Category Archives: 108 thoughts

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destructive behaviour and the collusion of communities

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108 Zen Books publishes once a day as a form of practice.  If there is something significant that shakes the ground of practice, I feel it important to put out another post.  The fragility of our world of practice was brought into clear focus last week with the resignation of Eido Shimano following decades of unresolved suffering caused by his sexual liasons with students in the Zen Studies Society.

This morning, I read one of the most lucid, compassionate yet fearless commentaries on the issue by Barry Briggs of Ox Herding. I have developed a fond respect for Barry’s teaching over this year of blogging. Today, I bow deeply to his strength of practice and devotion to the Dharma. You can read Barry’s commentary here.

Each time I read and hear of teachers engaging in sexual activities that cause such deep and profound damage (suffering just isn’t a sufficient word), I am enraged.  And sadly, I have learned through my own attempts to intervene and call organizations to account for exploitative behaviours by their teachers that a lone voice will not suffice. What I’ve learned from the Shimano debacle also is the amount of time it takes when organizations close in and become partners in the abuse.  Decades.  That, perhaps, is the greater travesty: not the actions of the man but the cowardliness of the community.  But we are frail and need our structures to protect us even if those structures are only reflections of our rotted beams and foundations.

I want to add something here that might get forgotten in such frays.  Sexual relationships with teachers are not for the good of the student.  Emotional relationships with teachers are not for the good of the student.  They are exploitations of vulnerabilities.  If you suspect you are in such a relationship, do not be ashamed.  Seek help.  Expect not to be believed because of the inherent blindness of the organization.  Then, keep seeking help until you are heard.

(Post-drive to work edit: If you are a community member and especially if you are someone in a position of some authority who receives information of boundary violations: Please listen.  Please see the trust under the distress.)

Please practice,

Genju

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compost 1

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Practice life started very simply for me.  I noticed there was a donut somewhere between the middle of my chest and stomach.  Much of my waking life was spent avoiding the hole in the middle and most of my energy was spent pulling myself out of the guck around the hole.  Occasionally, I would try to back fill the hole using all manner of matter one finds in books, educational programs, athletic activities like jogging, playing squash, biking, hiking and what not.  Too often I’d set my sights on some vague set of coordinates outside the donut, a target like some teacher – school or Buddhist – and run like hell in the hopes that the momentum could haul me out of the guck.

None of it really worked to make my life any happier.  However, as these things tend to do, it taught me lots about guck, holes and the nature of finding one’s way around such galaxies.  It also taught me some bad habits – like excusing my lack of development in practice as “waiting for the right moment” or “the teacher hasn’t come so why waste my time being ready.”  Of course, the life of practice is simply Life – the getting on with things like cleaning the house, going to Work, getting out the brushes and paper, learning how to use that new camera.  It can also include doing three prostrations, sitting on a zafu without falling off, and learning the Prajnaparamita chant.  But since I didn’t want to waste time being ready for a teacher who seemed to have no respect for my schedule, the Life time for these things tended to get killed “watching crime shows” (to quote one of Aitken Roshi’s gathas).

This feeling of having wasted my life is quite overpowering at times.  It’s the edge between the guck and the hole.  Over the past couple of weeks, I mentioned on Bookbird’s delightful post panic! with a houseplant that I was disappointed to discover I did not own the rights to “Procrastination as Inspiration.”  That particular skill was my pride and joy.  Working on my shodo: “No, I’m not delaying the inevitable.  I’m waiting for my Muse.”  Working on my photography: “This camera is too complicated to figure out the lighting.  I’ll just wait until the sun moves.”  Working on my writing: “The publisher wants too much front-end legwork.  I’ll just start a blog.”

Later in the week, I commented on ZenDotStudio’s post Creative Compost that my procrastination had really been challenged by her dedication to her art.  She along with her artist friends are a formidable group (and I have to include Dakini Dreams as well).  Their work has turned me towards my own, not just in terms of the shodo.  There’s a fearlessness in their risk-taking that I love – using the catch in the breath right at that edge where the ink drips onto the paper as a pause before leaping.

Ready or not, the teacher arrives.

Thank you for practising,

Genju