San Francisco Zen Center hosted an event Friday night at the Jewish Community Center in SF. It was a "conversation" between premier Buddhist scholar, Dr. Robert Thurman (maybe better known in some circles as Uma Thurman's dad), Zen Center president Susan O'Connell and local therapist Dr. David Bullard. The title of the event was "Embracing the Disappointments of Intimacy: How Buddhist Ideas Can Help Relationships." Sounds cool right? I think people are thirsty for these kinds of discussions. People like me, who are into this zen practice, are trying to figure out how to apply the teachings to our everyday lives. And as humans, relationships are a central, if not The central, theme in our lives. They open up and touch every emotion we have. So we need help! We want to be better to our loved ones and even better to those we don't love so much.
I'm glad I went to the talk and I could say a lot about how the discussion could have been better. To keep it short I will say I would have liked the conversation to have stayed on topic. Robert Thurman had a lot to say and often what he said was loosely related at best. At worst, you could say he hijacked the stage and went of on some rants.
But here's where my beef lay and here are some of the questions it inspired. At one point early in the evening the subject of sex came up, as often does in conversations about intimacy. This was in relation to falling in love and the tendency to get totally consumed by this other person. Dr. Thurman says he wants to share some wisdom he heard from Sasaki Roshi and goes on to casually acknowledge that he's currently being accused of some sexual "misdeeds." (I have included one link but there are many) He might have even chuckled to himself when he said it! Dr. Thurman went on to say "but he's still a great master." And continued to share some of Sasaki's teachings about sex! Including something about when people first fall in love they stay all wrapped up in the bedroom for a few days but they can't stay like that forever, and eventually someone "has to clean the sheets.' Fucking gross! (please excuse my language). It will never be okay to be casual about a spiritual leader taking advantage of his congregants. And I also feel like it will never be ok to condone "teachings" from a criminal about the very behavior they are being accused of misusing. That is just messed up and it's a head game for people who are vulnerable, seeking, and deeply exploring their own psyche.
Which leads me to the question, how messed up do you have to be to lose your "Zen Master" membership card? In the discussion of spiritual teachers gone wild, it is often mentioned that these behaviors are mistakes and these people aren't gods, they are still human beings, and they still offer some great insights that are really helpful for a lot of people. But I think we have to draw a line somewhere. Our brains are set to compartmentalize the world around us. I'm not sure it is so easy for a lot of us to separate a Zen teacher's good teachings from shitty teachings. Of course they will make mistakes, this issue will never go away, but we can do our best to protect people. Letting him slide because he was a "great master" is how this mess continued for so long in the first place.
On a, I would argue, somewhat related note. Here's a link to a hot of the press story of Justin Beiber's visit to a brothel. I do think all of this is related because it falls into "rape culture." The devaluing and sexualizing of women that is supported by many seemingly harmless things, like Dr. Robert Thurman subtly approving of Sasaki Roshi's behavior by still regarding him as a great master. How would that make his victims feel? Invalidated perhaps? And then you have celebrities like Justin Beiber and Miley Cyrus who are these extreme examples of the symptoms of a sick society. We can argue that they aren't good examples because they are not regular people but what are the kids watching every day? Justin Beiber running out of a brothel covered in a bed sheet and Miley Cyrus getting nasty with a sledgehammer on video. It all gets into the mind and shapes it, sometimes in obvious ways and sometimes less.
It's also a little funny that I was talking to someone else who was at this very same talk and they had no idea who Sasaki Roshi was and so this point totally didn't come up for them at all. I guess I was primed to jump on this small detail from the overall evening.
ReplyDeleteI agree 100%. I could write a thesis based on personal experience of the hurt and betrayal that ensues when one's teacher is revealed to be a sexual predator. Really the ultimate betrayal.
ReplyDeletezen is really self taught, sasaki may have been a predator but those women were stupid ! the world eats the vulnerable and you just have to get a bit smarter, that's all there is to it ! :o)
ReplyDeleteyou make a good point about miley cyrus and Justin beiber, miley cyrus is fairly steered by her father who seems to be only concerned with publicity at any cost which she needs of course as she is not much of a singer !!!!!!!!!
but if you are looking for coherence what do joshu sasaki, miley cyrus and Justin beiber
have in common ?
they are all charismatic individuals well on autistic spectrum with the usual issues.................... cyrus and beiber also have the fragile health of some autistic spectrum (they would also be from todays vaccine damaged generations!), signs of which you can see revealed occasionally, I think sasaki has always been a bit schizophrenic as well ! not afool tho, not called up to fight in WW2 !
If you want to join public discussions on my blog do not call sexually abused women stupid. Ever. Your psychiatric diagnoses of strangers is questionable as well but not grounds for your expulsion.
Deleteyou would benefit by researching what "autistic spectrum" is !
Deletethere wouldn't be a person not on it at green gulch !
I don't think anybody is stupid in entirety but all us certainly can be downright idiots/idiotic !
What about when gross misconduct leads to insight/wisdom? I don't want to excuse any teacher of violating power structures or preying on disciples--it is abominable--but what about confession and repentance? Could a hypothetical master seriously succumb to delusion and then heal their violent behavior through practice, taking refuge, etc? Or to be a master, to achieve that rank, do you need to be impeccable? I am genuinely asking. I struggle with this question and I think, myself, that when you're a master and are playing that part, exploiting your students is the most basic violation, and, as I said, unacceptable. Like, go back to the bottom of the class and start again. And it's a big question, too--about teachings and actions, and how they must be united because otherwise the latter discredits the former, no matter how legit the former might be on its own. But then again, do we want our teachers to be impeccable so we can wobble around wildly and know that somehow they're holding the balance? Do we need our teachers to be impeccable so we can comfort ourselves that being upright is really only for a select enlightened few? I'm digressing here, myself, and I think that Zen culture and religious culture is f-ed up around sex and sexuality and power dynamics, and that these questions will be with us forever, ours to grapple with and practice with and respond to... Will be interesting to see if or how the culture might change with more women masters.
ReplyDeleteGreat questions. I have some thoughts, no answers. I don't think teachers can be impeccable. There may be schools that think once you are enlightened you are not so human anymore and maybe your behavior is above human issues. But I don't think that is the school I fall into. In which case what do we do when humans violate other humans? In theory of course masters can learn and heal and turn. They have the same potential we all do. But it seems like there is some aspect of these guys that not only lends itself to being regarded as a master but to also having a tendency to make gross errors of judgement. Charisma of some sort. And often these same guys don't really appear to feel bad about what they did. Sasaki, Shimano, Merzel, even Richard Baker. So I think there's lots of teachers who make mistakes and betray and they step down and step back and look and process with their sanghas, therapists, teachers and then there are the "masters" who just don't seem to do that. Maybe someone can give some examples of people at master status who have.
DeleteI also don't think I really believe in this whole master thing in the first place. But I have to at least acknowledge it because others do. I can't stop Robert Thurman from calling someone a master and I have to recognize that that word will have an impact on people. I still don't know what to think about whether someone's bad behavior can discredit some of their teachings. I am pretty sure the world is full of this contradiction but my gut reaction to a highly regarded scholar calling a criminal a great master and then sharing his "teachings" was sickening. For now I sit with it all and remember Suzuki Roshi's phrase, "not always so."
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Deleteactually one thing to understand about zen in the west and japan is it is a militarist/nationalist construct created in the meiji era, so that's why you get all the behavior issues, it's implicit in the militarism ! sasaki's behavior in japan was not criticized for sexual misdemeanors (in the main) , but something more close to the human heart, embezzlement ! the military paradigm is fathering children one then abandons and looting, so he was running true to type !
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ReplyDeletewhen you exclude, you are a buddha fart and not a buddha eye !
ReplyDeleteGassho
Deletewhen you exclude, you are a buddha fart and not the buddha eye !
ReplyDelete