[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. He was joined by his wife Mitsu (also from Japan) in 1961. That made him the successor and dharma heir to Shunryu Suzuki, a Japanese Zen missionary who came to California in 1959 to serve immigrant families living in Japantown. For example, Afable might have added that at Chobo-ji, a Zen temple in Seattle, Genki Takabayashi made passes at his female students. Explore hundreds of dharma talksby San Francisco Zen Center teachers, practice leaders, and speakers from the wider community. They will sit for five days or longer in the zendo before they are formally admitted into the monasterya physically daunting challenge. There is a saying, "It is difficult to convince a man of something if his paycheck depends on his not understanding it." 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. This 1987 incident has had a damaging impact on Anderson's reputation as a teacher, since his arrest received national media coverage. It matters that we keep assenting to the stories. Under the Zen approach, the Chan masters are clearly more potent than the monastics of other Buddhist sects, who merely explicate the Dharma through texts, often texts that are further distanced from their authoritative origins by the act of translation. The leadership of San Francisco Zen Center required Anderson to take a leave of absence from his position as abbot. It was like a "game" of Zen where if any one speaks out or asks the wrong question, the "game" is ruined or finished, at least for that person. 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. 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. The Zen understanding of wisdom imputes Foucault's "single gaze to see everything constantly" to the Master. He also grabbed the land for Green Gulch farm and retreat center, located in a spectacular valley near Muir Beach. One justification sometimes heard, glib to my ear, is that enlightenment is not about morality. Please consider a donation to San Francisco Zen Center. San Francisco is not mentioned in Newsom's plans, but Supervisor Dean Preston has proposed a similar action. 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. But there is another kind of authority, an opposite kind, grounded in the invisible, the faith-based, the fictional. 22, no.3-4. Introduction is the head teacher at the Dharma Field Meditation and Learning Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. For an earlier view of the immediate events surrounding Baker, see Butler, Katy, "Events Are The Teachers", The CoEvolution Quarterly, winter 1983, pp.112-123. After all, the only two previous Dharma transmissions Suzuki gave, to his son Hoitsu and to Unknown, were not based on attainment at all. A gem! The latter choice was too painful for many for any number of reasons, including: 1) many believed that the Center was the best place to practice Zen and so leaving meant giving up what made life seem most meaningful, 2) their self-identities as Zen practitioners were connected to the Center, 3) loyalty to Suzuki Roshi, 4) leaving close friendships established through communal living and especially through practicing meditation together, 5) loving the lifestyle and 6) fear of losing one's position in the hierarchy and the possibility for future higher positions culminating in being Dharma transmitted oneself. Branching Streams is a network of affiliate Dharma centers and Sanghas in the Zen lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. 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. Throughout the 1980s Greens, which obtained produce from Green Gulch Farm, was one of the most popular restaurants in San Francisco. Trouble At The San Francisco Zen Center It acquired property worth around $20 million and built up a network of affiliated businesses staffed by Zen Center students, which included the vegetarian Greens Restaurant in Fort Mason, a bakery, and a grocery store. [7], Baker received Dharma transmission from Suzuki in 1970,[2] and then was installed as abbot of San Francisco Zen Center during the "Mountain Seat Ceremony" on November 21, 1971. The issue here is not how individual students behave foolishly or even in a self-serving way, it is the admonition to "just sit" - even for twenty thousand hours - is no guarantee against foolishness or delusion. [1] San Francisco Zen Center's web site now comments: "Although the circumstances leading to his resignation as abbot in 1984 were difficult and complex, in recent years, there has been increased contact; a renewal of friendship and dharma relations. An interesting debate between Victoria and members of the Deshimaru group (A.Z.I.) [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. 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. 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. 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. Baker Sums It Up After six months, he returned to his position. Was he hypocritical for reprimanding his students for flirting while he carried on numerous affairs with his female students, including one that ruptured his best friend's marriage? [9], Although Baker claimed that his relationship with the woman was a love-affair which had not yet been consummated, the outcry surrounding the incident led to a series of accusations of impropriety on Baker's part, including the admissions by several female members of the community that they had had affairs with Baker before or during his tenure as abbot. He convinced the American Zen community that he was, in effect, the Second Coming of Suzukibut even better, because he was here to stay. To legitimize the various family lines within Zen, Zen's self-definition necessitates establishing a continuing unbroken lineage of transmitted masters connected to the historical Buddha. It is possible that Suzuki had a paternal attachment to Baker. Zen ascribes to Pai-chang (died 814) its earliest monastic code that supposedly set Chan apart as a separate sect in the Tang dynasty. One of the most interesting aspects of the Baker case is that the people at the SFZC did not change their fundamental understanding of the process they had gone through for, in some cases, twenty or more years. "On both a personal and a professional level, I am still dealing with the consequences of this episode. But the percentage of the Zen clergy implicated in sexual misdeeds is many times greater than that of the Catholic clergy. He reported being mugged at knifepoint by a man just a block away from the San Francisco Zen Center at 300 Page Street. This is a very interesting piece of "history" which is no doubt destined to be repeated. It did not matter that Baker did not appear to offer his students the "living proof that the seemingly impossible goal [of Zen] can be realized in this lifetime" as Baker himself described the function of the teacher. Yet Baker certainly knew that, at best, few if any roshi are so fully realized. What passes for "knowledge" in society is built on the foundation of language. 2002: 8-11. So why did none of Baker's students, as expressed in their interviews with Downing, show any awareness that institutional self-definition encouraged their idealization of Baker, which allowed, perhaps even fostered, the occurrence of many of the alleged abuses? Finding Safe Harbor: Buddhist Sexual Ethics in America by Stephanie Kaza, Shoes Outside the Door: Desire, Devotion, and Excess at San Francisco Zen Center by Michael Downing: book review by Vladimir K. buy this book It was a spiritual scandal starring the usual suspects -- sex, money and the abuse of religious authority. [20] Zen Hospice Project provides hospice care for individuals of any or no religion who are looking for a compassionate end to their life. Richard Baker was 36 years old when he was installed as abbott of the San Francisco Zen Center in 1971. "If you scratch under the bitterness, there's a lot of beauty there," says Norman Fischer, abbott of the Zen Center from 1995 to 2000. I feel sorry for anybody who's bitter. [2][6][14], A once controversial figure, Richard Baker was publicly criticized for his behavior at San Francisco Zen Center. One student said that when the senior priests were questioned about some aspects of Baker's behavior, the answer was, "Richard has Transmission." 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. It allows us a much closer look than we get through, say, looking at the many biographies of past masters from Chan in China during the Tang dynasty (CE 618-907). He is now a professor of psychology at the University of Texas, and in December 2012 I spoke with him by telephone. This is the consistent view of the master presented by Zen, the pure, simple, desireless and self-contained roshi, and was accepted unquestioningly by Zen Center members. He was doing what Japanese roshis are supposed to do, what they have done for centuries. Ask Kai C about San Francisco Zen Center. 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. 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. In fifteen years, the Center's annual budget increased from $6,000, to $4 million. The meeting, which Zournas had hoped would mark the end of Shimanos tenure, turned out to be another show of support. 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. In America, it is common in Zen and other communities led by a charismatic teacher to view events that could generate questions such as these not as real life-problems, but as "skillful means" employed to convey the essence of "the teaching." Suzuki or any other Zen master only looks this way if we avoid looking at their real life. Religion occupies a distinctive place in this enterprise." The bakery was closed altogether in 1999. This was likely prompted by a conversation between Robert Baker Aitken and Baker at San Francisco Zen Center concerning the question of Zen's availability to interested gays, for Dorsey went on to become abbot of the Hartford Street Zen Center. On one visit he decided to take the revolver home with him. Shimanos Japanese ways suited Schnyer. Although his salary was reportedly modest, he lived a lifestyle which many perceived as extravagant. SFZC will continue to offer classes, talks, workshops, and sangha gatherings through the Online Practice Center and residential guest student practice opportunities at all three temples. Was he perhaps not a fully realized person? In July 1987 Baker gave Dharma transmission to Whalen; Whalen later became abbot of the Hartford Street Zen Center (following the tenure of Issan Dorsey) in the Castro district of San Francisco. But Shimano is hardly alone; his is not an isolated case. The bakery supplied Greens Restaurant and some local grocers.[16]. People interviewed had the luxury of hindsight. Suzuki had asked Baker to locate a farm in the area for entire families to live a Buddhist life while working together. 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. Having wisdom, in the Zen view, is based on Dharma transmission, which implies that the person is an enlightened being. He found willing assenters, willing children eager to listen to his fairy tales. Desire, Devotion, and Excess at the San Francisco Zen Center. For students of the San Francisco Zen Center, one of America's oldest and most prestigious Buddhist institutions, the world has already ended. 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. In addition, as there are other practitioners around the teacher, it is helpful to be part of a community of fellow practitioners. [3] He has two daughters, Sally and Elizabeth, from a prior marriage to Virginia Baker. For Suzuki Roshi's edited words see the well-known Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, Weatherhill, 1970. Zen Mind? Kai C. Half Moon Bay, California. 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.[36]. When Kelly grew frustrated with Shimanos womanizing, he made a proposition. Also available are practice sessions with SF Zen Center teachers. But during the 1960s, Suzuki attracted an eager flock of meditating Westerners, including Baker, who showed up in 1962 and was soon singled out as a possible successor. I took a course at Rochester, an overview of Eastern religion and Confucianism. It is clear that the senior members of Zen Center surrounding Baker were well-indoctrinated vessels of Zen ideology. What was or was not implied in Baker's transmission from Suzuki? This reminder served an important purpose: the Center's members viewed Suzuki's authority as if it were a divine fiat, so that any dissent or criticism was ended. I dont know, he said. The sangha was incorporated by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi and a group of his American students in 1962. But there are many lesser-known yet just as randy Zen teachers. The only one of the four whose reputation was unblemished, Shunryu Suzuki of the San Francisco Zen Center, gave his sangha over to a man named Richard Baker, who was later embroiled in a sex scandal of his own, resigned from his abbacy, and became the subject of a book with the appropriately suggestive title Shoes Outside the Door. I have been involved with Zen in America for over thirty years during which time there have been many upheavals and problems, some similar to the Baker case described in Michael Downing's, Shoes Outside The Door, others more subtle and less obvious in nature. Like whoa, and when you start the practice, the practice I feel isits very profound. Shimano was not the bad guy; rather, those who made too much noise, who refused to go quietly, and thus disturbed Schnyers and others Zen practice, were the blameworthy ones. The student who enters the "practice" having read a myth will expect to find the myth, and will think they have found the myth. What they really found is another story of flawed human behavior. [2] From 1968 to 1971, he traveled to Japan to practice at the primary St monasteries there, including Antaiji, Eiheiji, and Daitokuji. On one visit he decided to take the revolver home with him. Above all, we agree to the stories that prop up constitutions or money. If some one would like copies, please email me at: slachs@worldnet.att.net . In fact, Suzuki's lineage, now and as long as the line survives, comes through his son Hoitsu and Baker and that unknown person. This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Ironically, one may ask, is that what Suzuki hoped to reform? 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. It is fashionable among practitioners in the West to consider critical thought as "un-Zen." In 1995 Zoketsu Norman Fischer was installed as Abbot at SFZC, and in 1996 Zenkai Blanche Hartman was appointed as co-Abbot with him (becoming the first female Abbot in SFZC history). But, given that no one interviewed in the book expressed any view outside of the standard Zen model, one may ask, was the Zen history taught at the Zen Center just more of Zen legend? A number of Downing's interviewees spoke of receiving the true or pure Zen teaching from Suzuki Roshi. Suzuki's prestige grew enormously. Spiritual authority is that second kind of authority. The leadership of San Francisco Zen Center required Anderson to take a leave of absence from his position as abbot. Stuart Lachs, October 2002 Until one begins to view religious institutions as institutions that function in a particular context, subject to the same problematic power relationships as secular institutions, problems such as those that arose at the San Francisco Zen Center and Buddhist organizations across the West will be almost inevitable. Andy Afable, one of Shimanos former head monks, called these four the major missionaries of Zen, as they had all received transmission from leading Japanese teachers: That is, they had been deemed worthy to be the heirs, to be responsible for the persistence of the teachings. Is it any wonder that the inevitable abuses that we have seen for the last thirty years should follow? Zen Nationalism Revisited by Robert H. Sharf And stayed for 10 years.. The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion, Doubleday, 1967, pp. This was especially true of people wanting to climb Zen Center's ladder to positions of authority, power, and prestige, which was totally dependent on Baker's sanction. While jogging through Golden Gate Park, Anderson deviated from the path to urinate in some bushes. One of Shimanos greatest advantages has been that he is Japanese. And the teachings in it. Downing quotes a prominent older student who expressed it differently, "Dick tried to take over Zen Center again." 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. , practice leaders, and Excess at the University of Texas, and when start. $ 6,000, to $ 4 million Center 's annual budget increased $. 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