Baker presided over it all like a feudal lord, hosting dinner parties with then-Gov. Neither business is operative today. In the last few decades as opposed to the past, we have had a clear personal view of the actual people involved, Richard Baker being only one. 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. I feel sorry for anybody who's bitter. Kwong's transmission was later completed by Suzuki's son, Hoitsu.[1][11][12]. At that time, Baker also became the official leader of the San Francisco Zen Center (SFZC). 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. This has a direct bearing on the Baker story and the way mythology continues to be constructed even in the present. 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. Suzuki indeed had ordinary and even tragic circumstances in his life, as is shown in Downing's book, who references David Chadwick's book, Crooked Cucumber, for the following details. Interestingly, the later versions of the supposed events often have more detail than the earlier versions, implying that we are dealing with literary creations rather than historical biography. Above all, we agree to the stories that prop up constitutions or money. Baker then quotes Trudy Dixon, the editor of the book, thus endorsing her words: It is fashionable among practitioners in the West to consider critical thought as "un-Zen." 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. Whose Zen? Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, shortly before his death in December 1971, gave him Dharma transmission in the Soto sect of Zen, thereby making Baker, for his students and for all future people in his lineage, an authentic link to the Buddha. 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. He was doing what Japanese roshis are supposed to do, what they have done for centuries. Below is the information about san francisco zen center scandal . "It was a fantastic drive," he said, it was safe to drive and that he liked to keep his legs in zazen posture. Join the San Francisco Zen Center Membership Program. One was to make the state consider Chan the primary sect of Buddhism. A senior member relates in Downing's book that Suzuki himself refused to hear criticism of Baker by other members of the Center because, as he said, " To his [Suzuki's] way of thinking, Dick's commitment was at another level, so the rest of us were not in a position to criticize him." Stuart Lachs, October 2002 He may have slept with dozens; I personally have identified over a dozen, and spoken to many of them. We should be affirming that. [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. This paper can also serve the non-scholar as an overview or introduction to modern Zen scholarship and introduce a critical view of the important Zen ideas of master, Dharma transmission, and unbroken lineage. 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. Berkeley, March 17th, 2002. Nevertheless, following extensive investigation, even Chadwick was forced to admit: "Anything Shunryu had done that could be considered remotely antiwar he had done before the Pacific war started" (p. 97). The idea of electing an abbot is, no doubt, a distinctively American innovation in a centuries-long pattern of religious authority. I have seen such a view expressed in four other major Zen communities as well as in a Tibetan community. I suspect I probably said something like that, Schnyer said. 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. But the Americans didnt know that. Which means it's basically my fault. Your support is crucial to sustain our practice centers and thriving online community. It is common talk around Zen Centers to hear that the Master can tell your state of mind just in hearing your footsteps in going to sanzen/dokusan, in simply seeing you in any activity, seeing you with a single glance, or in the most idealized version, "he just knows from a distance!" Shimanos Japanese ways suited Schnyer. This is one reason why we are looking at his case, to see how the system works, how it has always worked. At the same time, this supposed desireless image of the roshi is meant to invoke desire in us for him. [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 attended Harvard University, where he studied architecture and history. [34], Following Baker's resignation, Dainin Katagiri led the community until 1985. What was or was not implied in Baker's transmission from Suzuki? [3] Because his family moved around frequently, he lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Indiana, and Pittsburgh growing up. [32], These revelations led Baker to resign as abbot in 1984. #28 of 84 Specialty lodging in San Francisco. And the teachings in it. And then I went back and basically never left. And he was also just a guy, kind of like Bill Clinton was just a guy. The first is grounded in something tangible, concrete, observable: the soldier with his gun, or the scientist with her laboratory results. He was joined by his wife Mitsu (also from Japan) in 1961. For Suzuki Roshi's edited words see the well-known Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, Weatherhill, 1970. ", 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). He found willing assenters, willing children eager to listen to his fairy tales. The leadership of San Francisco Zen Center required Anderson to take a leave of absence from his position as abbot. Despite this, few people interviewed seemed to be aware that by continually repeating the transmission story without reflection and without making the effort to understand what they were part of, they were in fact becoming an integral component in the creation of a new myth-which was then used by people like Richard Baker. Its raison d'etre is to produce people who possess a fundamental insight into life, people who are not fooled by appearances or ideas. The admonition to "just sit," to "just practice," is one more way in which trust in one's discriminating faculties or any other Buddhist practice are cut off. [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. 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. 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. 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. "Zen Dharma transmission between master and disciple could occur whether or not the disciple had realized enlightenment, just so long as the ritual of personal initiation had been performed." 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. The suit cost the SFZC $35,000 to $40,000 in legal fees at a time when it was under financial pressure. 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. "To sum up the situation, we have no sources at all from the T'ang which mentions or describe explicitly "Chan" institutions," p. 267. The deeper you go into practice, the deeper you find your teacher's mind is, until you finally realize that your mind and his mind are Buddha's mind. "[12] And Baker, for his part, is quoted as having said in a 1994 interview with Sugata Schneider: I don't think that the gossipy or official versions of what happened are right, but I feel definitely that if I were back in the situation again as the person I am now, it wouldn't have happened. It is a performance meant to confirm and display the current master's significance, authority and attainment. It is clear that the senior members of Zen Center surrounding Baker were well-indoctrinated vessels of Zen ideology. The finances are terrible, and the beautiful carriage house on East 67th Street may have to be sold to pay legal debtsor, if he wins the lawsuit, to pay damages to Eido Shimano, the 82-year-old Zen master who built the society up but also, in a way, has destroyed it. The results of this in terms of the quality of his life are extraordinary-buoyancy, vigor, straightforwardness, simplicity, humility, security, joyousness, uncanny perspicacity and unfathomable compassion. A theme repeated throughout Downing's book is Suzuki's injunction to "just sit," which means to do seated meditation. What I mean by the "Zen" institution, for the simple purpose of this conversation, is the organized set of structures that support the standard model of Zen. Rather than report this to the police, Anderson returned to the body over several days to meditate over the corpse. It means, "Don't ask. 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. Mark Oppenheimer hosts the podcast Unorthodox for Tablet magazine and writes for The New York Times Magazine, Mother Jones, and GQ, among other publications. My view of Zen as an institution, some of its problems, and how it operates is most completely expressed in my paper, "Means of Authorization: Establishing Hierarchy in Zen Buddhism in America", delivered as part of a panel on Chan at the American Academy of Religion Conference in Boston in 1999. (It should also be noted that Victoria is fluent in Japanese while Baker and Chadwick are not.) Original Dwelling Place by Robert Aitken book review by Robert Goss buy this book now This article was excerpted from the new e-bookThe Zen Predator of the Upper East Side,out now. Coming Down from the Zen Clouds: A Critique of the Current State of American Zen Also see, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, Trans.and Ed. 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. But the percentage of the Zen clergy implicated in sexual misdeeds is many times greater than that of the Catholic clergy. 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? Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews. 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. Zen ascribes to Pai-chang (died 814) its earliest monastic code that supposedly set Chan apart as a separate sect in the Tang dynasty. Desire, Devotion, and Excess at the San Francisco Zen Center. 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. 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. Vessels of Zen ideology in San Francisco Zen Center surrounding Baker were well-indoctrinated vessels Zen..., this supposed desireless image of the Zen clergy implicated in sexual misdeeds many. Hoitsu. 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