the door of joy — when we cease our protests against life as it is we experience the poignancy and joy that life emerges changes and departs. I don’t hold this out as a carrot or antidote or promise. But it is my (and Joko’s) first hand report from the front lines.”

To which Wallis, in turn, responded:

“I am sure you’ll agree that each of us has to submit our own first-hand report. It’s wonderful that some reports contain descriptions of deep joy. But I can’t submit a report based on what you or Charlotte Beck or the Buddha discovers on the front lines. That report would be untruthful. Why are some first-hand reports from the front lines universalized by tradition (and its present-day teachers) as necessarily desirable, as a special species of experiential truth-telling? And what effect does it have on students when teachers make such reports openly? What are teachers doing when they do so?”

I’m sorry that Wallis hasn’t found the joy at the bottom of the well in his own practice. I can’t imagine, however, why he questions the value of teachers reporting on their own experience as a way of pointing out what might be possible to their students.

All of this boils down to the question of what motivates our practice to begin with. Why practice at all, unless one is seeking medicine for spiritual unease and the unsatisfactoriness of one’s life? If the Dharma isn’t authentic medication for that, what use is it? Does it provide us with a way of being that feels more authentic and vital? Does it help us to develop awareness and equanimity? Does it help us in becoming less self-centered? Does it assist us in exploring our narrative of who we are and the way we construe the world? Do we become more compassionate in the process? These are all meaningful questions. We all have skin in this game. We are in it because we are seeking something. If some people who have been at this longer than we have report that joy is part of what we might find at the bottom of the well, is that somehow magically illegitimate? Is that hucksterism? Is that wishful thinking? Why not include that in the list of things we may just discover if we persist in our practice?

Wallis loves the idea of existential courage — of facing things as they are without any sops. But the idea that in moments of clear seeing there might be genuine peace and happiness beyond mere sensory pleasure can be part of reality too. It’s not all grimness and eat your peas. There’s a certain degree of sourness at the bottom of Wallis’s well.

I want to contrast Wallis’s slash-and-burn style with an alternative mode of inquiry that Andrew Olendzki proposes in an article excerpted in the latest issue of Buddhadharma.

In discussing rehabilitating Protestant Buddhism Olendzki writes:

“A crucial first step in the process is to recognize that new forms of Buddhism, at their best, are based upon the creative ways of synthesizing meaning rather than on undermining the beliefs and practice of others. In other words, while it is not okay to say that others have got it wrong and this is the right way of looking at things, it is entirely appropriate (and natural) to say, “ Here is an interesting new way of understanding things that I find particularly meaningful.” Even if we get it wrong once in a while, better to be actively inquiring into the meaning of the dhamma at every opportunity than to passively accept tradition in a given form…. We are not necessarily better at understanding these teachings because we are moderns or Westerners or humanists or typing on keyboards. We cannot assume the troubling bits, about miracles, rebirth, and hell realms, for example, must not be “true” and that we, of course, know better. It is possible to hold the greatest respect for all those who think differently from ourselves, for all those who construct their own meaning of these teachings differently than we do, and simply say at some point that we are not capable of seeing it that way.”

Exactly.

Catch the difference in tone? It’s possible to question, critique, and explore, without being beholden to any orthodoxy, and at the same time remain open to, and respectful of, those who hold the teachings differently.

I’ll continue to read Wallis’s blog. He has interesting and important things to say. It’s helpful to grapple with ideas that challenge one’s own assumptions. He’s a member of my club — the club of Westerners struggling with the gift of centuries of Buddhist practice, devotion, and contention. But I hope he finds a way to be more at home in the world, more happy, and — dare I say it — more joyous. And I hope he discovers a tone of voice that’s less prickly, less irritating, less dismissive, and — dare I say it — more consistent with Buddhist aspirations.

Technorati Tags: Andrew Olendzki, Barry Magid, Glenn Wallis, Kabat-Zinn, mindfulness, Toni Packer

^[1] Packer, T. (2004). The Wonder of Presence. Boston: Shambhala, p. 131 ↩

On The Existential Buddhist’s One Year Anniversary

Posted on July 27, 2011 by Seth Segall

This week marks the one year anniversary of The Existential Buddhist. Over the past year, The Existential Buddhist has published sixty articles, posted over four hundred comments, and had over 30,000 visits from over 22,000 readers who hail from 128 countries and all fifty states. Recently Elephant Journal, with a readership of 600,000, has taken to republishing some of my posts, giving them a potentially wider audience. All and all, it’s been a gratifying first year.

Most readers don’t post comments, but I hear from regular readers via Facebook, Google +, and Twitter, and its nice to know that what one writes makes a difference to others. That’s one of the benefits of blogging. When one publishes a book one gets the initial reviews and Amazon stats, but one doen’t get the degree of reader participation and involvement that lies at the heart of blogging.

The Existential Buddhist has provided me with the opportunity to clarify and develop my own thoughts on a variety of issues pertaining to Buddhist philosophy, ethics, meditation, art, and history. It’s allowed me to participate, in my own small way, in the ongoing dialogue between traditionalists and modernizers, believers and skeptics, universalists and sectarians. Listening in, contributing, and receiving feedback has helped me to cultivate my own path more deeply.

If anything is clearer now than it was a year ago, it’s that the Buddhist way is not a set of abstract propositions which can be successfully analyzed for theoretical coherence. It’s a set of pointers to a way of life which can only be evaluated through lived experience. It’s a path of embodiment, intimacy, engagement, discernment, and decency. It’s something we practice in all of our encounters with ourselves, others, and the world. The only valid evaluation of Buddhist tenets is whether they guide us towards a life that’s richer, more meaningful, more aware, more connected, more present, more compassionate, and less harm-inflicting than the life we were living before. It’s this very idea of validation from lived experience rather than from texts, argument, or authority that makes this Buddhism existential.

I want to thank you, dear reader, for being part of the The Existential Buddhist’s first year. I hope you have found it interesting and helpful, and that whatever disagreements we may have had along the way, we remain spiritual friends along the path together.

Here’s to our next year together!

Technorati Tags: Anniversary

The Thicket of Views

Posted on July 11, 2011 by Seth Segall

In the Aggi-Vacchagotta Sutta, the Buddha cautions Vacchagotta, the wanderer, against adhering to the “thicket of views,” i.e., forming an opinion one way or the other about a variety of metaphysical topics (Is the cosmos eternal or infinite? Are materiality and consciousness the same or different? Do Buddhas still exist after death?) The Buddha tells Vachagotta that any position one can take:

“is a thicket of views, a wilderness of views, a contortion of views, a writhing of views, a fetter of views. It is accompanied by suffering…. and does not lead to disenchantment, dispassion, cessation; to calm, direct knowledge, full Awakening…”

Anyone can have opinions. They come cheap. I have a million myself — If you want one just ask.

How’s President Obama doing? Gay marriage: good or bad? Are karma and rebirth real? “The Tree of Life”: Cinematic magic or pretentious bore? It’s amazing how much of an expert I am on everything!

In case it’s somehow escaped your notice, the Buddhist Blogosphere might more properly be called an “opinion-o-sphere.” The “Maha Teachers” Council: Promise or menace? Stephen Batchelor: Visionary or turncoat? The Mindfulness Movement: diluting or spreading the Dharma? Buddhism: Religion or philosophy? The Pali canon: Authentic words of the Buddha? Genpo Roshi: Sufficiently contrite?

We Buddhists are as contentious a group as any on the planet. One might have hoped we would have turned out better — but we seem to be suspiciously human.

It’s fun to have opinions — they keep the conversation lively. In any case, it’s impossible not to form them. The question is whether it’s possible not to be overly attached to them.

Zen Master Seung Sahn wrote a book entitled Open Mouth Already a Mistake^[1], and was famous for admonishing students to “only keep ‘Don’t-Know’ mind.” In a similar vein, Larry Rosenberg reported seeing a bumper sticker years ago which read: “Don’t believe everything you think,” and thought it offered sage advice. Shunryu Suzuki Roshi’s “Beginner’s Mind” is the touchstone of American Dharma, but admonitions to take opinions lightly have been part of practice forever. Bankei (1622-1693) advised us not to “side with ourselves,” just as the Buddha himself warned millennia ago of “the thicket of views.”

The truth is, all of our interesting and colorful opinions seem to have very little to do with the progress we make, or fail to make, in our practice. If anything, they separate us from the clear, still place we aspire to. Our practice is best when we have little or no concern for what others do or think — and even or especially what we ourselves think — and pay attention, instead, to how we unfold in our own unique dance with the present moment.

That’s not to say there are no such things as facts, reality, or truth. It’s just that reality is often more slippery, nuanced, and multifaceted than what we’re able to capture in our net of words — and that the deepest and most meaningful truths often elude language altogether. Alan Watts used to joke that his business was “effing the ineffable.”

As we say in Zen, there is just “this.”

That’s my opinion for today.

Technorati Tags: Alan Watts, Bankei, blogosphere, Larry Rosenberg, opinions, Seung Sahn, Suzuki Roshi

^[1] Barry Briggs has pointed out this attribution is in error. While Seung Sahn coined the phrase, the book is actually by his Dharma heir, Wu Kwang (Richard Shrobe). See Barry's correction in the comments section. ↩

Libya, March 2011

Posted on March 22, 2011 by Seth Segall

I’m in favor of the current allied military action in Libya. I wrote to President Obama one week ago urging him to support a no-fly zone, and I’m pleased he finally heeded the advice of Samantha Power, Susan Rice, and Hillary Clinton. Some liberal bloggers, with whom I usually agree, are appalled however. Josh Marshall worries the intervention is too late and in support of a hopeless cause. Others take a dismal view of almost any exercise of American power and are cynical about Western humanitarian justifications. These critics would have left the partisans and their families in Benghazi, Misurata, and Ajdabiya to be slaughtered by the thousands. Gadhafi left no doubt about his intentions in a recent radio address: “We are coming tonight… We will find you in your closets. We will have no mercy and no pity.”

As a practicing Buddhist, being in favor of any military action is problematic. Should a Buddhist ever support military action? Shouldn’t Buddhists be pacifists? After all, our first precept is to abstain from killing living beings, while the noble eightfold path emphasizes the intention of non-harming. When a warrior asked the Buddha whether he would go to a special heaven when he died, the Buddha reluctantly informed him he would be reborn in one of the lower realms. The Buddha taught unequivocally that violence breeds more violence and that practitioners should always strive for peace and reconciliation.

The question about whether it is ever permissible to apply force against another human being is complex. Are we allowed to cause harm in self-defense? In protecting our family? In preventing serious crime? Can we call the exterminator when termites eat into our home? (For a more thorough examinations of these issues, check out this post.) The Pali canon never condones violence or killing, but the Mahāyāna Upaya-kausalya Sūtra condones killing on compassionate grounds in extraordinary circumstances. Similarly, the Ārya-satyaka-parivarta Sūtra permits a ruler’s use of force to protect life when all attempts at negotiation and placation have failed. One can always cite scripture in support of whatever position one wants to take.

My own view is that there are times when resort to force is permitted, but it must meet certain conditions: 1) It must be undertaken as a last resort, 2) it must be undertaken for the compassionate protection of beings, and not out of hatred, greed, or revenge, 3) it must use the minimum force necessary to accomplish its goal, 4) it must have a reasonable chance of success, 5) it must not dehumanize opponents, 6) it must make all reasonable efforts to avoid harming innocent non-combatants, 7) the magnitude of reasonably anticipated “blowback” must not exceed the good it is hoped it will achieve, and 8), it must be undertaken with the understanding that even the most moral use of force still generates some degree of bad karma.

The Alīnacitta-jātaka, one of the Jātaka Tales that purport to tell the story of the Buddha’s many incarnations on the bodhisattva path before his birth as Siddhartha, seems relevant to this discussion. It tells the story of King Brahmadatta who befriended an elephant during his reign. Later, the King and Queen conceived a child, the Buddha-to-be in a future incarnation, but the King died before the child was born. The neighboring King of Kosala, hearing about Brahmadatta’s death, plotted to take over his kingdom, and proceeded to lay siege to it. On the day of the Bodhisattva’s birth the townsfolk began battling the Kosalan army:

“But as they had no leader, little by little the army gave way, great though it was. The courtiers told this news to the Queen, adding, ‘Since our army loses ground in this way, we fear defeat. But our King’s friend, the elephant, has never been told that the King is dead, that a son was born to him, and that the King of Kosala is here to give us battle. Shall we tell him?’

“Yes, do so,” said the Queen. She dressed up her son, laid him in a fine linen cloth, and went with all her court to the elephant’s stable. She laid the babe at the elephant’s feet, saying, “Master, your comrade is dead, but we feared to tell it you lest you might break your heart. This is your comrade’s son; the King of Kosala is making war against him; the army is losing ground; either kill my son yourself, or win the kingdom back for him!”

The elephant stroked the child with his trunk and lifted him upon his own head; then moaning and lamenting, laid him in his mother’s arms, saying, ‘I will master the King of Kosala!’

Then the courtiers put his armor and caparison on him and unlocked the city gate. The elephant trumpeted and frightened all the host so that they ran away and broke up their camp; then seizing the king of Kosala by his topknot, he carried him to the young Prince, and laid him at his feet. Some rose to kill him, but the elephant stayed them; and he let the captive king go with this advice: “Be careful in the future, and don’t be presumptuous because our Prince is young!” After that, the power over all India fell into the Bodhisattva’s hands and not a foe was able to rise up against him. The Bodhisattva was consecrated at age seven; his reign was just and when he came to life’s end he went to swell the hosts of heaven.”

The text implies citizens have a right to defend themselves and use force against an oppressor, but self-defense must be tempered by mercy and reverence for life. Of course, no lives are lost in this charming tale. The elephant is able to scare the invading army away without injuring anyone, and the invading king’s life is spared. If only U.N. sanctions and warnings had been effective in frightening Gadhafi into leaving his enemies in peace! It would have made this tale a perfect parable.

I could easily have cited another Jātaka Tale the counsels radical pacifism, however. In that tale a king threatened by an invader says “I want no kingdom that must be kept by doing harm.” He opens his city’s gates to the invader and allows himself to be taken captive. While imprisoned he cultivates compassion for his conqueror. The tale has a happy ending. The invading king develops insight into the wrongfulness of his actions, frees the virtuous king, and leaves his kingdom in peace. This tale is even more charming than the first. Can you see Gadhafi developing moral insight and leaving his enemies in peace?

Does our current military action in Libya meet these the eight conditions I outlined above? Well yes and no.

In order to meet such a test a military action would have to be motivated by compassion. As the stated purpose of the action is to protect civilians, and as there will be no occupation, and as President Obama’s rhetoric is neither dehumanizing nor bloodthirsty, I think the action meets those criteria, at least for the United States. It’s possible, however, that a desire for vengeance lurks in the background for some coalition members or U.N. supporters. The Lebanese remember Gadhafi’s murder of Musa al-Sadr in 1978, the British remember the Lockerbie bombing of 1988, and the Saudi’s remember Gadhafi’s 2004 plot to kill Crown Prince Abdullah. Gadhafi has created an enormous amount of low-grade karma over the past forty years, and human memories are long.

To the extent that the allies make all efforts to avoid civilian deaths and limit their actions to protecting the cities in rebellion a good case can be made for this being a moral intervention – or at least as moral an intervention as is possible given the inevitable negative consequences inherent in any use of force. We don’t know how this will turn out in the end. If a civilian bloodbath is averted; if a relatively free government is established in rebel-held territory; if tribal civil warfare and devolution into anarchy is avoided; if the war does not stir up virulent anti-Western sentiment in the Middle East; if the democratic strivings that began in Tunisia and Egypt and are sweeping through the Middle East are bolstered and supported, then this will have been worth it. But, as the Japanese say, “Ningen banji Saiō ga uma” (人間万事塞翁が馬) — Everything is like Uncle Sai’s horse: Good? Bad? Who Knows? We never know how the story ends until it’s over. And of course, the story which we are a part of is never over.

Would the Buddha have approved of the Libyan no-fly zone? Would he have approved Allied bombing of the railroads leading to Auschwitz? Would he have approved an intervention in Rwanda? Maybe not. On the other hand, this Buddhist does approve, and hopes things turn out as well as they can. We live in a world where tough moral choices can’t be avoided. Going into battle creates bad karma. But so does sitting back and watching thousands die while arguing moral niceties.

Technorati Tags: Jataka Tales, Libya

Japan, March 2011

Posted on March 16, 2011 by Seth Segall

Japan’s been on my mind. Your’s too? Words fail to convey the depth of our sorrow for and horror at the loss of life, home, livelihood, basic necessities, and connectedness for countless families. Words fail at conveying our admiration for the heroism of the workers risking their lives struggling to bring six runaway nuclear reactors under control. Words fail to express the depth of our cynicism about the nuclear power industry’s assurances of safety. What more is there left to express?

As Zen practitioners, we have a natural affinity for Japan as an ancestral home of our practice. I’m not the praying type, so I haven’t offered any prayers. But I’ve done something practical: donated to the Japanese Red Cross Society. Google has made it easy to do at this URL:

http://www.google.com/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html

Please do more than metta and tong-len. Let’s put compassion into action.

I’ve never been to Japan, but I found myself free-associating this morning on the word “Japan” and all that it signifies in my imagination. It’s not exactly a poem, but maybe it will remind you of whatever Japan signifies for you. Feel free to add your own associations below in comments.

Japan — Land of…

Shinto, Shingon, Jodo Shinshu, and Zen

Hakuin, Basho, Ryokan, and Dogen

Honen, Ryonan, Shinran, Nichiren

Sega, Sony, Nintendo, and Canon

Seiko, Toshiba, Yamaha, and Nikon

Bushido, samurai, ninja, and ronan

Honda, Toyota, Mazda, and Nissan

Kagemusha, Yojimbo, Ran, and Rashomon,

Gojira, Mothra, Gamera, and Rodan

Sushi, sashimi, miso, and daikon

Kurosawa, Miyazaki, Murakami, Mishima

Pillow book, floating world, samisen, and geisha

Nanking, Guadalcanal, Burma, and Iwo Jima

Karate, Ju-Jitsu, Sumo, and Aikido

Hirohito, Tokyo Rose, Matsui, and Tojo

Rock gardens, cherry blossoms, chrysanthemums, origami

Kobe, Sendai, earthquake and Tsunami

Hiroshima, Nagasaki — now Fukushima Daiichi

Technorati Tags: earthquake, Tsunami

Buddhist Teachers Behaving Badly

Posted on February 23, 2011 by Seth Segall

The latest dustup over John Tarrant’s Shambhala Sun obituary for Robert Aitkin Roshi provides us with yet another opportunity to examine the issue of bad sexual behavior on the part of some Buddhist teachers. Unfortunately, this kind of examination is always timely. In the past year we’ve seen scandals surrounding Eido Shimano Roshi and Dennis Gempo Merzel, but over the years scandals within the Buddhist community have become sadly familiar. We should take these scandals as opportunities to explore ever relevant questions concerning sex, power, and Enlightenment.

The Third Lay Buddhist Training Precept states “I undertake the training rule to abstain from sexual misconduct.” (Kāmesumicchācāra veramanī sikkhāpadam samādiyāmi). The precept emphasizes the prevention of harm to sexual partners and concerned third parties. The precept is vague, however, about what constitutes sexual misconduct. The precept is usually interpreted in the light of the prevailing customs and mores within each distinct Buddhist community. Peter Harvey ^[1] has done an excellent job of surveying the ways the precept has been interpreted across societies and over time. My review of these interpretations below is abstracted from his survey (but any errors in it are completely my own).

Sexual misconduct traditionally includes adultery and consorting with prostitutes (c.f. Sutta-nipāta and Nāgārjuna) as well as rape and incest. Having sex with anyone who is already in a committed relationship with another is also usually considered a violation of the precept. In Thailand flirting with a married woman is seen as a violation, whereas in Sri Lanka premarital sex is proscribed. The fourth-century Abhidharma-kośa-bhāsya included the use of “unsuitable” orifices, places, or times. The Upāsaka-śīla-sūtra included frequenting brothels and the use of “instruments.” Gampopa’s (1079-1153) Jewel Ornament of Liberation included overly frequent sex (more than five successive times!) and homosexuality, whereas Patrul Rinpoche (1808-1887) proscribed masturbation in his Kuzang Lama’i Shelung. Buddhaghosa and Śāntideva both considered homosexual behavior to be a violation of the third precept, but homosexuality was tolerated and accepted in Japan, even as part of monastic life.

Where does this leave the issue of teacher-student sex? In the contemporary West, the ethics concerning teacher-student sex are still evolving. In elementary, middle, and high schools teacher-student sexual contact is not permitted as students are still (for the most part) minors who cannot give consent, and because it would constitute a serious violation of a relationship of authority and trust. Ethical rules concerning college faculty-student sex are less clearly delineated since many students are no longer minors. Some colleges forbid it, others merely discourage it. Ethical guidelines recognize an inherent conflict between grading and writing letters of recommendation for students and being in a sexual relationship with them. While faculty-student relationships occur with considerable frequency, there’s also a considerable degree of queasiness about the potential for abuse of power within these relationships. In counseling and clinical psychology, therapist-client sexual encounters are considered ethical violations. Psychology’s ethical standards recognize the danger of abuses of power, the need for therapist objectivity, and the irrational idealizations that clients may project onto therapists. Lastly, we might mention that sex abuse scandals within the Roman Catholic Church have increased public awareness of the real and enduring psychological and spiritual harm caused by violations of clerical authority and trust.

These issues of trust, authority, abuse of power, idealizations and projections, and the need for teachers to retain impartiality and objectivity are all relevant to the question of relationships between Buddhist teachers and their students, and there have been attempts to develop codes of ethics for Buddhist teachers. For example, Spirit Rock has developed a code of ethics for teachers in the Insight Meditation tradition that includes the following paragraphs:

“We agree to avoid creating harm through sexuality and to avoid sexual exploitation or relationships of a sexual manner that are outside of the bounds of the relationship commitments we have made to another or that involve another who has made vows to another. Teachers with vows of celibacy will live according to their vows. Teachers in committed relationships will honor their vows and refrain from adultery. All teachers agree not to use their teaching role to exploit their authority and position in order to assume a sexual relationship with a student.

Because several single teachers in our community have developed partnerships and marriages with former students, we acknowledge that such a healthy relationship can be possible, but that great care and sensitivity are needed. We agree that in this case the following guidelines are crucial:

A) A sexual relationship is never appropriate between teachers and students.

B) During retreats or formal teaching, any intimation of future student-teacher romantic or sexual relationship is inappropriate.

C) If interest in a genuine and committed relationship develops over time between a single teacher and a student, the student-teacher relationship must clearly and consciously have ended before any further development toward a romantic relationship. Such a relationship must be approached with restraint and sensitivity – in no case should it occur immediately after retreat. A minimum time period of three months or longer from the last formal teaching between them, and a clear understanding from both parties that the student-teacher relationship has ended must be coupled with a conscious commitment to enter into a relationship that brings no harm to either party.”

Similar codes of ethics have been developed by a number of Zen communities, including ones where teacher misconduct has occurred in the past (e.g., San Francisco Zen Center, Kwan Um School of Zen).

Given the evolving consensus about teacher-student relationships, why does misconduct continue to occur? The answer is simple: because all human beings are imperfect, and because any position of power invites both temptations and opportunities for abuse. The Buddhist community, however, may have several unique factors that complicate addressing this issue.

Certain tantric practices (e.g., the use of mudras or “seals”) may open the door for potential abuse unless there is a widely understood consensus on ethical guidelines regarding their use. Similarly, the idealization of “crazy wisdom” within tantric traditions may lead students to rationalize teachers’s unacceptable behaviors, and teachers to rationalize being out-of-control.

The biggest obstacle within Buddhism, however, may be the idea of “Enlightenment” itself. Enlightenment is traditionally described as something that puts a permanent end to unwholesome desiring. Once one has achieved Enlightenment, there’s no backsliding. Enlightened Beings are, by definition, incapable of sexual misconduct. Any teacher who believes this is at risk for becoming an abuser. Any student who believes this is at risk for rationalizing and accepting abuse.

The idea that one can have a magical experience that makes one perfect and makes one invulnerable to harmful temptations is a fairy tale. Everyone’s brain contains a hypothalamus, and no amount of meditation or insight can surgically remove it. The hypothalamus is the seat of desire in the human nervous system, including sexual desire. We have a wonderful cerebral cortex which can dampen, override, and modify hypothalamic output, but not eliminate it. As Freud might say, we all have an “id,” a dynamic, insatiable source of passion and desire, that is a permanent part of our psychological constitution. Buddhism teaches us to be heedful and mindful of desire and deal with it intelligently in order to be fully and completely human. It shouldn’t teach that there’s a stage when we no longer need to exert due care.

Buddhist practitioners often experience powerful meditative experiences that have real transformative power. These realizations, however, do not completely obliterate temptation or the repetition and acting-out of deeply ingrained behavioral patterns. Meditative realizations need to be gradually actualized and reinforced. Psychotherapists know that a genuine insight in one situation does not automatically generalize and transfer to other situations. There’s a process called “working through” that needs to occur before one can actualize insight across circumstances. Similarly, Korean Zen Master Bojo Jinul (1158-1210) taught that the Buddhist path is one of “sudden enlightenment” followed by “gradual cultivation.” We never finish our development. Enlightenment is a horizon we aim at, not something we achieve.

That’s why codes of ethics will always be necessary. That’s why there will always be Buddhist teachers who will fall short of embodying them. That’s why our life needs to be one of continual practice.

Technorati Tags: Buddhist Ethics, enlightenment, misconduct, Peter Harvey, precepts, sexuality

^[1] Harvey, P. (2000). An Introduction to Buddhist Ethics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press ↩

Egypt 2011

Posted on February 8, 2011 by Seth Segall

This week I’ve been transfixed by the images of protest in Egypt. The images evoked a variety of strong emotions in rapid succession: hope, joy, excitement, worry, fear, pride, discouragement, and anger. Hope that democracy might finally come to Egypt. Joy over the peaceful crowds that filled Tahrir Square. Excitement when it looked like the demonstrators might stand a chance. Fear as pro-Mubarak thugs attacked demonstrators and targeted journalists. Worry over what might replace Mubarak’s dictatorship and how all this would affect Israel. Pride when President Obama said “change must begin now,” and Press Secretary Gibbs said, “Now means yesterday.” Discouragement as the Obama administration shifted its policy towards supporting “stability” over change. Anger as Suleiman talked “democracy” while shoring up the police state.

None of us knows how this will all end. This is the Middle East after all, where things have a habit of ending badly. In this past century it’s been a graveyard for human aspirations. There are a thousand-and-one reasons for this, from the twin legacies of colonialism and the Cold War to petrodollar geopolitics and the difficulties inherent in transitioning from premodern to modern societies.

Despite all the uncertainties, my heart remains with the demonstrators in Tahrir Square. May they be safe from harm! May their aspirations be realized! May dialogue between the government, the military, and the people evolve into lasting democracy without further bloodshed and imprisonments.

May the United States play a constructive role in encouraging genuine change. We have only limited leverage to affect events, but we do have some. We can cut military aid to Egypt if the regime continues to drag its feet. We shouldn’t allow ourselves to be led around by the nose by Suleiman and Mubarak. (It’s bad enough we’re already letting ourselves be led around by Karzai and Netanyahu!) There’s only one way to gain respect in the world — and playing patsy is not it.

We have a chance to be on the right side of history for a change. I’ve written to President Obama urging him to vigorously support democracy in Egypt. If you agree with me, I hope you’ll do the same. There’s no excuse for remaining silent when we have some chance of stopping injustice and improving the world.

The Existential Buddhist

dharma without dogma

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