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. 2 Thank Kelly S . 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. I hope this is the case with this paper. If youre going to do this, youre going to do it on your own, but Im not going to nurse you. For me he was perfect Somebody looking from the outside could say thats why we stuck with him all the time. Guests are . For example there was the claim that Zen monasteries in China were self- sufficient, which makes it seem that they were not dependent on the state and elite elements of society and were not actively promoting themselves to get this support and patronage. Shoes Outside The Door, p.289. For an analysis of the inherent power relations in the one-dimensional description of a roshi and how it is taken for being natural, see "Symbolic Violence and Social Reproduction" and "Uses of Language" in, Jenkins, Richard, Pierre Bourdieu, Routledge, 1992, pp.103-110 and pp.152-162 respectively. 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. [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. To this end, Zen Center is engaged in numerous social and ecological initiatives. He found willing assenters, willing children eager to listen to his fairy tales. 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. And as complete neophytes in Buddhism, they were apt to believe most anything a teacher said: The Americans had no competing knowledge, no critical faculties, no grounds to challenge the teacher, no fixed point on which to stand. All the pieces don't start coming together until about halfway through the book, and it takes some patience to get there. 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. The San Francisco Zen Center community includes residents and non-residents at all three centers, priests and lay practitioners, long-term and short-term participants, and opportunities to attend a wide variety of events and programs. Please consider a donation to San Francisco Zen Center. 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. Not surprisingly, virtually 100% of the time these breaches of morality serve the pleasure and interests of the supposed enlightened one. Me and my friend always had suspicions he had ongoing relationships with Japanese women that were kept quiet, and were more or less continuous. Baker's friends and supporters say the Zen Center never regained the spark and spiritual power of the Suzuki/Baker years. The film was directed by veteran filmmakers Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman and executive produced by physician, Shoshana R. 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. The other was to establish Chan's primacy over the indigenous teachings of Confucianism and Taoism in the eyes of the state and the elite of society. The virgin birth, the Buddha, Joseph Smiths golden plates that became the Book of Mormonto build spiritual tradition, it does not matter if the people were real or if the events happened. Anderson became entangled in an incident in 1987 that reached back to 1983 just after Zentatsu Richard Baker had resigned as abbot. "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. I am thankful for Michael Downing's work, which is extremely valuable. San Francisco Zen Center's purpose is to make the teachings and practice of Soto Zen Buddhism widely available, to train teachers, and to help cultivate mindfulness and compassion in the world. The Zen Institution He may have slept with dozens; I personally have identified over a dozen, and spoken to many of them. Tassajara baked bread for student and guest consumption since 1967, and Edward Espe Brown's Tassajara Bread Book, demonstrated consumer interest. A descendant of Thomas Dudley,[4] Baker was raised in a family of moderate wealth. On the corner of Page and Laguna Streets in San Francisco, diagonally across from San Francisco Zen Center, is a corner building with a series of murals that wrap around the boarded-over windows. "[33], In the 1980s Baker ordained Issan Dorsey as a priest. 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. Suzuki Roshi I think this happened because Zen's teaching to avoid words and explanation was taken too literally and has fostered an unfortunate narrowing of perspective. One member suggested that the Shimanos instead be given an extended sabbatical. This recommended class series offers listeners an overview of the fundamentals of Buddhism and Zen. Likewise, Dharma transmission was as much about institutional prosperity, prestige, authority, continuity and acceptance and control by imperial authorities as it was about notions of enlightenment and spiritual perfection. (It should also be noted that Victoria is fluent in Japanese while Baker and Chadwick are not.) Hence, a number of questions were never openly raised: Was he acting in an arrogant fashion? Baker was a charismatic leader, brilliant lecturer and dedicated Buddhist. Around 1970, he began sitting regularly with a group in Santa Cruz that went on to form the Santa Cruz Zen Center. Hence, roughly 95% of all Soto priests in Japan have Dharma transmission, most receiving it after spending at most three years in a monastery, some with as little as six months. Covid-Related Openings and Closings Updates page, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility, Conflict, Complaint, and Ethical Review Processes. By the seventies he calculates 10-15,000 hours and that by 1987 the most senior practitioners had each meditated some 20- 25,000 hours on the cushion. [7] Thich Nhat Hanh wrote of Baker, "To me, he embodies very much the future of Buddhism in the West with his creative intelligence and his aliveness. And he was also just a guy, kind of like Bill Clinton was just a guy. This "history" has added weight because it is presented as biographical fact. Political authority can function in this second way. It is fashionable among practitioners in the West to consider critical thought as "un-Zen." With so many students and so much public attention, some felt Baker became less available to the members of the community. ", Lachs, Stuart: Mark Oppenheimer hosts the podcast Unorthodox for Tablet magazine and writes for The New York Times Magazine, Mother Jones, and GQ, among other publications. Soon these Westerners participated in regular services, and new non-Asian students came to outnumber the Japanese-American congregation. The historical fact is that monasteries actively courted the state and elite elements of society, depended on donations from wealthy patrons and or the state, had tenant farmers work their often vast donated and inherited land holdings, etc. Former students have said that he was addicted to power, abusive of his position, extravagant in his personal spending, and inappropriate in his love life. Before long, Sokoji had non-Japanese Americans mostly beatniks coming to the temple to sit zazen with him in the morning. Interestingly, Suzuki did not mention "spiritual attainment," but rather commitment. What the teacher really offers the student is literally living proof that all this talk and the seemingly impossible goals can be realized in this lifetime. He exists freely in the fullness of his whole being. Zen at War by Brian Daizen A. Victoria: a link to varioius book reviews buy this book now Yet, I have found that within the Zen community there is little self-examination about Zen as an institution and its self-definitions and what the effects of these are in the world of flesh and blood people. As noted in the paper, senior members consistently reassured newer members that all was well when they raised questions about Baker's activities. Michel Foucault in "The Means of Correct Training" in Discipline and Punish, Trans. One of the earliest texts extant is "Regulations of the Chan Approach" (Ch'an men Kuei-shih, which cannot be dated earlier than 988) that some scholars think was the preface to Pai-chang's Rules. Live the Temple Life The Zen Studies Society was marked by frequent turnover. 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. Richard Baker was 36 years old when he was installed as abbott of the San Francisco Zen Center in 1971. The question is: How do so many Zen Buddhist teachers get away with it, and for so long? It is possible that Suzuki had a paternal attachment to Baker. In one well-known collection, the famous Grand Master Yunmen is not recorded at all. 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. Suzuki surely knew that his fellow Japanese Soto roshi and priests would hardly accept Americans as examples for the reform of Zen, especially in Japan. 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. In particular, Suzuki's San Francisco Zen Center lineage continues through his bureaucratic "transmission" to his son Hoitsu. It also spun off its business and stopped pretending that work without compensation was "spiritual practice.". I am greatly indebted to the works of the following scholars, among others, whose 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. Baker Sums It Up He was doing what Japanese roshis are supposed to do, what they have done for centuries. 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. 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. He was perfect for me, Schnyer said. [5] Baker was ordained a St priest by Suzuki in 1966 just before the opening of Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. 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 In particular, Berger, Peter,L. There are also accounts of people receiving transmission from masters who were dead by the time the supposed transmission took place. #28 of 84 Specialty lodging in San Francisco. 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. Trouble At the San Francisco Zen Center Shimanos womanizing is of the sleaziest sort: He is married, and he has often picked for his mistresses much younger and disturbed women, the kind particularly susceptible to his twisted charisma. 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. 2002: 8-11. After six months, he returned to his position. "[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. Richard Baker is an extremely bright and talented person and a born salesman. 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. Zen Center Members A theme repeated throughout Downing's book is Suzuki's injunction to "just sit," which means to do seated meditation. Some people felt that I had committed an irrevocable betrayal of trust, and have discounted me and my teaching ever since. Shimanos Japanese ways suited Schnyer. But how real is this history? Baker himself was quick to remind his flock that he was the only American to receive Dharma transmission from Suzuki Roshi. I dont remember saying that., Schnyer maintains a tidy understanding of his personal Zen galaxy, in which Shimano is the sun, hot and dangerous but necessary. But that is the way that Suzuki or Baker or any roshi is presented. In the case of Zen, students usually come to the teacher with a set of preconceptions, acquired mostly through reading, about the fully attained Zen master as being virtually beyond their comprehension. The Zen Institution It was almost like a magic theater, where if someone received Dharma transmission, and hence, was a supposed enlightened being, he would become a different person who could do anything he pleased. In short, the biographical approach to history seems to be used because it has intimate real-life immediacy. Rather than report this to the police, Anderson returned to the body over several days to meditate over the corpse. To see how the most prominent Japanese Zen roshi as well as some of the roshi associated with bringing Zen to America, in spite of the rhetoric of the standard model of Zen, functioned in Japan from roughly 1911 through WWII, see Victoria, Brian, Zen At War , Weatherhill, 1997. The Examiner reports that Preston has wants to use the mostly vacant 555 Fulton as . [34], Following Baker's resignation, Dainin Katagiri led the community until 1985. In his letter, Zournas, who had resigned the presidency in July, details for the lawyers benefit how the various board members reacted to a motion that Shimano and his wife, then the organizations treasurer, be fired. I don't know for certain but Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind was published in 1970, only one year before Baker himself received Dharma transmission and the title, Zen master. [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. Suzuki had asked Baker to locate a farm in the area for entire families to live a Buddhist life while working together. Kai C. Half Moon Bay, California. He served as Abbot there until 1978, moving the group to Jikoji in Los Gatos, California in 1979. Our personal experience is socially constructed in dialogue with society and with ourselves. Suzuki's arrival came at the tail end of the Beat movement and just prior to the social movements of the 1960s, both of which had major roots in San Francisco. He was neither. 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. 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