I’m wondering if Indra’s Net of Jewels is designed to catch spiders, flies, even wasps, while it at the same time drawing the captivating picture of a vast universe that gives us life, connects all of us, the good bad and indifferent, allows us to support one another, and, most importantly, makes our practice possible.
I started following the blog of a Zen teacher in Boston. I will leave out her name as I am going to be fairly critical. I do not know her personally, have not engaged with her about what I am going to discuss, nor am I out to stir up any more controversy than’s already swirling around, but if you’d like to review her writing yourself, I will direct you to her blog.
It’s sadly a familiar story. The woman is a practice leader with more than a few years of solid practice under her belt. She witnessed sexual misconduct at close range, most of which has become public knowledge. She also asserts there were financial shenanigans as well as more insidious psychological manipulation. She states that she’s not been personally harmed by the insult other than losing a few bucks.
I do not want to make light of her concerns, and I am certainly not out to condone any of the behaviors. However I began to feel a concern that deepened the more that I read.
My basic question, shared by most of the people I talk with, is what is the best, most productive and least harmful position we can take in the face of these kinds of behaviors? They reoccur often enough and show no signs of disappearing or fading away anytime soon. I will not sit idly by as if nothing happened, nor can I let it strangle my practice or that of my friends.
I am entirely sympathetic to the loud, and seemingly unending repetition of any complaint when the conditions have not disappeared or even really been addressed. Sometimes it feels like screaming into the wind given the persistence of the misogyny prevalent in the Eastern cultures of most of our first teachers compounded by the male dominance in early American Zen. I have heard from so many people who did serious meditation practice at the San Francisco Zen Center that they were always encouraged by the steady presence and teaching of Katagiri Roshi. They recalled something he’d said to them at some difficult point in their practice that made a world of difference, and they regret that he’d received such a “bad rap” to quote one male priest. The mitigating factor, they claim, is that he came from Japan where dalliances of priests, even married priests with married women, were simply a cultural artifact as long as absolute discretion was observed. These people want to leave untouched the fact that Katagiri was a gifted teacher who helped many people selflessly and so they resort to backwards somersaults to excuse sexual misconduct. That just doesn’t fly anymore--if it ever did.
The situation has not ended with the elevation of many women teachers of the Way. Even though it is a loaded word, I say “elevation'' for reasons that I hope become clear if I can lay out my argument convincingly. It indicates the acquisition of some higher state or knowledge that is unavailable to those of us who remain lower down the ladder. I also want to pay close attention to the fact that it is mainly women who have sounded the alarm, and called for setting boundaries. I want these voices to be heard. However, I have to add that I was sexually abused, raped, by a closeted gay man who claimed the role of spiritual leadership, so the voices are not just women’s. I have spoken out, but what’s the expression? Crickets. There are still lots of people who make their livelihood exploiting this New Age teacher’s reputation. For the record, Bob Hoffman was not Buddhist; in fact his vehement knee jerk position for anyone but himself was anti-guru, not just anti-Buddhist. That position could not save him from being a predator and a simple criminal. But before I stray too far afield, I want to stay focused as much as I can on the response of the Buddhist sangha to sexual misconduct.
There is also nothing at all wrong about this teacher’s main argument that Buddhist teachers can’t escape the ethical implications of setting and respecting boundaries with students. It comes with the territory. Of course. She uses the professional norms for therapists who do not have sexual relationships with their patients, do not exchange money outside an agreed upon fee structure, and do not interfere in their intimate relationships between friends, lovers and family. My impression is that she saw some violations of these boundaries, and suspected others. This destroyed her trust in the teacher in question, and started her search for establishing clear boundaries for herself and her community.
These guidelines may crimp the style of some teachers who want to push a student to examine all the nooks and crannies of his or her inner workings. Sometimes, dare I say often, even hopefully, every seemingly bizarre personal quirk, hidden agenda or blindly held prejudice comes up for scrutiny in meditation practice, but the role of the psychotherapist and meditation mentor are quite different. I hesitate to make any pronouncements, but the aim of the therapist might be to alleviate the pain of maladjustment while the meditation teacher’s role might be to just point to it so that the student can sort things out for themselves, or not.
A very intelligent homeless man came to the meditation group I organized in the San Francisco Tenderloin every Tuesday night for several years until I drove him away in hopes of persuading him to find shelter. I tried to rigorously honor the boundaries of my role as the person who opened the door, set out the cushions and watched the timer to just that, but I made what I still consider a grave mistake.
This man was a serious student of the Talmud and Primo Levi, packing a small library while living outdoors. His former wife was an Episcopal priest. He didn’t fit my profile of a homeless man. One night after meditation I sat with him and grilled him. I am embarrassed to admit it. He tried to defend himself by speaking of the virtues of living outside, even in the cold and rain, but I wasn’t buying it. He stopped coming to the zendo. I could not locate him. I was devastated.
Perhaps the teacher of boundaries is just concerned that no wild, crazy wisdom teacher breaks up the china shoppe. After reading I was left with the impression of a woman who has an orderly mind, academically and scientifically trained. I sympathize with her. Surely people like that, and I include myself, can be open to the unexpected stabs of enlightenment. I hope so.
But I left with the feeling, perhaps it was just her emphasis, that though everything is entirely right with her position, everything is entirely wrong. She states that every teacher relationship is prey to these violations; that every teacher will eventually do you wrong, rope you in, manipulate you, seduce you or violate your emotional boundaries. We’ll leave the sex part out, but it is certainly included. You can trust no one. She has followed the logic behind her assumptions to its inevitable conclusion: the sangha, the treasure that we are told the Lord Buddha valued above all others, is untrustworthy. It cannot do the job.
But what if it is doing its job without manipulation? What if it’s meant to be imperfect? What happens when we posit that the Buddha was right? That the sangha does its job. That it has to be trusted. Indra’s net levels the playing field. Teachers are not elevated above its finely stretched web. There are no high wires to trip up the high and mighty. They catch us all. It can be trusted to do its job.
And once you’ve caught the spider, what do you do? Some scream, some cry foul. Some struggle. Some set up new boundaries as an extra precaution. We’re all assholes and we got caught. We pick up the pieces and repair the net. We cradle the wounded and cremate the dead.
Tōsui Unkei is a well-known 15th century Zen teacher who lived under a bridge in Kyoto. There’s a koan about him but I could not locate it in any of the standard collections. From what I can glean from the unofficial commentary, it seems to be about living with whatever gifts life offers us, no matter whether they're robes or rags. Here is the verse attributed to him when he left the monastery to live the life of a homeless beggar.
Today is the end of religion's work--
Go back, all of you, to your homes.
I leave before you,
Eastward or westward,
Wherever the wind might carry me.
I missed it. I also didn't honor my own boundaries. I’m sorry. I dedicate this work to you, my homeless Tenderloin Zen student wherever you ended up.
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