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. Despite extraordinary personal shortcomings, Eido Shimano continued to wield spiritual authority throughout his time at the Zen Studies Society. But Downing does approach the story with an open mind, and doesn't fall into the trap of trying to portray Baker as a monster or a saint. 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. Downing has offered an excellent example in Richard Baker and the SFZC. When one member was about to leave (after the Baker scandal), rather than receiving well wishes or a word of advice from his teacher-who happened to be the new abbot after Baker, he was smugly told that he would be back in a year. Steve Hagen. In 2003 Paul Haller, who received transmission from Sojun Mel Weitsman in 1993, was installed as co-abbot with her. 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. Some of the most senior members appeared afraid to raise difficult questions with Baker perhaps for fear of losing their own privileged positions. It also spun off its business and stopped pretending that work without compensation was "spiritual practice.". He was convincing not just because of his own facility with a story, but because he found Americans who were very receptive to that story. They believed their way of living and of practicing Zen was the best alternative available in America. Bibliographical Notes But it always seemed as though the real story and the real scandal were about something else. While we remain committed to the health and safety of our residential and wider sangha, we deeply value the importance of gathering in person and sharing the Dharma in proximity with others. 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. If this was the case, it would seem that he failed this task in America. However Zen texts may define the role, Zen masters have not been fully enlightened beings beyond question. The number of practitioners at SFZC grew rapidly in the mid-sixties. One has to ask if something is not missing in Suzuki's simple prescription to "just sit?" For a most interesting examination of early Chan lineage and truth claims read from a critical textual analysis rather than reading them "for information about Truth and Practice" or about "historical claims to own truth", see Cole, Alan, "It's All in the Framing", a paper given at U.C. This article was excerpted from the new e-bookThe Zen Predator of the Upper East Side,out now. "On both a personal and a professional level, I am still dealing with the consequences of this episode. But there is another kind of authority, an opposite kind, grounded in the invisible, the faith-based, the fictional. Zen practice is not required to stay at Green Gulch, though guests are welcome to participate in zazen or any other activities. Suzuki or any other Zen master only looks this way if we avoid looking at their real life. The Board of Directors at SFZC also began election of leaders. #28 of 84 Specialty lodging in San Francisco. San Francisco Zen Center has begun to offer on-site meditation, Dharma talks, programs, classes, and other events. 4 Thank Kai C . 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. The monastery is closed to outsiders from the months of September through April, then opens to the public by reservation from May through August - offering retreats, seminars, and workshops. Soon these Westerners participated in regular services, and new non-Asian students came to outnumber the Japanese-American congregation. 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. Institutional mythology, which created a seamless picture of unbroken lineage along with pure, desireless perfection and attainment housed in the body of the master, was not questioned, and hence, remained intact. This is one reason why we are looking at his case, to see how the system works, how it has always worked. Tassajara Zen Mountain Center ("Zen Mind Temple" or Zenshinji) was the first Zen Buddhist monastery built in the United States, and the first in the world to allow co-ed practice. You can quarrel with their authority, but if the gun works, or if the experiment was well designed and conclusive, you are likely to lose the argument. Below is the information about san francisco zen center scandal . When Kelly grew frustrated with Shimanos womanizing, he made a proposition. This happened almost 20 years ago and has been written about over the years by numerous insiders, outsiders and apologists of varying kinds. And he was also just a guy, kind of like Bill Clinton was just a guy. The leadership of San Francisco Zen Center required Anderson to take a leave of absence from his position as abbot. (It should be noted that Suzuki could read English.) Ruling year info. This is not to imply that there is no value to be gained in the practice of Zen. ---Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human (1878) This ancient twisted karma I now fully avow. 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. On one visit he decided to take the revolver home with him. His American students accept this theme unquestioningly. In fact, Kapleau never received Dharma transmission in the first place, so there was nothing to rescind. 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). So it is natural to ask, why did Suzuki's and Baker's students mention this so often? Today, one could reasonably assert that of the 30 or 40 important Zen centers in the country, at least 10 have employed head teachers who have been accused of groping, propositioning, seducing, or otherwise exploiting students. Ungerleider.[26]. Zen Center Members One component of Buddhism is to recognize cause and effect. These recordings of zazen instruction feature a variety of teachers offering an introduction to meditation. However, it should be noted, that he let interviewees voice any number of inaccuracies without comment. is the head teacher at the Dharma Field Meditation and Learning Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Public opinion shows that while parishioners are, of course, disturbed by priests' abuse of children and young teens, they are more upset by the institutional cover up and denial of that behavior. In one well-known collection, the famous Grand Master Yunmen is not recorded at all. "It was a fantastic drive," he said, it was safe to drive and that he liked to keep his legs in zazen posture. David Hume said in his Of the First principles of Government (1758) that "Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few, and the implicit submission with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers." 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? 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). 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 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. 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. A descendant of Thomas Dudley,[4] Baker was raised in a family of moderate wealth. They will sit for five days or longer in the zendo before they are formally admitted into the monasterya physically daunting challenge. If Suzuki was California's Zen messiah, then Richard Baker was his Apostle Paul. (Downing's interviews showed that he did.) In this act lies the first step towards freedom." 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. Zen Center members did not think there was any thought control or propaganda necessary to escape when it came to Zen. 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. In fifteen years, the Center's annual budget increased from $6,000, to $4 million. But the Soto sect tries to have it both ways. 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." Zen is a Chinese invention roughly beginning in the seventh or eighth century of this era. 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. It simply means that a power structure has evolved that will perpetuate itself even if it means imputing "attainment" to people who don't really have it. In some ways, it was an obvious choice. 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. Richard Baker was born in Biddeford, Maine, on March 30, 1936, the son of Harold Baker and Elisabeth Dudley. Students in their early 30s, even younger, could find themselves among the senior monks at Dai Bosatsu, in a tradition that is supposed to be ungraspable even after a whole lifetime of study. He then arrived in San Francisco, California in 1960beginning to sit with Shunryu Suzuki in 1961. He reported being mugged at knifepoint by a man just a block away from the San Francisco Zen Center at 300 Page Street. Not Always So: practicing the true spirit of Zen by Shunryu Suzuki book review buy this book SteveSiesta. It was not mentioned in the interviews that Suzuki himself might be partially responsible for the ensuing trouble. In this sect, Dharma transmission is commonly a father-son transmission ritual culminating in the son's inheritance of the family temple. In fact, Suzuki's lineage, now and as long as the line survives, comes through his son Hoitsu and Baker and that unknown person. Not surprisingly, virtually 100% of the time these breaches of morality serve the pleasure and interests of the supposed enlightened one. His death came shortly after the publication of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, a collection of lectures translated into numerous languages and considered a classic of contemporary Zen literature. Foulk doubts that the Chan sect existed as a separate sect with its own monastic institutions during the Tang dynasty. Baker's case took place within a certain context, and to understand what happened it is helpful to look not only at Baker, but also at Zen institutional self-definitions and the patterns of social life they have engendered in the United States. There is nothing in the description that allows someone in the future to distinguish Suzuki, Hoitsu or any of their heirs from any of thousands of hallowed ancestors. In this regard Mr. Even newer students, who come to Zen Center and find out about these incidents, are sometimes confused and question whether I can be their teacher. Find classes, retreats, practice periods, and many more offerings in the San Francisco Zen Center calendar of events. 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. [5][6][7][8], Another assistant priest at SFZC was Dainin Katagiri-roshi, who served there from 1969 to 1971. His critics say Baker "still doesn't get it," doesn't understand the errors of his way. The Zen Institution By Kurt Wolff, Free Press Paperback, 1950 for a discussion of authority, prestige, subordination, and sociability. It is interesting to note that these beliefs persisted strongly even into the year 2000, roughly the time of Downing's interviews when there had been thirty-five years of sexual and financial scandals in the Zen community in America. Shoes Outside The Door, p.289. As is common among members of new religions, they viewed themselves as special. Foulk gives translations of two versions of the text, side by side and analyses their internal structure and contents. He writes a religion column forThe New York Timesand is on Twitter@markopp1. He writes, " The perfect disciplinary apparatus would make it possible for a single gaze to see everything constantly." 2 Thank Kelly S . According to this model, mind-to-mind transmission began with an encounter between the historical Buddha Sakyamuni and Mahakasyapa, and continued, in an unbroken lineage, through twenty-eight Indian Patriarchs. When it came to Baker's transmission from Suzuki, virtually all the students interviewed by Downing assumed that it was a "real" transmission. Classes and workshops from our Online Programs, resources for beginners, zazen (meditation) and chanting, Dharma talks, and live online practice sessions with teachers. (See Foulk, "Myth, Ritual, and Monastic Practice," listed in the notes for a fuller discussion.) From the perspective of power and control, the political and the religious spheres overlap. It may be Zen-like, but it can also be annoying. Dharma transmission has been awarded and is still awarded for many reasons besides spiritual attainment. Interestingly, one of the oldest members of Zen Center, a psychologist, did an "informal poll" of people who had been at Zen Center for more than eight years. San Francisco Zen Center SFZC Online Welcome to SFZC Online Below you'll find information about our online offerings: 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. Located atop a bumpy 10-mile (16km) road which is difficult for some vehicles to climb, Tassajara offers shuttles to and from the retreat for those inclined to forgo trying to make the trek on their own. His youngest daughter, Omi, committed suicide after spending nine years in a mental hospital; he gave Dharma transmission to his son Hoitsu, who did not study with him or even get on with him, but who inherited his temple (this is standard Soto Zen procedure); he gave, as a favor to a friend, Dharma transmission to someone he did not know or have any contact with. This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. If the past is any indication these present teachers will be referred to as honored patriarchs in the future. Members had not the slightest inkling that their view of Zen was controlled. He was perfect for me, Schnyer said. Richard Dudley Baker (born March 30, 1936) is an American Soto Zen master (or roshi), the founder and guiding teacher of Dharma Sanghawhich consists of Crestone Mountain Zen Center located in Crestone, Colorado and the Buddhistisches Studienzentrum[1] (Johanneshof) in Germany's Black Forest. [2] As the American Dharma heir to Shunryu Suzuki, Baker assumed abbotship of the San Francisco Zen Center (SFZC) shortly before Suzuki's death in 1971. The bakery was closed altogether in 1999. After failing to re-create his Zen empire in Santa Fe, N.M., he settled in Crestone, Colo., where he presides over a much smaller Zen center. Not what the holy man is but what he signifies in the eyes of those who are not holy gives him his world- historical value. Suzuki Roshi, the founder of the San Francisco Zen Center and its leader until his death in 1971, was an impressive person, sincerely loved by most all the Center's members. But there are many lesser-known yet just as randy Zen teachers. You wont find anybody within the Zen Studies Society who has tolerated this stuff from start to finish, Schnyer said. Shimanos Japanese ways suited Schnyer. But that is the way that Suzuki or Baker or any roshi is presented. Victoria describes how the most prominent roshis from all sects of Japanese Zen interpreted Zen's teachings to support the imperial and militaristic goals of Japan from the early twentieth century through the end of World War II and beyond. When Katagiri left, Tenshin Reb Anderson assumed Abbotship of the Zen Centerserving until 1995. Unfortunately, the Western Zen community has not explored the many important questions implied by Zen At War. One student said that when the senior priests were questioned about some aspects of Baker's behavior, the answer was, "Richard has Transmission." If you are new to Zazen, they have a great Saturday morning tutorial session every week. A pioneer of gourmet vegetarian cuisine in America, the restaurant's first chefs were Edward Espe Brown and Deborah Madison. If someone attempted to question some aspect of Baker's behavior, both Baker and senior disciples reminded them that Baker was the only American Dharma heir of Suzuki. For a peek into a period only shortly before our own, we can use Brian Victoria's book Zen At War. Even newer students, who come to Zen Center and find out about these incidents, are sometimes confused and question whether I can be their teacher. They weren't so much about about money (Chapter 27, if that's your cup of tea). Most people think of Zen as being iconoclastic, anti-authoritarian, simple, direct, and unattached. For example, Afable might have added that at Chobo-ji, a Zen temple in Seattle, Genki Takabayashi made passes at his female students. They have shown us clearly that much of what has been presented by the tradition as "history," is really a myth created with two purposes. A roshi is a person who has actualized that perfect freedom which is the potentiality for all human beings. Zen Mind? Koun Yamada was Yasutani roshi's Dharma heir. The Zen Master in America: Dressing the Donkey with Bells and Scarves, Holding the Lotus to the Rock: reflections on the future of the Zen sangha in the West by James Ishmael Ford 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). Please see the Covid-Related Openings and Closings Updates page as well as the Calendar. In Downing's book we see that much illusion, suffering and pain has been part of Zen in San Francisco, a situation that, unfortunately, has been repeated in most every other part of America over a thirty-five year period. During his interview with Downing, Baker Roshi explains that having a "nice car," girlfriends and going out to dinner were implementations of Suzuki Roshi's commitment to lay practice. All of this authority and potency is manifested in the rituals of the Zen master commenting on and judging the words and actions of not only their disciples, but also of anyone in the lineage going all the way back to and including, the historical Buddha. I have copies of these letters. Institutional and personal motives played an important part in the composing of Buddhist biographical collections; this was especially so in earl Chan lineage texts. The student who enters the "practice" having read a myth will expect to find the myth, and will think they have found the myth. It is interesting to keep in mind that Suzuki's lineage is alive today at the San Francisco Zen Center because of transmissions through Hoitsu. It is fashionable among practitioners in the West to consider critical thought as "un-Zen." 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. [6] One student who followed him to his new community was the priest Philip Whalen (ordained by Baker as a priest in 1973), who became tanto (head monk) of the new center. Although his salary was reportedly modest, he lived a lifestyle which many perceived as extravagant. Mission. 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. 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 By this time there had also been an abundance of scholarly writing and empirical evidence exposing much of the mythology surrounding Zen. 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. 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. In addition, the few American students of his who went to Japan came back disappointed, which upset Suzuki because he thought these students would then think less ofBuddhism. Although Baker claimed that his relationship was a love-affair which had not yet been consummated, the outcry surrounding the incident led to accusations of impropriety, including the admissions by several female members of the community that they had had affairs with Baker before or during his tenure as abbot. He was 67 years old. "[16], On September 25, 1999 in Salem, Baker married Marie Louise, daughter of Maximilian, Margrave of Baden, and grandniece of Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. 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. Sokojifounded by Hosen Isobe in 1934had been housed in a former Jewish synagogue that is now Kokoro Assisted Living. "[33], In the 1980s Baker ordained Issan Dorsey as a priest. Analysis or active use of "the discriminating mind" is frowned upon, or worse, it is viewed as a sign of having too large an ego. Baker also gives seminars at Boulder Zen Center in Boulder, Colorado twice each year, typically on the last weekends of January and April. This 1987 incident has had a damaging impact on Anderson's reputation as a teacher, since his arrest received national media coverage. 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. The senior members blindly and unquestioningly bought into Zen's mythology and Baker's transmission being above and beyond question. Established in 1962, the San Francisco Zen Center is one of the largest residential training Soto Zen Buddhist organizations outside of Asia. Had he misused confidences given to him in dokusan (a private meeting between teacher and student pertaining to the student's practice, an extremely important element in Zen training) for self-serving reasons? A good place to begin to examine the scholarly view of early Chan history and development is Foulk, T. Griffith, Myth, Ritual, and Monastic Practice in Sung Ch'an Buddhism in, Religion and Society in T'ang and Sung China, Ed by Patricia Buckley Ebrey and Peter N. Gregory, University of Hawaii Press, 1993, pp147-205. Founded in 1972 by the San Francisco Zen Center and Zentatsu Richard Baker, the site is located on 115 acres (0.47 km 2) in a valley seventeen miles (27 km) north of San Francisco [1] and offers a variety of workshops and classes throughout the year. That "something else" is what Michael Downing tries to find in "Shoes Outside the Door: Desire, Devotion and Excess at the San Francisco Zen Center. " Nor did anyone even think to view the situation through the lens of the Buddhist teachings themselves or even the particular teachings of their beloved founder Suzuki. Great Experience with Western Zen Practice. [The teacher] had been in a Zen monastery for a year in Japan. The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion, Doubleday, 1967, pp. In fact, it was often not based on spiritual attainment at all, most especially so in Japanese Soto Zen, which is the sect of Suzuki, Baker and the San Francisco Zen Center. It all came tumbling down in a 1983 event known in Zen Center circles as "the Apocalypse." 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. Also available are practice sessions with SF Zen Center teachers. Some of these students began calling their group City Center, and they incorporated in 1962 as the San Francisco Zen Center.[1][2][3][4][5]. Five years later (in 1988), roughly fifteen months after Anderson had become abbot of the San Francisco, Anderson was arrested for brandishing this same firearm in public. , Free Press Paperback, 1950 for a single gaze to see how the system works, it... His critics say Baker `` still does n't understand the errors of his way Center circles ``... Despite extraordinary personal shortcomings, Eido Shimano continued to wield spiritual authority throughout his time at the san francisco zen center scandal! From start to finish, Schnyer said Kelly grew frustrated with Shimanos womanizing, he a... An excellent example in Richard Baker was raised in a family of moderate wealth it. Is not required to stay at Green Gulch, though guests are welcome to participate zazen. 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san francisco zen center scandal