An Inquiry into Belief and Faith

 "Opinions are like noses." —Anon

I find myself scrutinizing the appointments of our newly minted Pope, thinking well, let’s see where Leo takes this thorny issue, hoping it might veer in a direction I find appealing or at least palatable, but then, when I turn to my more reflective side, I wonder what stirs my interest? What does any of this have to do with my world, or indeed any world? I pretend that I’m seeking a few clear tenants, directions, words of encouragement, but is it anything more than just a confirmation of my beliefs, or, God forbid, cherished opinions? I’m 81 years old, and that means that I’ve seen a few things in my trips around the sun, and for whatever reason, I hold onto thoughts, beliefs, working principles, or just opinions —“my truths” which are far more useful than others. At least I am open-minded enough to realize that there are other views, yet part of me clings to the belief that if somehow humankind could come around to the more tolerant frame of mind I espouse, we’d all be better off.

This is, of course, not reasonable. If I take a step back, it is just hooey. Yet I always click on some YouTube bait about Cardinal Burke’s possible return from the exile that Francis imposed on the Grand Master of the Knights of Malta, reclaiming the fancy digs from which the darling old poofter was unceremoniously evicted, and he returns to dictating Eternal Truth. My highly charged opinions are not solid ground to support the rock of faith’s foundation. 

The dictionary definition of “hooey” is silly or worthless talk, writing, ideas, etc, or just nonsense and bunk. But to cool the conversation, other words or phrases might also describe the “speech acts” that I‘m referring to: 

• Opinion: a view or judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge.

• Belief: An acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists.

• Thinking: the process of using one's mind to consider or reason about something.

• A school of thought: a particular way of thinking, typically one disputed by the speaker.

• Point of view: a particular attitude or way of considering a matter.

When god speaks to us, at least publicly, He, She, or It uses some version of our imperfect human language. If we fail to account for that, we do so at our peril.

My position is neither laudable nor enviable. There’s always a Catch-22: Because I am selective, I can’t escape the fact that my decision to support or reject Leo’s appointments is to some degree (which I can’t even accurately assess) based on emotion. I know that theologians or philosophers far wiser than yours truly have carefully restricted the truth confirmation of any proposition regarding faith and morals, but again, trying to be honest: how can I reject Humanae Vitae and accept Laudato Si, given the prejudiced emotional bias which I acknowledge? 

Human language is limited, and we misuse it. The hinge of the Nicene Creed is not only the substance of God in Greek terms, but also, in “Nouvelle théologie,” the distinction between “incarnational” theology and an antiquated anthropomorphic concept of God. The Fathers that Constantine gathered needed to affirm that the Church believes that Jesus was divine, and do so in a rapidly changing world, more than 300 years after the ministry of Jesus.

The explicit reason for calling the Council was the influence of Arius, a dissident who wanted to take Jesus from the divine realm. The language of the Council was Greek, although the actual pronouncements were in both Latin and Greek. The usual view is that the deliberations reconciled Trinitarian theology with Neoplatonic philosophy. However, what is often overlooked is that the notion of humans being or becoming gods was integral to the ancient world, and Constantine wanted to put an end to that.

We know from scripture and the stories of martyrdom that participation in the emperor’s divine cult was forbidden to Christians. Those practices in the Roman Empire began before the birth of Jesus when Julius Caesar was officially deified in 42 BCE by the Roman Senate. Augustus was declared a god in 14 BCE and functioned with that title during the life of Jesus until Augustus died in 14 CE. His successor, Tiberius, did not claim nor was he given the title “divinus.” Emperor Theodosius, who officially established Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire in 380 CE, played a key role in the decline of pagan practices, including the deification of emperors. The trend began when Emperor Constantine is believed to have converted to Christianity around 312 CE.  There were 13 emperors “dvinini” among the 16 between Augustus and Constantine. [Google is also telling me that there were 55 Roman Emperors who declared themselves gods, but there is obviously something off in the figure. Perhaps Google is counting 55 divine emperors total in the Roman world, which would include Alexander the Great and Cleopatra.] We can say with certainty that the cult of the emperors was an important part of life in the Roman world for several hundred years.

The reason for my foray into the divination of the emperors is not just my amusement, although that plays a large part. I wanted to show that people in the Roman Empire, both free and enslaved, were exposed to “divine men.” From when they first got up and walked to the public latrine until the end of the day at the communal baths, they saw “evidence” that these god-emperors demanded and commanded respect for their power and influence. Their cults and priests were active; their temples part of the power structure of civilized life. There was also the formidable influence of the mystery cults, but I do not need to wade into those murky waters to demonstrate the divine beings were part ot the intellectual and linguistic landscape.

 

It may be entirely my personal problem trying to mesh Zen into an Abrahamic creed that is very clearly tied to particular historical circumstances. Is there a tack for these statements to uncover what I’m going to call objective truth? Does this same conundrum exist outside the world of a Christian worldview based on Abrahamic beliefs? Being able to navigate this conundrum is not easy.

We assume that if “the truth” exists, we can know it. We may not have discovered it or invented a precise, workable tool to get there, but we will, given enough time and luck. But these are assumptions. There may be “truths” which we will never know. The fact that there is widespread agreement that the world exists or “is” a certain way only indicates that there is agreement; it does not necessarily make the statements true or false. It will increase the chances of getting butter instead of salt when you ask for butter, but it does prove that Jesus is God in the same way the Fathers of the Nicene Council would have us believe.

Let’s turn our attention to the myths that lie beneath the cultural accretions aimed at satisfying our human thirst for transcendence. Many of my friends say that if we sift through the evidence found in world religions, we discover a philosophia perennis that points to a non-sectarian god that [who] might work in any given scenario. We assume that intelligence will yield the truth. That is simply not true. It can also yield cunning lies. Very bright people are not immune from delusion.

I talked about the misuse of language. We say that God is compassionate, just as we can be or might be when we are on our best behavior. This is extrapolation. There is a time-honored tradition in the Roman world where myths about the gods take a distinctly anthropomorphic twist. Useful for storytelling but less useful for philosophy. We say we know that the Divine Mind is compassionate, because stories in the narrative of Jesus use similar metaphors. We say we are created in the image and likeness of God. Therefore, Divine compassion must be like the compassion we experience, but to the nth degree beyond which we cannot imagine. This, however, is a belief statement with a decidedly anthropomorphic feeling despite Anselm.

This kind of thinking leads to statements that the nature of God is shared equally by God the Father and the Son, which becomes an argument that lasts a thousand years or longer. This hooey is the lifeblood (and paycheck) for a very rarefied group of clerics and scholars that puts most seminarians into a deeper sleep when it comes up in class.

In Buddhism, belief statements are not exempt from the law of impermanence. They fall into one of the five Skandhas, which include mental reactions, "mental formations" (samskaras), or "emotional reactions," arising from a combination of perception, feeling, and thought processes. These reactions are not inherently good or bad, but rather conditioned responses that can lead to suffering (dukkha). They are not just allowed to change. They must change.

After more than 50 years of meditation experience, I will concoct a new Zen maxim—because why not? Live with as few beliefs as possible, and don’t fall back on them until you've been pushed to your limit. I am limiting my caution to belief or opinion, not faith. 

Arvo Pärt was awarded several doctorates in theology. "Tintabulation" refers to ringing bells. The Estonian Orthodox composer coined the word “Tintinnabuli” to describe his compositional style. He was also awarded the Joseph Ratzinger Prize in 2017. I would have made him a Doctor of the Church. This bell-ringing music does not use words, but in the context of meditation, has pointed me towards faith in the divinity of Jesus. If asked to assent to the belief in the Nicene Creed, I might give you a half-hearted “yeah sure, what not?” But when I sit quietly and listen to Pärt, I am more likely to say, “Let Jesus be born in your hearts!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YqF69HLkj8

AI conducts a thought experiment in scholastic philosophy.

I am home alone, and what better way to spend my time than to revisit the heresy of Arianism? In honor of the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, I have invited AI to tackle the issue of homoousios, meaning "of the same substance" or "one in being," a term used in Christian theology to describe the relationship between God the Father and God the Son.

All the following information was gathered by asking AI some questions and then compiling the results into what I consider a cohesive argument.

The Council of Nicaea

One thousand seven hundred years ago, almost to the day, 318 bishops and patriarchs, mainly from the Eastern Church, debated the nature of Christ. Emperor Constantine had summoned them to what is now the beach town of Iznik in modern Turkey to address the heresy promoted by Arius, which was causing widespread disruption in his empire.

Arius's central teaching was that Jesus, the Son of God, was not "of the same substance" (homoousios) as God the Father, but was created by him in time. Arius believed Jesus was a created being, a higher-order creature, but not God himself.

The Council of Nicaea formulated a Creed that affirms that God the Father, God the Son (Jesus), and God the Holy Spirit are one being.

The First Council of Nicaea in 325, depicted in a Byzantine fresco in the basilica of St. Nicholas in Demre, Turkey.

A thought experiment in Medieval Theology

The phrase "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" is a metaphor with no literal answer. It's a question that has been used to illustrate how pointless and unproductive it can be to debate incredibly fine-grained details. The question itself was posed as a thought experiment in medieval theology, exploring the relationship between the infinite God and the finite world.

So, if we accept the creed of Nicaea, what happens to the characteristics of His divine nature during His Incarnation? Let’s single out one, the Beatific Vision. I asked AI: If Jesus is consubstantial with the Father, what happened to his Beatific Vision while he was on earth?

The beatific vision in Christianity refers to the ultimate state of happiness and fulfillment that believers experience when they see God face-to-face in heaven. It's a direct, immediate, and intuitive apprehension of God's essence, a sight that brings perfect joy and blessedness. 

Key aspects of the beatific vision is that it is a direct knowledge of God, not an indirect knowledge or understanding of God through concepts, but a direct, intuitive grasp of God's being.

AI answered: While consubstantial with the Father, Jesus' Beatific Vision was present in his divine nature, but it was not fully realized in his human nature while on earth. This means he possessed an immediate and perfect knowledge of the Father's essence, but he still experienced the limits of human knowledge and the need for faith. 

As consubstantial with the Father, Jesus shares the same divine essence and therefore possesses the Beatific Vision within his divine nature. This means he has perfect and immediate knowledge of God and his will. 

Although Jesus possessed a superior level of knowledge due to his divinity, his human intellect was still finite. He didn't know all possibilities, nor did he immediately grasp all truths as he matured and learned through his earthly experience. 

Jesus' human nature, while not fully realizing the Beatific Vision, still allowed him to experience suffering and temptation, which were necessary for his saving mission. He needed to experience the limits of human suffering and death to win over them for humanity. 

In essence, Jesus' Beatific Vision was present in his divine nature, allowing him to know and love God perfectly. However, his human nature experienced a limited understanding of God and the need for faith and growth in wisdom, which was necessary for his redemptive work. 

OK, I have some follow-up questions: How is Divinity not fully realized? Doesn’t Divinity mean or at least imply: fully knowing, beyond time and space? If we say that Jesus had these characteristics but they were not fully realized, aren’t you being a closet Arian? Or perhaps at best a Unitarian? Or are statements of faith another kind of discourse? In any case, I have to admit that I am a closet Arian. The scholastic answer smacks of creating a convenient path to the Truth, or sleight of hand.

Full disclosure: I dropped out of the Jesuits after completing the full course of study and became an atheist. Then I joined a Zen Temple, first in the Soto sect, then in another school of koan introspection, and a lot of Jesuits in the meditation hall, eventually making my way to another group with some loose connections to Unitarianism. With Unitarians, the key is loose connections, which is where I stand.

Beware of Lounge Chair Zazen

A Kamakura Zendo

I currently live in Thailand which is a Buddhist monarchy. The king and royal family enjoy the highest rank. Protocol, to my eyes, seems strictly observed despite rumors that the royals are not insistent. An American friend who works at a school in the north was hosting the older sister of King Vajiralongkorn, Princess Ubol Ratana. Only a limited number of people were allowed into the area where she was being entertained, and despite writing and rehearsing the students for a skit in her honor, my friend was not invited. 

Rank is exclusionary. It can be palpable and irritating. My friend asked me about the koan “The True Person of No Rank.” My mind went on automatic, and I remembered many times the case had come up during sesshin. Of course, we’d worked with it. Tarrant Roshi had written about it. It appears in both “The Book of Serenity” and “The Record of Linji.”  I wanted to make sure that I used an accurate translation, leaving nothing out and including no additions that might distort what Linji Yixuan (Rinzai Gigen in Japanese) taught. I looked up the Case 38, Shôyôroku, with commentary by Yamada Kōun Zenshin Roshi, published by Sanbo Zen International. 

Book of Serenity, Case 38

“Rinzai’s True Person of No Rank.” 

Instruction: 

Taking a robber for your own child, taking a servant for the master: 

Could a broken ladle of wood ever be your ancestor’s skull? 

The saddle bone for a donkey could never be your father’s jawbone. 

When bestowing land with a new branch temple, how would you discern the master? 

The Case:

Rinzai instructed his assembly and said, “There is one true person of no rank, always coming out and going in through the gates of your face.1 Beginners who have not yet witnessed that, look! Look!” 

Then a monk came out and asked, “What is the one true person of no rank?” Rinzai descended from the rostrum and grabbed him. The monk hesitated. Rinzai pushed him away and said, “The true person of no rank – what a shit-stick you are!” 

1 I.e., sense organs such as eyes, nose, ears, tongue, etc. 

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In the big picture, I am no different than any other human. If King Charles or King Vajiralongkorn and I sat on cushions in my imaginary zendo, we would all receive the same data coming out and going in from our sense organs. We’d remain equal without rank even after their royal coaches whisked them home. I expected Yamada would point to the one true person with perhaps a few hints about the shit stick. 

How wrong I was. Yamada’s commentary was a long, detailed description of a “kensho zendo;” he focused on a strict level of attention or concentration he felt was required for experiencing this sudden enlightenment; I heard echoes of the contentious talk about the possibility of kensho (which is Japanese for “seeing into one's nature”) between the Soto and Rinzai Zen schools. I was shocked. 

It was also dull. I was not particularly interested in students adjusting the blinds in Zendo. For Yamada, it indicated that they were allowing their minds to stray from the single-pointed attention required to experience “kensho.” There was a long and involved story about a fellow named Kasan Roshi who threatened to throw some monks out of his temple for performing a commendable act of compassion while doing "takuhatsu" (托鉢), or alms-begging. 

How on earth did I jump from sitting on an equal footing with King Vajiralongkorn to listening to Yamada’s fussing over whether the zendo’s blinds were rolled down during seated meditation, or Kasan expelling monks who’d proven themselves unsuitable because they allowed themselves to be distracted? 

Kensho!

Then, the random nature of my laptop’s search tossed up a frothy piece by Brad Warner. He takes issue with Melvin McLeod, the editor of “Best Buddhist Writing of 2004,” in which Brad was included. McLeod thought that Brad was describing a kensho experience. Brad chides himself for not being clear enough: “I have never had a kensho experience. I hope I never do. I've never come across anyone who claimed to have had one of those who could convince me it was anything worth experiencing.”

Yamada’s position was very different from Brad's or Dogen's, the Japanese founder of the Soto sect that Brad follows. Yamada quotes Hakuin Ekaku, the Japanese reformer of the Rinzai sect: "Anyone who would call himself a member of the Zen family must first achieve kensho—realization of the Buddha's way. If a person who has not achieved kensho says he is a follower of Zen, he is an outrageous fraud—a swindler pure and simple." 

After reading Brad very carefully, even if briefly, because he says pretty much the same thing over and over, I wondered if Dogen ever talked about a kensho experience in a way either Dogen or Brad, and Yamada or Haquin might be able to speak to one another about meditation experiences rather than shouting at one another to make a point.

I stumbled across something that Dogen said before he left China. Keizan Jokin Zenji, his dharma heir, writes that he did have an experience, an opening, that confirmed what he had learned from Rujing with whom he completed his training. (See “The True Dharma Eye,” Tanahashi (2011), p. 144). The quote suggested that Dogen did have something akin to a kensho experience despite all the howling to the contrary. Like the fool who thinks that he’ll remember everything necessary or startling, I did not make a note of either the quote or the source so I can’t include a useful footnote. 

To be fair to Dogen and Brad, emphasizing kensho might be dangerous or misleading. The Rinzai Teachers’ Bureau has supplied no map. Loose talk might create some overblown expectations. Brad says his teacher, Gudo Wafu Nishijima, sometimes talked about "solving philosophical problems" when experiences in Zazen were out of the ordinary. He claims that all states of mind that arise in Zazen are equal level thought formations, solved with simple Zen application if you’re lucky. “He calls it this because that's all it is.” It’s not required. We’re not too far from shouting at one another. 

In spring 1978, Michel Foucault met and practiced with Omori Sogen Roshi. One of the most important Zen masters of the last century met a brilliant philosopher whose work explored the way discourse shapes our reality. Their work together lasted less than three weeks, and Foucault died only five years later. Had his life not been tragically cut short, what contribution might Foucault have added to our understanding of Zazen? We’d be fools if we didn’t recognize that the way we speak about meditation, the shape of our discourse, colors our experience.

I practice in the dharma stream of Yamada Kōun and his teacher, Yasutani Haku'un Ryoko. Although I enjoy and find value in Brad’s non-doctrinal style, I intend to bolster Yamada’s case for practicing in a Kensho Zendo. I’m going to speak from my own experience, and rather than take a side, I’ll just focus on what is important to me, the conversations I’ve had about these experiences with my teachers. Please don’t take my descriptions as normative in any way. What matters is your own experience.

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Body, Mind and Breath

My body has a mind of its own.

I had the good luck to learn to sit Zazen in a Soto Zendo. I had practiced seated meditation before, but these experiences were limited to the weave and sway Siddha yoga halls or the more relaxed Vipassana practice, which has been adapted for Westerners.. 

When I first sat Zazen for a long day at Hartford Street, my body hurt by noon. By 5 PM, I could barely stand. When I sat my first three-day sesshin, I limped home. People gave varying lengths of time for the pain to disappear, though this was usually coupled with a light-hearted statement that enlightenment was a sore back and stiff knees. I was encouraged to persist. Somehow I did.

That period coincided with Issan’s final years. His body could not muster the same kind of determination as in his early training, but he still sat totally erect. I noticed when he slumped and seemed to drift off, but it was not often. Of course, just noticing that was an indication that I was being less than attentive to my state of mind.

After 80 years, my bones have shortened; the intervertebral discs' thickness and resilience show signs of wear and tear. I have to sit in a chair, usually with a small curved brace near the base of my spine, but my body automatically assumes a comfortably erect posture, the vertebrae neatly stacked on top of one another, holding my head erect with my jaw relaxed. If I discover anything carelessly out of place, a few simple self-commands plus some relaxation allow me to focus much longer than I could 35 years ago. I hesitate to describe another sensation that occurs almost automatically, other than to say I tap into an energy that has a mind of its own and, if I allow it, takes over. Of course, the tendency to fall asleep or lose concentration has not magically vanished. 

Lesson One: An alert body is the primary tool for an alert mind.

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Issan used to say, “Don’t invite your thoughts to tea.”

I can’t stop my mind, but cessation of mental activity is not the end of practice. Actually, cessation is inevitable. It’s called death and will come soon enough. In the meantime, if you can’t stop thoughts from showing up, and you can’t ignore them even though it might run counter to normal, polite or accepted behavior, you can at least observe them and watch the habitual way that your mind responds. 

When asked what to do about pesky thoughts, Suzuki Roshi advised giving your cow a more extensive pasture. He was Japanese, so social distance from domestic animals was understood differently, even in post-Hippie California. In rural Japan, the cows might be living in the dining room. 

I grew up in rural Connecticut. Painted in crude letters on the side of the cow barn at Parker’s Dairy was the slogan: “Parker’s Cows are Parker’s own. Come and see them in their home.” As kids, we visited and quickly figured out that the sign was pure advertising and that we weren’t always welcome in the cow barn, particularly during feeding or milking. So we figured out how to leave the North Street gate ajar and then laugh when Parker and all the cowherds ran up and down Huntington Turnpike, rounding up 20 cows who had stepped beyond the barbed wire. That’s not what Suzuki Roshi had in mind when he counseled increasing the size of their pasture. 

Issan’s advice was couched in coffee house etiquette; cows didn’t roam the Castro. But the kernel remains the same: do not engage thoughts that seem to intrude, especially at quiet moments. Simple observation changes the phenomenon. 

Lesson Two: It is possible to quiet your mind. 

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Count to zero

Over the years, I’ve tried a wide variety of recommended breath-counting exercises: from one to ten, repeat or go forwards and backwards; the inhalation and exhalation counting as one breath or counting as two; 1 to 10, 9 to 2; 3 to 8, and so forth; the seemingly impossible regulation—in through the right nostril and out through the left (or was it vice versa?). I have spent hours focusing on the diaphragm, calling it the dantian ("elixir field" or "sea of qi"), to increase my lung capacity. I was told by a Master of Qigong that getting the asshole involved by conscious contraction helped boost the energy at the base of spine, so I spent months—you guessed it. I asked many teachers and got lots of conflicting advice, akin to the conflicting conversations they were intended to conquer. 

Aitken Roshi talked about “the impossibility of counting to ten.” He said that he has found the breath counting practice useful both when he began and later when his practice matured. It’s simple and cuts through. There is a point where even barely intelligible numbers following the breath also fade out, and all that remains is the breath. I am not claiming that this is an ideal state of meditation, but it seems to be an opening into that place where both body and mind could drop away. I call it counting to zero, but if you experience it, you can name it anything you like. 

Lesson Three: The breath is connected to everything. Pay attention.

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Sit like a rock; it is the pearl beyond price. But don’t charge money for the experience. 

I’ve been having conversations with people from the relatively new discipline of “personal coaching.” They usually group bits and pieces of meditation practice into a workshop format they call Mindfulness. They contend that these disciplines calm the haphazard functioning of the mind, but, given the elemental neurological composition of the brain, every technique I’ve talked about, the yogic position on the body, the calming of wayward thoughts and disturbing emotions, the training of attention by following the breath, are just that. They each have a specific goal: to become more productive, make more money, sleep better, or even experience more satisfying sex. Add these to the list of possible outcomes, and attach a price list.

Though these outcomes are possible, I fear life coaches sell meditation short if they stop there. These coach practitioners can be a bloodless, analytical lot. There is a reason why never charging for teaching has endured for more than two millennia. 

Practice can open a path to the center of everything. The Koan collection is packed with story after story about practice becoming stale and comforting but not open to much new. Repeated exercises become rote. Meditation halls are filled with advice about keeping it fresh. In some cases, with some teachers, sitting like a rock can even become a fetish, and, at least in my experience, even a spiritual fetish is not something we should aspire to achieve.

In one of his short online talks, Richard Baker Roshi says that an essential but often overlooked quality of zazen is akin to affection or love. For meditation to settle in and become part of our lives, we treat it like a lover, a constantly changing relationship that we can’t give up on or put down. It's not an easy path. We will surely have fights and rocky periods, but the rewards are immeasurable.

I have fallen in and out of love, and I have years of therapy to help me sort the wheat from the chaff. And I keep coming back to Zazen. 

Lesson Four: Allow yourself to fall in love with Zazen.

The funeral of Ösel Tendzin. Deliver us from cults.

Originally published Saturday, July 24, 2021

In 1990, Ösel died in San Francisco, where he’d come for treatment of advanced HIV disease. I was living at Hartford Street Zen Center and working as the Director of Maitri AIDS Hospice; I felt it was important that Maitri, a Buddhist program set up to help ease the pain of the AIDS epidemic, should be present for the funeral of an important Buddhist teacher who’d died from the disease. I didn’t realize how deeply I would wade into the murky waters of denial.

Shambhala would conduct the funeral ritual at their center on 16th and Mission. We phoned, asked if we could attend, and were given a time; we put on our rakusus and climbed to the second floor above a Jack in the Box in a pretty marginal neighborhood.

I can’t adequately describe my shock.

It may have been the first Tibetan ritual that I’d attended, but after we’d entered the hall and made our prostrations, there was Ösel’s corpse trussed up in an awkward meditation posture, full regalia barely masking the ropes and poles required to hold it upright. I’d sat with many men who died of AIDS, so it was not that the body itself showed the ravages of the disease. There was no attempt to hide them. It was not that the ritual seemed foreign or exotic. It was, but it was a Tibetan ritual, and I wasn’t expecting a low-church Episcopalian service.

What overwhelmed me was the veneration of a man who had knowingly infected others with AIDS. Shambhala tried to mitigate the damage with a mystical smokescreen. It was rumored that some had spread the lie that the guru’s Vajra powers, bestowed by the lineage, would prevent reinfection or that it was even an opening for the great enlightenment. There was at least one teenage boy involved, a young man whose life would now be cut short. Everyone present, and there were several hundred, knew that their Regent had knowingly infected people with HIV and that their deaths would soon be upon them. It was all supposed to be OK in the great scheme of things. The drums beat, the chanting began. Steve Allen got up and motioned for us to leave. On the way down the stairs, he said, “All that was missing was the bones in their noses.”

We returned to Hartford Street. I was shaken but managed to get up the next morning and care for Bernie, J.D., and the five other men in our care.

I have never picked up “Cutting through Spiritual Materialism” again, brilliant as it is. Nor have I recommended it to anyone, and I never will. I feel that it would be condoning the damage to the precious dharma caused by the actions of these men.

Some people have tried to defend Ösel. One wrote to me and said, “Hindsight is easy.” I lived through that period. I took care of more than 100 men who died of AIDS. My own teacher died. It was a terrible time. Of course, there were mistakes. Of course, it was difficult. Of course, it takes time to sort things out. It took me years.

Steven Butterfield* writes about his interactions with Ösel, wondering why, in an airport lounge, he can’t muster the courage to ask him a question about his HIV disease. He chose to remain silent and go on pretending that their world of limousines, crazy wisdom practice, and unprotected sex could just go on and on. By remaining silent, Butterfield chose to participate in the deception. He was caught in the delusion of adulation. In retrospect, can Butterfield question his belief in guru transmission? He says he can, but I get the distinct feeling that far too many threads still tie him to the myth. But actually, the moment when it might have made a difference has passed, and Butterfield to some degree, shares Mr. Rich’s transgression.

There can be no passing the buck here. We have to name it: arrogance and grave harm. Hindsight may be easy, but murder is still murder. Sexual abuse is still abuse. People say, oh, it was the 80s, things were different. I strongly disagree. We knew that HIV was sexually transmitted in 1983 when the Pasteur Institute in France isolated the virus. Ösel knew that he was positive for the virus and still had unprotected sex with at least one minor. Sorry. Call it what it was.

Searching Google for a picture of Mr. Thomas Rich, I found vajraregent.org. When I entered “AIDS” into the site’s search engine, nothing. But I did find these verses. People are still in deep denial.

This is offered with love, appreciation, and gratitude to Vidyadhara, the Venerable Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, and his Vajra Regent and dharma heir Ösel Tendzin, for the benefit of their present and future disciples, and all beings.

Through hearing, seeing, and contemplating these teachings of the Vidyadhara through his Vajra Regent,

May we realize the essence of transmission from teacher to student.

May we hold precious this seed planting of Vajrayana dharma and Shambhala vision in the West.

Through their gestures and words, may we wake up on the spot.

May we not become confused by spiritual materialism in any form.

Now, practicing moment by moment until the end of this life and beyond, may we free all beings.

And I will add my own petition to this list:

May we work diligently to repair any damage to the transmission of the precious Dharma caused by our heedless actions.

And deliver us from cults.

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*Steven Butterfield’s article When the Teacher Fails was published in the May 1989 edition of Shambhala Sun. Ösel Tendzin was still alive, but this was just at the time when the extent of his reckless sexual conduct as a person with HIV/AIDS was coming to light. Butterfield’s article does not address the controversy ripping the fledgling Western Buddhist world apart.