Zen Porn

Zen Koans are wonderful, and no, I hate to disappoint, they are not porn. Can they be used as porn? That’s a personal decision.

I was responding to an email from one of my favorite Zen teachers in the world, a wonderful woman with whom I share a deep love for music, flashes of koan insight, and many friends. After briefly exchanging personal updates, I mentioned that a mutual Zen friend and I had lost contact since the Ice Age. I made a mental note that it was at least three girlfriends ago, but he had not faded from my world. How could he? He’d had an enormous effect on my practice.

I’d recently posted a short piece, “How do they think they can get away with it?” The teacher accused of misconduct was a friend of our mutual friend and teacher. In my post, I repeated the wording of the complaint of some female students: [he suggested that} “meditating while naked in his lap (based on the yab-yum image) would help their spiritual practice,” a bit of secret oral tradition that should probably best be kept secret,

Then I was hit by the whack of insight, seeing exactly what was in front of my eyes--let’s just call this discussion by its real name--porn. Webster’s third definition is “The depiction of acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick, intense emotional reaction.”

I started to laugh. I realized how many thousands of words I’d written to describe and analyze the sexual misconduct of teachers, as well as Catholic priests, over the course of my blogging. I decided to review some of that writing to see if it contained any of the hallmarks of pron: compulsion, obsession, titillation, mindlessly habitual storytelling, and being ultimately unsatisfying. Was I giving porn a bad name? I chose nine posts of over 16,000 words to review. That’s roughly 25% of a standard non-fiction book. 

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“Sex, gossip, religion? Can we talk?” The subject makes many people uncomfortable. After reading one piece, a very dear woman friend I’ve known since my days with Claudio Naranjo decided to cut all ties. She complained I was opening the door to rumor and innuendo (and maligning our mentor). She had become very protective of Naranjo as she grew older for reasons I do not fully understand. Her words were that I “verged on gossip.” After being very upset and not knowing what to say or how to address the situation, I decided to write about it.

Honestly, her assessment had a ring of truth. I am open to listening to accusations from sources who feel they must remain anonymous because they fear for their reputations and personal safety or have obligations to their own sources. There are legitimate reasons. But the fact that these people will not, or cannot, publicly verify what they’ve heard or witnessed means that the information will always be hearsay.

I wanted to defend myself from attacking a person’s character without any factual basis. Were there legitimate reasons to rely on innuendo, rumor, or even whispers and use them to make a judgment and take action? This led me to examine a whole category of complaints I called “privileged:” class, gender, race, religious tradition, or even taboo placed them outside criticism or even discussion. 

One of my examples, a case study, was the defrocking of *Cardinal Theodore McCarrick in 2019. There had been, of course, rumors and speculation about his conduct for years. For the community of disaffected gay Catholic men looking for proof of the hypocrisy that had caused so much pain, we found secretly recorded conversations at McCarrick’s New Jersey beach house that left no doubt that they were gay sex parties. This evidence was circulated on the internet in the early 2000s. “Uncle Teddy’s” canonical trial would be in 2019. 

Would the world be a better place if Cardinal McCarrick’s hypocrisy had been exposed during his influential tenure as Archbishop of Washington? How many young men and priests might have been spared sexual and emotional abuse? We cannot say, but I will say truth is always the best choice. I argue that sometimes, the only way to get to the truth is through examination of gossip, rumor, and hearsay. Not only was this evidence admissible, it was necessary. I used Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple in my closing argument about the legitimacy of gossip in the search for who done it. She set the Aristotelian methodology of English mystery writing on its ear.

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However, the Catholic Church does not provide a clear view of what’s happening in real-time, even if you have a front-row seat. The internal mechanisms for deceit and subterfuge have been honed for centuries. If you are a member of a subgroup at risk, either as a victim or perpetrator, demanding transparency can also be dangerous. 

In 1964, United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart described his threshold test for obscenity: "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced... [b]ut I know it when I see it ..." When I saw “Spotlight.” in 2015, I had to ask myself why I didn’t see it when it was going on? 

An old friend who is a seasoned Zen priest asked me what happened during those years covered by Tom McCarthy’s 2015 film “Spotlight” when well over 225 priests and religious were credibly accused of sexual abuse. I was very active and reasonably well-connected in the Boston Archdiocese in the late 60s, but I had to confess that I was in the dark. The very secretive church machinery kept it hidden. I went back to my experience as a young Jesuit and discovered that the evil of sexual abuse of minors had disastrous effects. I worked for a very dedicated young gay priest who was in no way involved in abuse but whose ministry was nonetheless curtailed simply because he joined the movement to oust Cardinal Law, who orchestrated the cover-up. His name was Monsignor Michael Groden. I recounted our friendship and told his story in “Pedophile Priests Ruined Many Lives.”

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And now we come to Zen teachers who have acted badly or have been accused of misbehaving and the consequences of this misuse of sexuality for our young, newly formed communities. Given the small size of these communities, the different nature of the teaching and practice, and the different tone with regard to sexuality, I was surprised that the list of teachers is so long and continues to grow.

The next two blogs that I chose, “Sex, Death, and Food,” and “Was Muktananda High-level Chicanery?” register as high-level disappointment. The conduct of both men, Katagiri Roshi and Swami Muktananda, were similar only in that they were discovered and made public when both men were dead. In Katagiri’s case, he had the reputation of a gifted teacher beyond reproach who had helped many people, including several friends, in the aftermath of Richard Baker Roshi’s departure from the San Francisco Zen Center. Katagiri assumed the public face of an ordinary immigrant mid-Westener who was also a Zen Master. I heard story after story of something he said or did to help a student during challenging times. I talk about one interaction he had with Issan, who used what he learned till the day he died. Many others held up similar stories. After his extramarital affairs became public knowledge, however, a kind of convulsive reevaluation shook the entire community with roots at Page Street and Tassajara. With few exceptions, the reckoning was that the man’s insight outweighed any human failings. I did not have direct experience, and I felt that there were valid reasons to suspect the judgment of others. Besides, I wasn’t losing anything. I had no pony in the race.

In the case of Baba Muktananda, his secret sexual activity involved a steady stream of young women, many underage. It was criminal and required the active participation of his inner circle to coordinate and hide the violation of his yogic vows from his vast following in India and the West. The aftermath was denial, and the focus shifted to one of his successors, the one who did not also use the power of his position for sexual gratification. The attempted justification from ardent supporters ran something like Satguru was not a lecher. He was trying to recast Brahmacharya for the West; cultural circumstances limited his freedom to act. That argument is self-serving and frankly stupid, but go ahead and sell your Siddha Yoga hogwash. I’m no longer in the market. 

When I began to examine my feelings regarding both men, it was clear that some part of me felt some relief, justification, and even redress when I told the stories, especially about Muktananda. It feels good to yell at spiritual frauds. But beyond that, is there anything of value? Both men are dead, and their followers and disciples have made whatever choices they have and continued their lives. My reaction is my reaction or perhaps mirrors some other Zen idealist howling into the wind. It is only noise. Only complain about what can be redressed—only direct requests for a change of course to those who can act. And in the Zen world, that comes down to me.

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However, there will always be a segment of followers, enthusiasts, or disciples that will hang on despite any evidence. My revelation was that I could not change that. I can only deal with myself. These people fall into the closed set that Eric Hoffer called “The True Believer.” They share characteristics, including contempt for those without a holy cause themselves and respect for fellow fanatics. I recounted my experience attending the elaborate Shambhala funeral ceremony for Ösel Tendzin in San Francisco above the Jack in the Box on Mission Street. Our choice was to get up and walk out rather than join in the adulation of a sexual predator who had infected people with a deadly virus. 

This short post generated a lot of negative feedback: it’s ancient history; Chögyam Trungpa was a brilliant teacher, and we all got a lot out of “Spiritual Materialism.” Trungpa and Ösel marked an important, “auspicious” event for the birth of Buddhism in the West. My response: Avoid Zen Porn. Calm down and chill out. There will be others whose work will surpass Shambhala. There will be teachers who can do it sober without appeals to crazy wisdom. Throw your lot with kindness and compassion.

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However, the question of how to best respond remains open. Let down by the promise of quick bliss in the world of Zen porn, I find myself still waiting, alone, lonely at times, but as long as I stay engaged, I have not lost hope. Intimacy seems still within reach. And to pass the time, I happened to pick up Foucault’s Histoire de la sexualité, 1: la volonté de savoir in French. This is where this former celibate Jesuit sought refuge. I began to turn my attention to the conversations about sexual misconduct rather than focusing on the blatant or alleged misdeeds. As Socrates said: “The misuse of language induces evil in the soul.” We have to be clear about what we are talking about, or we risk serious errors. 

 

In the first nine pages, Foucault lays out his thesis and methodology. He says that despite the modern liberal claim that sex has been repressed, forced into silence, or even neglected, the truth is that the level, frequency, and specificity of our conversations about sex have increased. When I moved to Hartford Street Zen Center in San Francisco, I jumped into a controversy with definite camps. I also noticed that, as Foucault notes, the conversations, even though ancient history from my point of view, went on and on. Some people wouldn't or couldn't shut up.

If I followed Foucault’s argument, this was to be expected. Talking about sex does not create a problem; the way we’ve been trained to talk about sex, specifically in the West since the 17th century, has created a conversation that didn’t exist before and, I would add, certainly one that didn’t exist in the Lord Buddha’s day. 

Some of the comments on the post accused me of trying to create some kind of off-ramp for leaders who had not faced up to the full impact of their actions. I was not aware of doing that. Instead, I was looking for my off-ramp in a conversation where I knew I had to take action to save myself.

There were practical reasons for wanting to avoid the blame game. As Executive Director of Maitri Hospice, I had to work with the Zen Center Hospice Volunteer Program. When Issan, Philip Whalen, and Steve Allen returned from Santa Fe, they managed to maintain some level of civility with the senior priests who assumed leadership roles at Zen Center after Baker’s resignation. In Heels Outside the Door, I suggest that there was deliberate compartmentalization. The term usually refers to the defense mechanism of separating conflicting thoughts and emotions to avoid anxiety and discomfort, but at least in Issan’s case, there was no hesitancy to deal with consequences.

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But I also had a pony in the race. More than 20 years before I moved into Hartford Street, I was sexually abused by a New Age guru. Some of the effects still felt fresh, and as I began to learn and practice zazen, they even intensified. They existed like #metoo porn, sensational flashes of emotional memory that produced a quick, intense reaction. I knew that I would have to deal with it and that it would have to wait until I was relieved of some of the pressure of dealing with the pandemic. 

I’ve finally managed to close the chapter of my personal abuse, but it was not a simple forgive-and-forget. It is not perhaps as clean as purists might like it, and there was no magic formula. I don’t think there is. You can read about my struggle. A Very Personal Question: Can I Forgive Bob Hoffman?

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Here is a portion of the koan I was working on when I started to laugh at my porn!

Blue Cliff Record, Case 75: Wujiu’s Blind Stick 

Wujiu said, “Here is a good fellow to beat today,” and gave him three blows. The monk went out. Wujiu called after him and said, “I used a blind stick, as there is a fellow who deserved it.” 

The monk turned and said, “It can’t be helped, as the stick is in your hand.” 

Wujiu said, “If you need this stick, I will let you have it.” The monk came nearer, snatched the stick from Wujiu’s hand, and gave him three blows. 

Wujiu said, “Blind stick, blind stick.” 

The monk said, “There is a fellow who deserved it.” 

Wujiu said, “It is a sham to wantonly beat a fellow.” 

The monk promptly bowed to him. 

Wujiu said, “You made a bow—it is right for you?” 

The monk laughed loudly and went out. 

Wujiu said, “Right, right!”

The blog posts on Buddha S.J.

How do they think they can get away with it? 

Sex, gossip, religion? Can we talk? 

Pedophile Priests Ruined Many Lives 

Sex, Death, and Food.

Was Muktananda high-level chicanery? 

The funeral of Ösel Tendzin. Deliver us from cults.

La Volonté de Savoir, Foucault on Sexuality

Heels Outside the Door

A Very Personal Question: Can I Forgive Bob Hoffman? 

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*“Theodore Edgar McCarrick is a laicized American Catholic bishop, former cardinal, and former priest who served as Archbishop of Newark from 1986 to 2000 and as Archbishop of Washington from 2001 to 2006. In 2019, McCarrick was defrocked after having been convicted of sexual misconduct in a canonical trial.” 

Sex, gossip, religion? Can we talk?

Originally published Thursday, November 18, 2021

One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.--Carl Jung

 

I feel like I just stepped onto the set of The View and have been put on the spot for talking about priests, gurus, illicit sex, and sexual molestation. These words, coupled with the name of God, fling open the doors to intrigue, power, domination, manipulation, and forbidden pleasures. Has calling forth these dark forces stymied any ethical guidance?

 

Recently, I was stung by criticism from a trusted friend. She felt that some of my writing about the sexual behavior of both teachers and students whom I know and have had some relationship with, Buddhists, Enneagram enthusiasts, meditators, “verged on ‘gossip”--her words. Further, it gave fodder for some within our loose-knit community to lob attacks and discredit opposing positions. She felt that just talking about it might discourage people from undertaking the hard work of introspection, self-analysis, and meditation we’d like to encourage. And I also suspect that my friend feels the criticism is unfair on some level. This is the way of the world.

 

For me, for the Jesuit in me, this poses some thorny ethical questions. I know that I have to discuss these issues openly, including my personal experience, but I want to avoid gossip and honor the confidence of friends and other people I’ve known and worked with. I reject any underlying assumption that this situation is “the way of the world” and that we should be mute because of some larger, more important matters at stake.

 

In this essay, I will look at some of the implications of accusations of sexual misconduct, gossip, and spiritual practice. But first, I have to look at the conversations themselves and try to distinguish between gossip and real situations open to analysis and criticism.

 

Gossip is the “casual or unconstrained conversation or reports about other people, typically involving details that are not confirmed as being true.”

 

In our current culture, it’s very politically, morally, and even spiritually “correct” to talk about the consequences of sexual conduct, especially if it’s misconduct. These conversations have their own cachet with their own rules. But this is nothing new, is it? Every religion on the face of the earth spends a considerable part of its capital trying to corral the impulses of the lower centers, legislate sexual behavior, and devise punishments for those who stray.

 

One of the main reasons for the #metoo movement, including digging into the egregious behavior of many in the formal institutions of religion, is that for generations, negotiating these tricky moral areas was secret; it was never talked about in polite conversations. No matter the consequences, even challenging the wisdom of saints, there is widespread public support for this type of investigation. When people began to realize that even the Sainted John Paul turned a blind eye to the sins of some men in his workforce, the lid blew off.

 

John-Paul was a saint, and he allowed priests who molested boys and young men to remain in positions where they could continue to abuse. The church admits no error when it comes to declaring saints, but there are other consequences when this kind of conversation breaks loose and creates its own weather system. Humans love a good stoning when the clouds begin to threaten our comfortable sunny afternoon--especially if the miscreants appear to be having their cake [bought for them] and eating it, too. And we’re mainly talking about a modern tabloid version of the Salem witch trials with an emphasis on sleaze. 

 

These are factual cases of unethical behavior and, as in the case of my own abuse, criminal behavior. There’s a lot of blame, from the butcher, the baker, to the candlestick maker. Michel Foucault argues that surveillance and punishment are part of a technology that poisons institutions from the top down. I will leave that analysis for a later discussion. For now, it is enough to note that the sins of pedophile priests are at least partially shifted to the institutional mechanisms that allow them to function and, more importantly, continue in positions of authority after they’ve been discovered. 

 

Any subsequent slowing of monetary support might force hard questions about how a religious institution spends its political capital. If there is erosion of public support, i.e., donations, is any revision or qualification possible? Of course, there’s a tendency for an institution, an organization, or a church to sweep this kind of behavior under the rug, particularly if any exposure endangers a stream of income.

 

I have encountered this criticism: you were raped, but it happened 40 years ago. Get over it. The pain caused by the trauma is as much a result of my inability to move on and deal with my issues as it was Bob Hoffman’s fault for abusing one of his clients in Psychic Therapy. When a senior teacher of the Hoffman Process told me that I should move on, that it was only the result of my “patterns,” he was gaslighting me. The definition of gaslighting is to “manipulate (someone) by psychological means into doubting their sanity.” He wanted me to shut up, which is the response worthy of a cult follower with no integrity.

 

There are several other characteristics of the conversation about sexual abuse in spiritual groups that I’d like to highlight.

 

This conversation about clergy sexual abuse is, for the most part, taking place in rich, privileged parts of the world. But it is also privileged in other ways. Privileged describes a person as having special or unique advantages and opportunities. When used to describe a position in a conversation, analysis, or controversy, it points to what we call an unfair advantage, insisting on a position because of the status of the speaker rather than the merit of their cause.

 

It is a conversation of privilege in that the main actors are men and in terms of “privileging” the conversation, the conversation deals with men in power. In a study, “Female Sexual Assault Perpetrators,” we see that only recently has any attention been paid to female offenders. They exist, of course, but the conversations we are dealing with only involve male perpetrators.

 

Either by rank, authority of position, or what I will call “privileged knowledge,” there is a dominant voice in the conversation. People apply different moral indicators when dealing with clergy members, gurus, or spiritual teachers. Time-honored demarcations of power and authority that accompany sexual restrictions and practices are normally unquestioned. This complicates the discussion.

 

The issue of misogyny: the conversations in the Catholic Church have been focused on male clergy because the actors are male and clergy. The conversation is skewed by a strong undercurrent of misogyny also present. Some indicators would be the differences in the level of condemnation between men and women (listeners); the conversation is also prejudiced by the high level of homophobia among the listeners.

 

Let's look at some other characteristics of these conversations.

 

The conversation can quickly be shut down as gossip because it involves private behavior. For example, what happens in secret, in the bedroom, automatically becomes hearsay. When some secretly recorded tapes were circulated of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, "Uncle Teddy,” seducing seminarians at his private beach house, I posted them to a group of primarily heterosexual former Jesuits. The response was “just crickets.” Actually, they were so explicit and damning that most of the group just didn’t believe that they could be true. After a two-year Vatican investigation, McCarrick was defrocked. The crickets were speaking loudly, but for my listeners, they spoke a coded language.

 

Another indicator that the private nature of most behaviors prejudices the conversation is the evidence of widespread victim blaming. When a few victims of molestation by priests began to come forward, one of the most complex obstacles to highlighting the severity of the problem was the reluctance of other victims to speak openly, given that the abuse was sexual and, for the most part, homosexual.

 

There are many divergent views of what is acceptable sexual behavior. The social norms, for example, in the gay community, and what is expected of a parish priest, a monk, or the leader of a New Age Spiritual Community are quite different. Gender, marital status, age, race, level of education, income level, and sexual orientation all play a role in how severely or leniently we judge sexual misconduct.

 

In some cases, sexual conduct outside the norm is excused because it is outside the norm. In an interview with Dr. Jeffrey Mishlove, Claudio Naranjo gave Swami Muktananda a free pass for breaking his religious vows: “My own interpretation of him is that he was playing the role of a saint according to Western ideals, or to cultural ideals in general. I think he was a saint in the real sense, which has nothing to do with that. For instance, it's the popular idea that a saint has no sexual life, and he was playing the role of a Brahmacharya, which I think was part of a cultural mission he was on, to be an educator on a large scale. It was fitting that he did that role, and my own evaluation of him is that he was clean because he was not a lecher. He had a healthy sexual life. . . . “ In this regard, Claudio was far too optimistic. Although Muktananda retained some following, both in India and internationally, his sex life did not help his “cultural mission to be an educator on a large scale.” He proved unworthy of the kind of trust that is required for a spiritual teacher to function. But given Claudio’s logic, again it is the fault of those of us who are uneducated rather than "the one who knows," who is enlightened or has some special knowledge.

 

Naranjo also had, in my view, an outsized evaluation of the role of trickster in a spiritual teacher--the devious nature of our egos can only highlighted when we are tricked, or forced, into seeing our personality types, our behaviors, attitudes, and mindsets, and their consequences by unorthodox methods. This led him to place undue confidence in psychics, e.g., Bob Hoffman, Ann Armstrong, or Helen Palmer, and 4th way teachers such as E.J. Gold and Henry Korman, who were bullies. This prejudice also tended to blur or excuse any sexual misconduct on the part of the male psychics or teachers.

 

People also tend to compartmentalize and separate the offense from other qualities, events, and teachings that they value. This includes both those who are not directly affected by the abuse as well as the victims. A Zen priest told me that he felt Katagiri Roshi “got a bad rap” because Katagiri had been an important influence during a particularly difficult period of the priest’s training. Katagiri, a married man, and Zen teacher, had sex with students, but in the subjective evaluation of my friend, the Roshi had other qualities that outweighed sexual misconduct. In my own case, I refused to acknowledge the damage that Hoffman caused because he was part of a radical change in my life.

 

False equivalences ignore and/or exaggerate both similarities and differences. The distortion is particularly confusing and pernicious when it suggests that there is a moral equivalence between two or more things that are being equated--in the Katagiri case individual sexual misconduct and teaching meditation, or in the case of Hoffman Process, the pervasive influence of parental conditioning and my personal transference to Hoffman who was my therapist and counselor.

 

In summary, these conversations about sexual abuse are not gossip. They are not casual or unconstrained nor are they easily categorized. However, no matter the particular case, Catholic, New Age, or Buddhist, they all seem to contain several of these characteristics:

• They take place in rich, privileged parts of the world, but they are also privileged because the main actors are men.

• These are factual cases. For generations, they were kept secret, but now open discussion has widespread public support.

• They have developed their own cachet with their own particular rules.

• They erode public support for institutions; they undermine the authority of teachers.

• The conversations themselves are privileged because the speaker's status is used to support a position or the perpetrator.

• Some conversations are not easily understood because they are spoken in a coded language. They are prejudiced by misogyny as well as a high level of homophobia. There is also evidence of widespread victim blaming.

• There are many divergent views of what is acceptable sexual behavior. People apply different moral indicators when dealing with clergy members, gurus, and spiritual teachers.

• People tend to compartmentalize. Their arguments contain many false equivalences that ignore and/or exaggerate similarities and differences when discussing cases.

Agatha Christie, through her gossip detective Miss Marple, makes a strong case for collecting useful information by paying attention to the whispers and tell-tale signs of bad behavior. Marple entered the exclusively male realm of English detective fiction as a female outsider whose methodology veered from the careful Aristotelian observation of, for example, Sherlock Holmes. I might argue along with Christie that what is commonly called rumor or innuendo is sometimes the only reliable source for gathering key information about bad behavior and holding people to account. Some would even argue that dominant male actors created the blanket prohibition against gossip and gossiping to protect themselves.

 

In the next part of my exploration, I will ask: What next? Is there a way to step out of a black-and-white set of responses and look at the situation differently? Maybe we already have. We’ve been forced to--a fact not yet recognized, accepted, or fully understood.