Most people think of Zen as being iconoclastic, anti-authoritarian, simple, direct, and unattached. I had a kind of insecurity and self-importance, which I didn't see for a long time, that was a bad dynamic in the community. Zen ascribes to Pai-chang (died 814) its earliest monastic code that supposedly set Chan apart as a separate sect in the Tang dynasty. Coming Down from the Zen Clouds: A Critique of the Current State of American Zen Please keep it in mind. There is a whole lineage built on the idea that Kapleau had transmission. Furthermore this creation has to be ongoing. I don't know for certain but Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind was published in 1970, only one year before Baker himself received Dharma transmission and the title, Zen master. At first, I had trouble with Downing's refusal to bend to the dictates of chronology and a quirky writing style that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. Zen's highly ritualized activities added a visceral instantiation to the cognitive edifice. Baker also gives seminars at Boulder Zen Center in Boulder, Colorado twice each year, typically on the last weekends of January and April. San Francisco Zen Center 300 Page Street San Francisco, California 94102 www.sfzc.org. pp.347-379. One older student expressed it this way, "In our hands, and it was in our hands, it [Suzuki's pure teaching] became a bludgeon of power, a source of competition, jealousy, and paranoia. Suzuki's prestige grew enormously. 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. From the perspective of power and control, the political and the religious spheres overlap. Baker and Suzuki themselves were rewarded by this system. This article is not saying that there is no place for a Zen teacher. 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. This necessitates the production of virtual quotas of such highly exalted people, while in the realm of "spiritual attainment" it is rare to produce just one such person. The sangha was incorporated by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi and a group of his American students in 1962. The historical fact is that monasteries actively courted the state and elite elements of society, depended on donations from wealthy patrons and or the state, had tenant farmers work their often vast donated and inherited land holdings, etc. The Church hierarchy has displayed a consistent concern for protecting and maintaining the eminence of the abusive priests and the holiness of the institution of the Catholic Church, rather than concern for the children and teenagers trusted to their care. Baker claimed the Center was "denying 2,500 years of how Buddhism was developed and continued" He made a number of other historically inaccurate claims, and finally dropped the suit saying that he was pressured to institute the threat by a lawyer student of his: "There was a lawyer who kept bugging me." In fact there are few major centers not touched by sexual or other scandals, but the SFZC case suffices for the discussion we will have here. "The Apocalypse," as they came to call it, took place in 1983 at a Peace Conference at Tassajara, a retreat center that was the first Buddhist monastery founded outside Asia. By saying this, he was emphasizing his guarantee that the essence of the Zen lineage resides in Baker. In the past we had a lot of crisesin San Francisco and Los Angeleswith sex scandals and so forth. 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. A large institution like Zen requires hundreds of such living role players. This imputation of power and attainment has given one Zen roshi after another the power to abuse their position while remaining beyond reproach. What I mean by the "Zen" institution, for the simple purpose of this conversation, is the organized set of structures that support the standard model of Zen. [32], These revelations led Baker to resign as abbot in 1984. They have a daughter, Sofia Baker, born on March 1, 2001, in Alamosa, Colorado. 3. This is not to imply that there is no value to be gained in the practice of Zen. The historical Zen masters we have all come to know are always presented in terms of supposedly real people, with names, dates, and locations, and reports of purportedly real conversations and interactions with other monks and sometimes lay people as if there is no doubt at all that we are dealing with historical individuals. Baker is the sole western heir of Suzuki Roshi, a Japanese Zen teacher who founded the SFZC and its mountain training center, Tassajara established in 1967. 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. Also see his Zen War Stories to be published December 2002. This 1987 incident has had a damaging impact on Anderson's reputation as a teacher, since his arrest received national media coverage. It was considered "real" because it came from the saintly Suzuki and Suzuki made a point of saying it was "real." Shocked by the series of scandal involving its senior teachers, the organization decided to appoint two abbots, who would share the position at any one time. [3] He has two daughters, Sally and Elizabeth, from a prior marriage to Virginia Baker. Hence, a number of questions were never openly raised: Was he acting in an arrogant fashion? Ruling year info. According to the dust jacket, Downing spent three years interviewing 80 people at the center of the Zen Center scandal. The situation is now reversing, as the Japanese, in particular, abandon Buddhism as an old relic, while it continues to find adherents in the West. The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion, Doubleday, 1967, pp. 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 (he also ran a leading Zen center in New Mexico, and his lewdness did not respect state lines). The organic farm at Green Gulch supplies local restaurants and food suppliers and sells flowers, produce and herbs at Ferry Plaza Farmers Market in San Francisco. 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. Maezumi, affiliated with another West Coast zendo, the Zen Center of Los Angeles, was a philanderer and an alcoholic, as the scholar Dale S. Wright has detailed at length. "Hollow" transmissions such as those between father and son are incorporated into the unbroken lineage to the Buddha. Around 1970, he began sitting regularly with a group in Santa Cruz that went on to form the Santa Cruz Zen Center. Any genuine interpretation or questioning of the meaning of Dharma transmission, lineage, the Zen roshi, their place in the institution, their accountability, and so on is made to seem absurd. Baker Sums It Up City Center A vibrant community in an urban temple in the heart of San Francisco. Branching Streams is a network of affiliate Dharma centers and Sanghas in the Zen lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. The past generations are presented in a saintly and exalted manner, which adds to the prestige of the tradition as a whole, but most importantly, to the prestige of the last name on the lineage chart, the living teacher. For an analysis of the inherent power relations in the one-dimensional description of a roshi and how it is taken for being natural, see "Symbolic Violence and Social Reproduction" and "Uses of Language" in, Jenkins, Richard, Pierre Bourdieu, Routledge, 1992, pp.103-110 and pp.152-162 respectively. The volunteer project's founding director was Frank Ostaseski, who served until 2004. At the time of the purchase, Baker claimed he needed so expensive a car because of the amount of driving he did. 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. This is a person without a defect, showing no self-interest, desire, interior calculation, or a shortcoming. Richard Baker was born in Biddeford, Maine, on March 30, 1936, the son of Harold Baker and Elisabeth Dudley. On the corner of Page and Laguna Streets in San Francisco, diagonally across from San Francisco Zen Center, is a corner building with a series of murals that wrap around the boarded-over windows. And as complete neophytes in Buddhism, they were apt to believe most anything a teacher said: The Americans had no competing knowledge, no critical faculties, no grounds to challenge the teacher, no fixed point on which to stand. Baker wrote an introduction to Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, an edited collection of Suzuki's talks, in which Baker said (p.17), "During the Second World War he [Suzuki] was the leader of a pacifist group in Japan." This recommended class series offers listeners an overview of the fundamentals of Buddhism and Zen. There are some good, and unavoidable, reasons for Americans dependence on Japanese roshis (and, more recently, as Americans have become interested in Tibetan Buddhism, for their dependence on foreign teachers like the Dalai Lama). 13 reviews of San Francisco Zen Center "This place is really awesome! Anderson remembered stowing the revolver away in the San Francisco Zen Center's garage and quickly retrieved it. Soon these Westerners participated in regular services, and new non-Asian students came to outnumber the Japanese-American congregation. He was doing what Japanese roshis are supposed to do, what they have done for centuries. He was a very traditional Rinzai master: stern when he needed to be, very rarely encouraging. [6] Baker was instrumental in orchestrating the acquisition of Tassajara, raising $150,000 for the purchase in a short period of time. What unites the several panels is a stream of monarch butterflies, often seen in spring at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, one of SFZC's three temples. And that very presentation is the freight of the Zen machine. 4.5. Spiritual attainment, insight into timeless truth(s) or any other profound changes in one's inner life play virtually no part in the majority of these Dharma transmissions or in the every day functions of these roshis. The Examiner reports that Preston has wants to use the mostly vacant 555 Fulton as . These recordings of zazen instruction feature a variety of teachers offering an introduction to meditation. Finally, as Suzuki apologized to Baker for what he was going to do to him, i.e., give him and only him Dharma transmission, Suzuki knew that all was not right or ripe or both with Baker. It all came tumbling down in a 1983 event known in Zen Center circles as "the Apocalypse." It was a spiritual scandal starring the usual suspects -- sex, money and the abuse of religious. See Alan Cole, "It's All in the Framing." Original Dwelling Place by Robert Aitken book review by Robert Goss buy this book now In the 1960's and 70's, San Francisco Zen Center students, like most other Zen students in the U.S.A., thoroughly accepted (among a range of glaring historical inaccuracies) the idealistic Zen rhetoric, including the notion that Dharma transmission is only about spiritual attainment, that all roshis are essentially equal, and that Zen institutions in East Asia are apolitical and divorced from the state. In the 1960s, four major Zen teachers came to the United States from Japan: Shunryu Suzuki, Taizan Maezumi, Joshu Sasaki, and Eido Shimano. 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. It was high. Foulk disagrees with this view. I believe the trouble at the San Francisco Zen Center, and at many other prominent Zen Centers, across the country to this day, is caused by a lack of understanding as to how the ideas of Dharma transmission, unbroken lineage, and Zen master have been used historically. In fact, a number of older students who had known Baker for years left the Zen Center when he was installed as both abbot and roshi of SFZC. The Zen master is a role that stands as a representative of the entire Zen institution. Hence, questioning and dissent became a shortcoming of the person expressing such a view. After six months, he returned to his position. This ancient twisted karma I now fully avow. . [The teacher] had been in a Zen monastery for a year in Japan. It is noted that after 1983 the study of sutras, Zen texts and history was instituted. Reviewed July 20, 2014 . Also see, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, Trans.and Ed. 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. 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. The first is grounded in something tangible, concrete, observable: the soldier with his gun, or the scientist with her laboratory results. Despite this, few people interviewed seemed to be aware that by continually repeating the transmission story without reflection and without making the effort to understand what they were part of, they were in fact becoming an integral component in the creation of a new myth-which was then used by people like Richard Baker. [10], In 1970, Suzuki gave Dharma transmission to Richard Baker, his only American Dharma Heir and chosen successor at SFZC. Suzuki surely knew that his fellow Japanese Soto roshi and priests would hardly accept Americans as examples for the reform of Zen, especially in Japan. To this end, Zen Center is engaged in numerous social and ecological initiatives. 2 Thank Kelly S . In the future, his name will be used as proof of authenticity for someone else that is also claiming this authentic connection to the Buddha. [9] In the midst of the growth, Baker became a popular public figure. This relationship between the public and private was easily translated to the needs of the San Francisco Zen Center, with meditation halls and public spaces on the lower levels, and residential areas for practicing students on the upper floors. University of Michigan, 1987. Under Baker's leadership, it appears that the Center functioned as a dysfunctional family, denying that anything was wrong or problematic. 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. Ask Kelly S about San Francisco Zen Center. Americans needed somebody to teach them the rituals. But in truth, neither Suzuki nor Baker fit the saintly mold. Many women and others in the Zen community have suffered as a result, and we regret and apologize for our collective failure to stop this harm. What was or was not implied in Baker's transmission from Suzuki? [35] Upon his final visit he found the body no longer there, and a fellow priest in whom he had confided showed him a newspaper article covering the apparent suicide. 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. In time Suzuki, Baker, Hoitsu, and Unknown will blend into that "history" of immaculate patriarchs. It seems that Zen's emphasis on wisdom, while giving compassion only lip service, is really about power. [5], In 1983 Tenshin Reb Anderson received shiho (Dharma Transmission) from Richard Baker. Introduction Mark Oppenheimer hosts the podcast Unorthodox for Tablet magazine and writes for The New York Times Magazine, Mother Jones, and GQ, among other publications. "[33], In the 1980s Baker ordained Issan Dorsey as a priest. Institutional and personal motives played an important part in the composing of Buddhist biographical collections; this was especially so in earl Chan lineage texts. In this sect, Dharma transmission is commonly a father-son transmission ritual culminating in the son's inheritance of the family temple. Months later Suzukiwith the help of his American studentspurchased the current (and larger) City Center building, located on 300 Page Street. [10] The Residence combined residential rooms that could house 70 women on the upper floors, with public spaces for spiritual, recreational, and educational uses on the ground floor and basement. In addition, as there are other practitioners around the teacher, it is helpful to be part of a community of fellow practitioners. A descendant of Thomas Dudley,[4] Baker was raised in a family of moderate wealth. One student stated it as, "The one thing that seemed unquestionable was Richard's Transmission." He reported being mugged at knifepoint by a man just a block away from the San Francisco Zen Center at 300 Page Street. Why do we need to rehash this one again? Zen priest Mel Weitsman served with Anderson as a co-abbot during the remainder of his term, and the tradition of two sitting Abbots continued for the next few decades. Join the San Francisco Zen Center Membership Program. In the West in general, but particularly in America, we place great importance on each person's individuality and uniqueness and hence on our personal experience. A monastery and retreat center in a remote mountain valley in the Ventana Wilderness SFZC Online Resources for beginners, zazen (meditation) and chanting, Dharma talks, live online practice sessions with teachers, as well as classes and workshops from our Online Programs. He was 67 years old. [7] Thich Nhat Hanh wrote of Baker, "To me, he embodies very much the future of Buddhism in the West with his creative intelligence and his aliveness. A good part of the goal of Buddhism is to reduce illusion and suffering. It is a performance meant to confirm and display the current master's significance, authority and attainment. After six months, he returned to his position. Steve Hagen. Yet, I have found that within the Zen community there is little self-examination about Zen as an institution and its self-definitions and what the effects of these are in the world of flesh and blood people. Foulk, T. Griffith, "The Zen Institute in Modern Japan", pp.157-177. For a peek into a period only shortly before our own, we can use Brian Victoria's book Zen At War. defending Deshimaru's teacher Sawaki roshi's wartime involvement dating from 1905 through WWII is available on the internet at, http://www.zen-azi.org/html/guerre_e.html#replybyb. With this view in place, the entire spectrum of permissible thought is now caught and limited within Zen's mythological presentation, which was a completed creation by the eleventh century in China. The deal I cut with him, Kelly told me, was that he stop sleeping with Western women and only sleep with Japanese women, because they dont tell.. Neither business is operative today. Their sins are far worse than what goes on in Zen circles. The number of practitioners at SFZC grew rapidly in the mid-sixties. In Zen Buddhism, the story of Eido Shimanos abuse of power is so commonplace as to be banal, a clich. The idea of the enlightened Zen master authenticated through the ritual of dharma transmission and maintained by an unbroken lineage going back to the historical Buddha is at the heart of the Zen tradition. Perhaps the biggest change is that the two current co-abbotts are women. Reviewed December 27, 2012 . 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 also accounts of people receiving transmission from masters who were dead by the time the supposed transmission took place. This dissertation also asks whether the Chan sect existed at all as a separate and distinct sect in the Tang dynasty, the supposed "golden age of Chan"). 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. They believed their way of living and of practicing Zen was the best alternative available in America. It has three practice places which offer daily meditation, regular monastic retreats and practice periods, classes, lectures and workshops throughout the Bay Area. San Francisco Zen Center (SFZC), is a network of affiliated St Zen practice and retreat centers in the San Francisco Bay area, comprising City Center or Beginner's Mind Temple, Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, and Green Gulch Farm Zen Center. Did it not occur to him that Richard had a family, too, as did many of the priests of Zen Center?" But for the [Zen Studies Society,] my gullibility, spiritual gullibilityI didnt realize that it was a borderline cult. 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. Baker manifested his authority by giving his followers two choices: obey his words without question or be marginalized, which was tantamount to being forced to leave. Learn and Practice at San Francisco Zen Center, residential guest student practice opportunities, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility, Conflict, Complaint, and Ethical Review Processes. He then arrived in San Francisco, California in 1960beginning to sit with Shunryu Suzuki in 1961. Sanbkydan Zen and the Way of the New Religions by Robert H. Sharf It could fairly be said that what is effectively transmitted by Dharma transmission is institutional authority, rather than religious wisdom. The Zen Institution One member suggested that the Shimanos instead be given an extended sabbatical. Green Gulch An organic farm and garden in a beautiful coastal valley in Marin County Tassajara A monastery and retreat center in a remote mountain valley in the Ventana Wilderness Learn and Practice at San Francisco Zen Center SFZC Online Anybody who traveled to Japan, as many American Buddhists would, quickly learned that every monastery there had its own variations on the traditionas with any other religious practice, there is no one true form. The center received significant media coverage concerning the 1984 resignation of then abbot Zentatsu Richard Baker, who was ousted after it was alleged that he had been having an affair with the wife of a prominent Zen Center member. I am greatly indebted to the works of the following scholars, among others, whose The teacher knew all; the American knew nothing. Kobun was resident teacher at the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center until 1970. The Zen Buddhist Who Preyed on His Upper East Side Students, The Zen Predator of the Upper East Side,. This scheme was later institutionalized through the ritual of Dharma transmission. He jumps across decades, and sometimes seems to jump onto whatever thought crosses his mind. He found willing assenters, willing children eager to listen to his fairy tales. In this regard Mr. After the founding of Dharma Sangha in New Mexico, Baker met with William Irwin Thompson, the founder of the Lindisfarne Association. For a many sided view of the Zen koan see, The Koan, Ed. Furthermore, Chadwick told Victoria that when he (Chadwick) had once asked Baker himself about the basis for the claim, Baker replied that he could not remember! 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