Shoes Outside The Door, p.237. Cole, who teaches at Lewis and Clark College, also has two very provocative books soon to be published, one on the Mahayana sutras and the other on early Chan texts and the "birth" of Chinese Buddhas. It is no longer ruled by an almighty abbott-for- life, but abbotts with term limits. He attended Harvard University, where he studied architecture and history. A gem! 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. His critics say Baker "still doesn't get it," doesn't understand the errors of his way. There was a widespread conceit in their thinking that they were the center or "cutting edge" of Zen in America, not cognizant that many other Zen groups were forming city/country Centers and also experimenting with the ideas of setting up monasteries, group practice, communal living and forming a sangha. Ask Kai C about San Francisco Zen Center. Even though the bureaucratic "transmissions" in the Soto church have nothing to do with spiritual insight, the Soto institution does nothing to dissuade people thinking that there is a mind-to-mind connection between its "roshis" and the historical Buddha. And three of the four, Afable noted when we spoke, have caused major public sex scandals: first Maezumi, and more recently Shimano and Sasaki. These recordings of zazen instruction feature a variety of teachers offering an introduction to meditation. Under the Zen form of legitimization, each Zen roshi is viewed as a saint. Religion occupies a distinctive place in this enterprise." Despite the controversy connected with his resignation, Baker was instrumental in helping the San Francisco Zen Center to become one of the most successful Zen institutions in the United States. 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. This formulaic collection of qualities of a Zen master, is not neutral. The number of practitioners at SFZC grew rapidly in the mid-sixties. I took a course at Rochester, an overview of Eastern religion and Confucianism. He may have slept with dozens; I personally have identified over a dozen, and spoken to many of them. 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"). Bibliographical Notes Writings featured as biography in Zen are most often an idealized presentation of how a master should perform his role rather than the life of a real person. ", Lachs, Stuart: This group is by far the largest Zen group in France and is active in the U.S.A. as well as in other parts of Europe. Richard Baker was born in Biddeford, Maine, on March 30, 1936, the son of Harold Baker and Elisabeth Dudley. For an important look at Buddhist biography and hagiography though not especially Chan, the reader may look at Kieschnick, John, The Eminent Monk, University of Hawaii Press, 1997. In fact, Suzuki's lineage, now and as long as the line survives, comes through his son Hoitsu and Baker and that unknown person. They also have a lot of other awesome Saturday morning programs for zen noobs (znoobs!!). "Hollow" transmissions such as those between father and son are incorporated into the unbroken lineage to the Buddha. San Francisco is not mentioned in Newsom's plans, but Supervisor Dean Preston has proposed a similar action. The focus itself is on the master. "It is, basically, a description of a number of monastic procedures implicitly attributed to Pai-chang, set in a quasi-historical context, and presented with the authors own explanation and laudatory remarks. Ask Kelly S about San Francisco Zen Center. 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. [2][6][14], A once controversial figure, Richard Baker was publicly criticized for his behavior at San Francisco Zen Center. We see in Downing's book that it is precisely the idealized notion of Dharma transmission that pre-empted anything that Zen Center members saw for themselves when viewing Baker, their Dharma-transmitted leader, at least prior to the rupture in 1983. Perhaps tellingly, Baker made this claim at the height of the Vietnam War, when virtually 100% of Zen followers were opposed to the war and hence having an anti-war/anti -government roshi in his lineage was good currency. The Zen Institution But that is the way that Suzuki or Baker or any roshi is presented. I too was a member of a Zen center where we also felt that our group and style of practice were in some ways unique. The implications of this authority in some ways far outstrip that bestowed upon the highest secular authorities, since there is the implication that the Zen master is enlightened, a fully attained being. Right now, Manhattans Zen Studies Society, perhaps the most prestigious Zen Buddhist center in the United States, is being torn apart by lawsuits, backstabbing, and infighting. 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. By saying this, he was emphasizing his guarantee that the essence of the Zen lineage resides in Baker. The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion, Doubleday, 1967, pp. This new Buddha is also alive and homegrown and hence more immediate and real. I see how my empowerment to protect and care for the Triple Treasure inflated my sense of personal authority, and thus detracted from and disparaged the Triple Treasure. In the end, both teacher and student fall prey to these fantasies. Some people felt that I had committed an irrevocable betrayal of trust, and have discounted me and my teaching ever since. Zen Center Members Crooked Cucumber: The Life and Teachings of Shunryu Suzuki: this link will take you to the website buy this book now I finished high school early, and at 17 I went to college, Schnyer said. The flow of his consciousness is not the fixed repetitive patterns of our usual self-centered consciousness, but rather arises spontaneously and naturally from the actual circumstances of the present. 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. Even when Dharma transmission does reflect some level of something we may call spiritual attainment, it is not based on the idealized version proffered by the Zen institution: a mystical meeting of minds between teacher and disciple sharing a timeless truth that unvaryingly matches the minds of all teachers going back in the lineage, through the six Chan Patriarchs in China, and the twenty eight generations of the supposed Indian lineage going back to the historical Buddha, and beyond. He jumps across decades, and sometimes seems to jump onto whatever thought crosses his mind. At the time, Schnyer was just 24 years old, yet he had been a Shimano student since he was a teenager. These events are a helpful reminderboth to me and to othersof my vulnerability to arrogance and inflation. It was more about power, about finding another way to govern and manage an operation that was never sure if it was a California commune, a Japanese monastery or a New Age business. When it came to Baker's transmission from Suzuki, virtually all the students interviewed by Downing assumed that it was a "real" transmission. It was not surprising, then, that when trouble arose at the Center it was mostly assumed that something must be wrong with the members themselves; that it was because they did not use or handle well Suzuki's pure teaching. Also see his forthcoming book on early Chan texts for a unique dissection of early lineage claims and their supporting texts . Another error is seen in the statement that Yasutani roshi rescinded the Dharma transmission he gave to Philip Kapleau. There appeared to be a vast cultural divide between the Zen Center students of Suzuki and Japanese Zen monks that showed itself both in America and in Japan. For Suzuki Roshi's edited words see the well-known Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, Weatherhill, 1970. However Zen texts may define the role, Zen masters have not been fully enlightened beings beyond question. Downing adds, "Suzuki reminded Richard [Baker] that Hoitsu had a family and two children. Suzuki Roshi One of the greatest reasons that Shimano could sleep with so many women is that it bothered the men so little. The question is: How do so many Zen Buddhist teachers get away with it, and for so long? He was what I needed. 1969 - Suzuki was asked to resign as priest at Sokoji by the temple's board of directors because he was spending more time with his Western students than the Japanese-American congregation. The Zen master is a role that stands as a representative of the entire Zen institution. And then I went back and basically never left. Because the newcomers' indoctrination into Zen ideology was incomplete, their unfortunate reliance on common sense prevented them from viewing Baker's eccentricities as qualities of an enlightened Zen master. For an in-depth look at three special projects happening at SFZC, check out our new Impact Report. With one or two exceptions, the only views expressed of Baker's errant behavior among the Center's members was in the context of their personal experience. 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. 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. Alan Sherman, Vintage Books, 1995 (reprint edition), 1995, pp.170-195 discusses a number of aspects of the penal system, its disciplinary power and the simple instruments from which it derives its power: hierarchical observation, normalizing judgment, and their combination-the examination. It is because one was wrong about him, because one misinterpreted the states of his soul and drew as sharp a line as is possible between oneself and him, as if he were something utterly incomparable and strangely superhuman-that he gained that extraordinary power with which he could dominate the imagination of whole peoples and ages. In 1966, Suzuki and Baker scouted Tassajara Hot Springs, located in Los Padres National Forest behind Big Sur, as a possible location for the envisioned monastic center. Zen is a Chinese invention roughly beginning in the seventh or eighth century of this era. Zen Center Members Michael Downing's book, Shoes Outside the Door: Desire, Devotion, and Excess at San Francisco Zen Center (2001) describes much of the sexual scandal surrounding Richard Baker, as well as financial problems and Baker's generally arrogant behavior. Whose Zen? He reported being mugged at knifepoint by a man just a block away from the San Francisco Zen Center at 300 Page Street. 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