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. 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. By Kurt Wolff, Free Press Paperback, 1950 for a discussion of authority, prestige, subordination, and sociability. 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. Suzuki Roshi Not Always So: practicing the true spirit of Zen by Shunryu Suzuki book review buy this book Koun Yamada was Yasutani roshi's Dharma heir. 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. Baker also gives seminars at Boulder Zen Center in Boulder, Colorado twice each year, typically on the last weekends of January and April. 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 The Examiner reports that Preston has wants to use the mostly vacant 555 Fulton as . Elizabeth is married to Jason Kibbey. 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. That's what we made of it." For an outstanding article on Sanbokyodan Zen, a Zen sect important in the West see, Sharf, Robert, "Sanbokyodan, Zen and the Way of New Religions", Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, Fall 1995, Vol. I hope this is the case with this paper. 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 would have led any impartial observer to question the spiritual implications of Dharma transmission. [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. Spiritual authority is that second kind of authority. Throughout the 1980s Greens, which obtained produce from Green Gulch Farm, was one of the most popular restaurants in San Francisco. Anderson became entangled in an incident in 1987 that reached back to 1983 just after Zentatsu Richard Baker had resigned as abbot. 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. [2][6][14], A once controversial figure, Richard Baker was publicly criticized for his behavior at San Francisco Zen Center. Around 1970, he began sitting regularly with a group in Santa Cruz that went on to form the Santa Cruz Zen Center. 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. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews. 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. When Katagiri left, Tenshin Reb Anderson assumed Abbotship of the Zen Centerserving until 1995. 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. It has three practice places which offer daily meditation, regular monastic retreats and practice periods, classes, lectures and workshops throughout the Bay Area. 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. 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. 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. Surely others felt the same way, but only Schnyer and Kelly have been so bold or articulate, have made clear the amorality, and the misogyny, that can infect Zen practice and enable its malefactors. Whose Zen? 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. Despite its iconoclastic image, Zen has in actuality been a remarkably conservative institution throughout its history, almost always tied to and controlled by the state and elite elements of society. 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. [3] He has two daughters, Sally and Elizabeth, from a prior marriage to Virginia Baker. Trouble At The San Francisco Zen Center 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. This has a direct bearing on the Baker story and the way mythology continues to be constructed even in the present. People interviewed had the luxury of hindsight. Baker's introduction to Suzuki's edited words in the well known book, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind gives a description of Suzuki as the ideal of a fully realized Zen master. Bibliographical Notes 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. Our personal experience is socially constructed in dialogue with society and with ourselves. Stuart Lachs, October 2002 Learn about the latest news from affiliate sanghas with Tova's newsettes and other timely articles. 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 these students began calling their group City Center, and they incorporated in 1962 as the San Francisco Zen Center.[1][2][3][4][5]. 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. Shoes Outside The Door, p.135. It could fairly be said that what is effectively transmitted by Dharma transmission is institutional authority, rather than religious wisdom. I am thankful for Michael Downing's work, which is extremely valuable. Look, theres a certain type of person that is looking for something else in another culture, said Ed Glassing, the former resident monk at both Zen Studies Society locations, whom Shimano maligned as a homosexual. Sort of like, something they dont have, so its mysterious, exotic, its like whoa. It means, "Don't ask. It is clear that the senior members of Zen Center surrounding Baker were well-indoctrinated vessels of Zen ideology. Ask Kelly S about San Francisco Zen Center. Zen Center members did not think there was any thought control or propaganda necessary to escape when it came to Zen. San Francisco Zen Center practitioners did make a serious commitment to their practice. Mission. One has to ask if something is not missing in Suzuki's simple prescription to "just sit?" #28 of 84 Specialty lodging in San Francisco. Foulk gives translations of two versions of the text, side by side and analyses their internal structure and contents. 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. Was he perhaps not a fully realized person? Zen Nationalism Revisited by Robert H. Sharf 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. ", Read more about this topic: San Francisco Zen Center, Problems, laws havent the slightest interest for meexcept in the world of science, in which they are always changing; or in the world of art, in which they are unchanging; or in the world of Being in which they are, for the most part, unknown.Margaret Anderson (18861973), One does not arrest Voltaire.Charles De Gaulle (18901970). 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. The number of practitioners at SFZC grew rapidly in the mid-sixties. Is it any wonder that the inevitable abuses that we have seen for the last thirty years should follow? It is mentioned often enough that Downing, interestingly calculates the hours that individual senior members had meditated. Baker's friends and supporters say the Zen Center never regained the spark and spiritual power of the Suzuki/Baker years. Explore hundreds of dharma talksby San Francisco Zen Center teachers, practice leaders, and speakers from the wider community. In addition, as there are other practitioners around the teacher, it is helpful to be part of a community of fellow practitioners. It matters that we keep assenting to the stories. Anderson remembered stowing the revolver away in the San Francisco Zen Center's garage and quickly retrieved it. 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. Although his salary was reportedly modest, he lived a lifestyle which many perceived as extravagant. This is a convenient and economical way to stay in the city while experiencing life in a Zen Buddhist temple and enjoying the serene elegance of a building designed by Julia Morgan. 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. 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. It was high. This new Buddha is also alive and homegrown and hence more immediate and real. Baker Sums It Up Remember the senior student who quoted Suzuki as saying, " Dick's commitment is at another level, so the rest of us simply were not in a position to criticize him." 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." This 1987 incident has had a damaging impact on Anderson's reputation as a teacher, since his arrest received national media coverage. Was his lifestyle less than exemplary? 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 Zen elevates its leaders to super-human status, then emphasizes that we should be obedient and subservient to a powerful and supremely accomplished authority figure, precisely because he is powerful and supremely accomplished. The leadership of San Francisco Zen Center required Anderson to take a leave of absence from his position as abbot. San Francisco Zen Center students and other students throughout history were also one cause of the problem. After a major fundraising effort led by Baker, Zen Center purchased the landwhich contained a rundown resort and mineral springs in 1967. In short, the biographical approach to history seems to be used because it has intimate real-life immediacy. I suspect I probably said something like that, Schnyer said. Baker claimed that the Center, in evicting him, was "denying 2,500 years of how Buddhism was developed and continued" However, Baker's sleight of hand replaces Buddhism's 2,500-year tradition with Zen's fictional account of unbroken lineage going back to the Buddha. Obedience, subservience, and discipline were well rewarded at a large institution like the San Francisco Zen Center, as Downing's book amply shows. Over the past 10 years, San Francisco Zen Center has devoted time and energy to studying the best practices around conflict resolution, difficult conversations, sexual harassment prevention, appropriate teacher/student boundaries, giving and receiving feedback, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, working with trauma, and Right Use of Power trainings. Anderson succeeded him as abbot, and later co-abbot. Branching Streams is a network of affiliate Dharma centers and Sanghas in the Zen lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. Before Victoria's book was published these people, many who were influential in bringing Zen to the west, were routinely presented as flawless examples of Zen attainment. It was considered "real" because it came from the saintly Suzuki and Suzuki made a point of saying it was "real." Their sins are far worse than what goes on in Zen circles. Downing quotes a prominent older student who expressed it differently, "Dick tried to take over Zen Center again." [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. . On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. On one visit he decided to take the revolver home with him. Seeing Through Zen by by John R. McRae book reviews buy this book, Coming Down from the Zen Clouds: A Critique of the Current State of American Zen, Means of Authorization: Establishing Hierarchy in Ch'an/Zen Buddhism in America, 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, Sanbkydan Zen and the Way of the New Religions, Finding Safe Harbor: Buddhist Sexual Ethics in America, Shoes Outside the Door: Desire, Devotion, and Excess at San Francisco Zen Center, Crooked Cucumber: The Life and Teachings of Shunryu Suzuki, Not Always So: practicing the true spirit of Zen by Shunryu Suzuki. The stories serious commitment to their practice, Sally and Elizabeth, from a prior marriage to Virginia Baker problem. There was any thought san francisco zen center scandal or propaganda necessary to escape when it came to Zen quotes. 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