The blinders of religious doctrine and superstition.

Recently, a person who uses the name “Zapp” commented on my post, “The funeral of Ösel Tendzin. Deliver us from cults.”

Originally published Saturday, July 24, 2021, in my other blog “Koan Conversations.” https://www.koansconversations.com/2021/05/the-funeral-of-osel-tendzin-deliver-us.html

Zapp says, “The AIDS epidemic of the mid-eighties was an unprecedented catastrophe, a deadly mystery that blindsided the world. In that climate of sheer ignorance and terror, no one possessed a cure or truly understood the virus. To condemn a spiritual leader for attempting to combat the unknown with the only tools he had—faith and practice—is to project modern understanding onto a time of global panic. Hindsight is 20/20. The Vajra Regent did not kill anyone; the AIDS pandemic did. To claim otherwise is a wrongheaded and infantile simplification of a devastating historical reality.”

Zapp, I would like to defend myself from the accusation of being “wrongheaded and infantile.” Let me refresh your memory with a few facts. 

Regarding the known, published scientific knowledge about HIV, your statement “no one possessed a cure or truly understood the virus” is inaccurate. The medical community recognized AIDS as sexually transmitted in late 1982/early 1983. The CDC reported clues in March 1983 that AIDS could spread through sexual contact, and issued guidelines noting transmission via sexual contact and blood, solidifying the understanding of sexual transmission alongside other routes like contaminated blood. They confirmed their findings in 1984.  I was actually in conversation with the research team at Moffitt Hospital, UCSF, which developed and publicized the safer sex guidelines at about the same time. I was dating one of the doctors. They didn’t waste time. So respectfully, you’re wrong. 

With respect to the Vajra Regent, by his own admission, he knew he was infected with HIV and did not take measures to protect his partners.

“. . . [I]n December 1988, the most harmful crisis ever to strike an American Buddhist community unfolded when Vajradhatu administrators told their members that the Regent had been infected with the AIDS virus for nearly three years. Members of the Vajradhatu board of directors conceded that, except for some months of celibacy, he had neither protected his many sexual partners nor told them the truth. One of the Regent’s sexual partners, the son of long-term students, was infected, as was a young woman who had later made love to the young man.

“Two members of the Vajradhatu board of directors had known of his infection for more than two years, and chose to do nothing. Trungpa Rinpoche had also known about it before his death. Board members had reluctantly informed the sangha (community) only after trying for three months to persuade the Regent to act on his own.

“‘Thinking I had some extraordinary means of protection, I went ahead with my business as if something would take care of it for me,’ Tendzin reportedly told a stunned community meeting organized in Berkeley in mid-December.” (Katy Butler, Encountering the Shadow in Buddhist America, Common Boundary Magazine, 1990 May/June) 

So, Zapp, I hate to break it to you, but Thomas Rich was responsible for the death of at least one person who had put their trust in him as a Buddhist teacher. Given that he was known to be sexually promiscuous, this is a low estimate. I took care of one man who died of HIV/AIDS complications, who’d spent a lot of time at RMDC, and the Regent’s sexual activities were well known. I have compassion for the man.

For me, there is a deeper question and concern: what do we do about it? I have been practicing for almost 50 years. How do I serve the community and friends I love? I have to be honest. I try to be very careful when I speak about abuse, as well as observing the precepts as faithfully as I can. I take no joy in reporting the massive failures of those who have willingly assumed the burden of leadership in our communities. 

However, sexual abuse and exploitation of students haven’t stopped. A young woman I know well was raped last year by a Nagpo Lama in Dharamsala, India, where I have been living and practicing for more than a decade. She was in great pain, and her practice was harmed. She filed charges, and the lama wound up in jail until some rich students bailed him out. His students are also aware of the rinpoche’s sexual habits, but choose to remain silent and enable him. 

I hesitate to call you out, but I cannot allow the blinders of religious doctrine and superstition to let you either lie or remain ignorant. We have to be honest. Let’s try to continue our practice as best we can. 

What Compels Belief?

Originally posted Wednesday, May 1, 2024

When I wrote that I was having trouble with “the God question.” I was stuck, logically, perhaps linguistically, even structurally, with a long essay that I’d been working on for months, “A Buddhist looks at the proofs for the existence of God.” How might we consider the nontheistic stance of most Buddhist philosophers as they examine scholastic philosophy?  My starting point was Thomas Aquinas’s “Unmoved Mover,” then moving through the other “rational” arguments for the existence of God, including Saint Anselm’s Ontological Argument. I examined each argument objectively to determine how or if I was moved to belief. I am happy to say that I am still an agnostic until you lock me up in the shrine room or hand me a personal crisis I need help with.

But I find something lacking in a strictly intellectual discourse. There’s no emotional juice. I think the materialists bypass or even eliminate emotions because they make things messy. 

A friend suggested that I try the Gaia or Goddess model, and my personal reaction was: Is there something intellectual, spiritual, or material lacking in my life that 'believing’ in the goddess would remedy? Suddenly, I was thrown out of my ordinary world. Of course, all beliefs have consequences. Even a cursory self-examination reveals that many beliefs, assumptions about reality, and even prejudices influence me, even when I am not entirely aware of their existence, much less of their influence or inner workings. Do I believe simply because it makes me feel good, or do I believe because I am persuaded by a convincing rational argument? When I Google the scientific effects of serotonin levels in people of faith, it will show that in the long run, I will be happier if I surrender some of my mad, neurotic desire to seize control and hand it over to a Higher Power. If I believe that the early bird catches the worm, I get up earlier, catch people when they are more alert, make more money, and thus am happier. Or maybe not. Using Pascal’s bet: my chances of happiness remain high as long as you don’t require that I bet the farm.

My mother changed doctors when she found out that her specialist didn’t believe in God. She told me that confidence in a physician was based on a belief that decisions about her health were guided by God’s invisible hand. When faced with major surgery in the last years of her life, she turned to a team of Indian doctors at Yale New Haven Hospital. I didn’t ask her whether she had checked their religious credentials, but I suspect it fell into the “They believe in something” category—Krishna, Jesus, deities tend to blend into one as we age. Yes, among my beliefs is that Indian doctors make a much better living in New Haven than in New Delhi. Perhaps a motivational belief for Indian medical students when applying for residency in the US turns out to be true: an Indian doctor in the US earns between 125,000 and 180,000 USD, whereas in India, he or she would only earn about 50,000 USD.

I have argued that “Why is there something rather than nothing?” is a junk statement, but it persists. “Something is better than nothing” is not a strictly philosophical or faith statement. Let me examine it more closely. What kind of belief statements does it encompass, and how are these statements changed, strengthened, or made true by a personal assertion that they are true always and everywhere, despite any evidence to the contrary? Let’s look at a few examples.

In Germany in the 1930s, the belief that the Aryan race was superior to the rest of humankind was gaining traction. It had such dire consequences that it would probably be best left on the junk heap of intellectual, spiritual, and moral history. But enough people assented, and it devolved into a horrific war, as well as the attempted extermination of the Jewish race.

In the West, or at least among intellectual elites, people adhere to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But before the end of the Second World War, the statement or definition was not “a given.” Most of the male governing class agreed that any statement would include civil and political rights, until Eleanor Roosevelt convinced the United Nations to include social, economic, and cultural rights. Her belief has changed how we think about and argue about the structure of human society on Earth. 

Some have argued that, in his comments on Genesis 1, Augustine's claim that the Lord gave humanity dominion over the earth and its creatures set the stage for the exploitation of the earth that has led to the climate crisis. The burnt earth thesis probably extends further into the early Fathers, and it is even harder to prove that, as a belief, it was partially responsible. Adopting some notion of Gaia, or goddess consciousness, might be an antidote to this kind of thinking and nudge us to treat the material world with more respect and even reverence. Thank you Gerta Thunburg for capturing our imagination. You show us that belief takes more than just intellectual assent. Imagination and dreams carry some weight.

Does assenting to a personal belief in a God being, he/she/it, god or goddess, have any value? I could argue that it might have the opposite effect: it muddies the waters and makes us “deluded,” to borrow a Buddhist term. It might be time to go back to Saint Thomas and Anslem to disentangle the mess I got myself into.

The Test of Suffering

“If you can’t make your argument briefly, you probably don’t have an argument.” John Meacham

After he read my last post, my friend James Ismael Ford asked, ”What are the consequences of so much of Buddhism in the West's proximity to the self-help industry? I look forward to your analysis.”

The short answer is suffering, but the question is not easy. There are different kinds of suffering, and some medicines are better than others for the kind of disease you're suffering from.

Who am I to be splitting hairs in what appears to be a somewhat technical Buddhist dispute about suffering and the causes of suffering? Suffering, real or imagined, is the reason why our Western version of Buddhism gets entangled with the Self-Help Industry. It’s hard for me to be objective. I’ve got a pony in this race. It was a very personal experience of suffering, both real and imagined, that led me to a cushion in a zendo. That’s factual, and I am not alone. This personal experience has helped me with what I call “a working position” for my own life—if it helps relieve suffering, it is worthwhile. 

Without trying to be all super-Zen and theological, it is a bit like the contrast between gradualist and sudden enlightenment in the Platform Sutra. The Fifth Patriarch issued a challenge. The head monk wrote for the gradualist position, “Little by little, one small speck of suffering at a time, wipe the mirror clean and do your best to keep your house in order,” while our disruptive hero, Hui Neng, blasted the Big Bang Zen position, “The mind is not a mirror. It’s all Suffering and it’s not. Open your eyes to Emptiness. That’s always here.” Little by little, then all at once.

To reintroduce the Self-Help Industry: there are as many valid reasons to put some money down and sit in a hotel meeting room for several days listening to Werner Erhard as there are to shy away and continue a boring day-to-day routine. (For the record, I have spent far more than several days with Werner’s programs, and my dollars were well spent.) Weighing the positives and negatives of taking action is a human trait. I can list my personal reasons to distrust Buddhism, to avoid the teaching, or to dive into the Tao. It’s a choice.

As I said, I am no expert. Here in Thailand, I live alone and spend much of my time by myself. Of course, I am not a recluse in a cave in the remote hinterlands of China; I have cable and wifi. I meet and talk with other people, family and friends, though by choice in small doses, but most importantly, I have time to meditate, read, reflect, and write; I feel an obligation to use this gift wisely. I haven’t answered my own question, but I am inching closer to what I have at stake in any answer, and as I do, I feel a great deal of gratitude that I have been given enough freedom to explore the question.

I try to sit for at least two periods a day. It is something I usually look forward to; now that I am past 80, I have given myself permission to sit in a chair. Recently, I started to end with a private ceremony. I wanted to put an end to my formal meditation and boot up the computer with some equanimity. One of the English versions of the Heart Sutra allows me to acknowledge that all there is is the moment right here in front of me. I feel some confirmation that I am Buddhist, at least in the sense that I want to see an end to suffering, mine as well as other people’s, and most importantly, that I am willing to dedicate myself toward that goal. 

Suffering is not fun. But I have observed that there isn’t just one kind of suffering as if it had a unique DNA marker. I have explored the kind of suffering that comes from an indulgent interpretation of past events, or from being deprived of an imagined right to exercise my power and grab what I think I need. Then I stand back and see how different that is from the unimaginable suffering of innocent settlers in the kibbutzim on the borders of Gaza and the equally horrific suffering of Palestinian mothers and children caught in crossfire with nowhere to turn, I know that my petty suffering is just that, petty and self-serving, and there is almost unendurable suffering. There is no way to take back the actions that have caused it.

The Self-Help Industry through the Test of Suffering. Transference and Projection*.

When I was on staff at Landmark Education, a few other Zen students showed up. There were rumors of another former Jesuit who became one of Werner’s Forum leaders, but I never met him. During the time I coached the Self-Expression and Leadership Program, six women students of Cheri Huber drove from the Sierra foothills to San Francisco for group work. Their SELP projects were wonderful and had a very Zen feel to them, something that my teacher Issan would have been proud of, reaching out to marginalized and homeless vets in the area. Then out of the blue, another friend, my Jesuit brother, Tom Marshal, told me that Gempo Roshi’s students in Salt Lake often did the Landmark Forum “in order to discern the Spirits,” an odd but refreshing mash-up of spiritual technologies. But all that is just anecdotal evidence of a connection. I only mention it to note that often the proximity can be very real, real Zen practitioners. 

But rather than consider a few outliers, I am going to turn to the language we use in practice to examine the connection. Monks from the Golden Age of Zen, more than a thousand years ago, never heard the words “Projection” or “Transference,” but they are part of most modern Western Zen students' working vocabulary. We learn them as quickly as we use gassho and kensho in our practice conversations. However, both words have a whole set of nuances that are hidden, assumed, or poorly understood. A woman priest whom I respect said, “It's about realization and recognition and withdrawing unconscious projections.” 

The advent of the new psychological gurus depends, in my view, on the emergence of two strains of teaching. First is undoubtedly G.I. Gurdjieff, but no less important is Freud. More on that later. 

“If you want someone perfect, write a novel.” I might add the caution: “If you want someone perfect, don’t look for a guru."

__________________

*Psychological projection is a defense mechanism people subconsciously employ in order to cope with difficult feelings or emotions. Psychological projection involves projecting undesirable feelings or emotions onto someone else, rather than admitting to or dealing with them.

*Carotenuto, A. (1991). Kant's dove: The history of transference in psychoanalysis. (J. Tambureno, Trans.). Chiron Publications.

Mr. Gurdjieff was a misogynist. Period. I brought receipts.

Is someone trying to edit him? Compare the meeting notes of Thursday, July 22nd, appearing in “Transcripts Of Gurdjieff's Wartime Meetings 1941-1946” (Book Studio, p.19) with the meeting of the same date recorded in “G.I. Gurdjieff Paris Meetings 1943” (Dolmen Meadow Editions, p.87).

There is a substantial missing passage in the Dolmen Meadow version. The excised passage in full reads:

[A long silence.]

P: May I ask a question, sir? There is one thing which has preoccupied me for a long time. How should a man act towards a woman so as to be her master and make her happy? To be really master of the situation.

Gurdjieff: Your question is, what is it necessary to do. First of all you must be a man inside yourself. Every woman should feel herself a man’s slave. This is the property of women, they are made that way. For that there is a law. You ought to represent the boss, the master. You should consider all things as the master. If you are like that, she, without manipulation, without anything, (it always happens) becomes your slave. Without explanations or anything, it only depends on you. If I am a man I will have a woman. This depends on what I am, what you are. If I ought to have seven wives all seven will be my slaves, perhaps because I am a man. Not only will all seven be unable to deceive me but they will tremble at the mere idea of deceiving me; they feel that they have a master. These seven women always and everywhere are my slaves. This, firstly, is what is necessary. Now secondly many other things are still necessary. What I have just said is the main thing. Now I say secondly: You are man, she is woman. Nature has given you more possibilities than to woman. You have more physical strength; everything you have more than her. Amongst all these things you have more logical thought than the woman. You should first prepare her, calm her, put her into a certain state and then logically explain to her what can happen for the future. Show her life not for today but life in a month, in a year, in five years time. As it is established on earth that if husband and wife live well together they will live a long time together, and as life is long it is necessary to explain to her what things she must not do and what she must do. If you explain to her as I have told you, she will do it.

P: One must not be angry, never negative?

Gurdjieff: You must be the opposite. Science says a woman is hysterical, she has five Fridays in one week. Man, a real man, has one Friday. Science of all epochs explains this. If you are not master of your state you do not know which Friday she has today. What you have decided, put that into her. You tell her. Even if she is at Friday number three, do the same number four or number five—do the same. If you continue a hundred times, a thousand times, she will transform herself and will receive that which you wish. You are obliged to be a man; she is obliged to fulfil her obligations as a woman. You cannot be egoist. You are a man. You ought to demand of her that she be woman. If the man is an egoist, he is merde. He wants to do everything (as it pleases him, by chance) and he expects his wife to be a woman? Little by little it can happen that she may reach the same state as him; either nature does it or it becomes established by force of law. Begin at the beginning. If she has five Fridays a week and if you, not being a man, have two or even three Fridays in a week, first of all, try, like any normal person to have only one Friday each week. When you succeed in having only one Friday, she too will have only one Saturday. Logical thought even automatically makes understandable the present, past, future and the rest. The man must be a man. Your question is very original and characteristic for everybody. A man can demand everything of his wife but he can only demand if he is, in truth, a man. If he is a man of the middle sex it is impossible. This, by the way, exists in all languages; there are two kinds of prostitutes, prostitutes in skirts and prostitutes in trousers. In trousers it is neither man nor woman—middle sex. He who always in his waking state is a man can never belong to the middle sex. Whether it be his mother, his sister or his wife, she will act as she is told to. Woman does not depend upon herself. If you are not a man then you are a prostitute and you suggest to her that which she is. You are half a man.

[All fall silent.]    

(@Dan Chirica)