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"The Zen Predator of the Upper East Side"
genkaku
Northampton, Mass. U.S.A. Veteran
For those who may have an interest:
New York Times writer Mark Oppenheimer's "The Zen Predator of the Upper East Side" hit the electronic bookshelves this morning.
Here is the book description as offered by Amazon:
Nearly 50 years ago, a Zen Buddhist monk—fleeing a cloud of suspicion—arrived in Manhattan, penniless and alone. Eido Shimano would quickly build an unrivaled community of followers: Zen students he culled from the heights of New York society to form arguably the most prestigious Japanese Buddhist organization in the country. Authors, entertainers, and scions of vast fortunes, all questing for spiritual enlightenment, flocked to study and live in his spacious compound. But always there were whispers that things were not what they seemed.
With sexual-abuse allegations against Zen leaders in the U.S. now stunningly common, The Zen Predator of the Upper East Side examines a dangerously complicated corner of the tradition—and shows how aspects of Buddhist practice may actually facilitate abuse. Featuring exclusive reporting and interviews, the book is a powerful true story of secrets and sexual exploitation perpetrated under the guise of religion—and a cautionary tale of the dark side of Zen in America.
New York Times writer Mark Oppenheimer's "The Zen Predator of the Upper East Side" hit the electronic bookshelves this morning.
Here is the book description as offered by Amazon:
Nearly 50 years ago, a Zen Buddhist monk—fleeing a cloud of suspicion—arrived in Manhattan, penniless and alone. Eido Shimano would quickly build an unrivaled community of followers: Zen students he culled from the heights of New York society to form arguably the most prestigious Japanese Buddhist organization in the country. Authors, entertainers, and scions of vast fortunes, all questing for spiritual enlightenment, flocked to study and live in his spacious compound. But always there were whispers that things were not what they seemed.
With sexual-abuse allegations against Zen leaders in the U.S. now stunningly common, The Zen Predator of the Upper East Side examines a dangerously complicated corner of the tradition—and shows how aspects of Buddhist practice may actually facilitate abuse. Featuring exclusive reporting and interviews, the book is a powerful true story of secrets and sexual exploitation perpetrated under the guise of religion—and a cautionary tale of the dark side of Zen in America.
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Comments
I think the main reson for the news medias hatred for religion is that religious people are less likely to kill themsleves or others, or commit crimes of any kind. That is acutal fact (Emilie Durkheim, Suicide and The elementary forms of religious life). So really religion is a major block to their profit margins because religion calms the hysterical, and reduces anger and hatred in everyone; no hysteria, no viewers, no money, and we all know what happens when the rich dont get richer.
om mani padme hung
Turn off the news, its bad for your health.
P.S. Oh, Sidhartha was "nothing more than a man" who found peace. That is a direct quote from more than one sutta and sutra. "The teacher" is nothing more than one who learned the buddhas truth. Thinking of buddha as a "God" is a western monotheist predeliction, and a malignant one at that. So, if you think that treating the teacher as buddha means he's "semi-divine" that's a gross misinterpretation of the nature of Buddha him/herself.
But I agree, hopefully here in the west we can finaly come to the realization that all humans are equal, realized or unrealized, black, white, brown, red, internal or external organs, short, tall, a, polly, mono, pan, theists, angnostics, homo, hetero, bisexuals, ... we are all Buddhas and bodhisattvas, wether we like it or not.
No ignorance and no end of ignorance, no suffering, no cause, no cesation, no path, and no attainment = no beings to save.
Thus the bodhisattva relies on prajnaparamita and lives without fear.
Blessings
Zen is a recycled joke.
Zen Mistresses, where are they when you need them? :buck:
This statement does not make sense to me:
"When this accusation happens, with no investigation of facts whatsoever, people become hysterical and assume that all religious people are pedophile rapists, despite the fact that 99.9% of religious practioners, both lay and ordained, are truely decent people. Just like them."
In view of the fact that 80% of Americans, for example, claim to belong to a religion, mainly Christian, we would hope that they would see that the remaining 20% of us are decent people just like them.
So, most of the people that are watching the news are religious people at some level.
I don't think that most news media hate religion and if they did, most would be savvy enough to keep that to themselves.
Ratings are what counts and alienating your viewers by denigrating their beliefs is no good for ratings.
No, I think the western media would prefer to come across as supporting Christianity and open minded about others for the most part
That doesn't mean that some won't side with their viewers against a religion that has fallen out of favour, like Islam for instance.
Of course, religion makes a lot of news. Islamic terrorists. Catholic pedophiles. You've got your Mormons marrying multiple 16 year olds. Buddhists slaughtering Muslims in Burma. Folks going nuts over the Pope. People love that stuff.
Anyone can see that religion is the cause of much of the violence we see in the world right now. The news media would be in trouble without it.
I doubt very much if here in the west we are all that much closer to a time when you won't have people who will follow a leader. Because they think he is wiser. Or they think he can fly or walk through walls or whatever.
Westerners are no smarter than anyone else in that regard.
I am still embarrassed at how long it took me to trust my practice over my seniors, and walk on by.
A worldly identity and it's attachment now seems so simple compared to it's spiritual doppelganger.
Not just the rich and powerful. Recently we had a case of popular local football players raping a drunk girl and the town covering it up, and it took the publicity to shame the law into being on the victim's side for a change. Sure, it feeds people's stereotypes and biases. We don't pay attention to football players involved in charity or anti-drinking organizations, do we? But people who believe in stereotypes are going to believe them no matter what.
hope to get time to read it soon.
Thanks, @genkaku for the reading tip.
Zen could be, for it lacks the ethical guide lines (?).
Japanese kamikaze pilots very trained via Zen to loose their fear of death.
People are greedy
They want knowledge, peace of mind, enlightenment, a guru, a direction etc.
Discernment goes out the window. So he molests women, he is beyond normal behaviour, it is a teaching. Que?
He is an alcoholic? No, he is manifesting a great teaching. Que?
Then we step back. There is the teaching. There is the douche bag.
It comes down to integrity. Do we wish to find our truth, our practice, our teachers? (some times good to have variety) In other words do we wish to learn from the dharma?
Women Zen Masters/Mistresses as usual would have to be several times better than their male counterparts just for parity. Strange, sad, unfair but true.
I was involved with a teacher who mixed Zen, Shingon and sexual predator attributes. Threw in martial arts and yoga. I learned the yoga, Shingon and martial arts. Not sure I learned any Zen. Was never aware of the douche bag side until later. Guess my focus was elsewhere.
However as a yoga teacher he smoked and justified this with pseudo teachings that I was naive enough to believe. I remember going on a yoga weekend. Noticed many, including some martial arts people, smoking during the tea break. Went out and bought cigarettes. That weekend I learned to stand on my head and reek of tobacco. I was on the path . . . sort of . . . :screwy:
'Cigarettes stimulate the lungs.' QUE?
However most of us have more resources, more access to excellent dharma, skilful teachings, inspiring teachers, praiseworthy sangha and hopefully a developing personal integrity. Trust your common sense until uncommon sense kicks in.
Thus have I herd. Keep off the grass. Stay on the Path.
:wave:
The fact is that as of late, the past 30 to 40 years, the primary function of news media has been to give opinion rather than report fact. And with the international access available it is no wonder that they are without shortage of horriffic and cancerous information to report, despite the fact that the occurance of such things uncommon. Just look at the statistics, yearly violent crime rates. .03% of the population commits any sort of violent crime in a year; they also have gone down as of late. How long have they been saying Iran will have nukes, still dont. How long have they been screaming about economic colapse, I still have food: Cancer, food poisoning, lead in toys, faulty cars, deficits, terrorists, hate crimes, scandals, rapes, murders, swine flu, global warming, el nino, syran gas attacks, cartels, gang violence.... What gives.
I can rarely... have never been able to watch any news on any station without feeling sick and hopeless. And the "informed" people are amongst the most paranoid and depressed that i know. How could you not be when you are sure that the sky is falling every day. I have not seen the sky fall yet. To me this suggests that something is amiss.
As I always say "If you want a good reason to stay in bed, watch the morning news. If you want to stay up all night, watch the evening news."
Om mani padme hung.
Lifes a picture frame, if you want it to look good be careful what you put in it.
I am especially cruel to vege-spammers . . . :rarr:
If you want to follow the precepts, be kind to carrots, eat your way to nirvana, good on you. Now go consume a good teaching, feel more virtuous than us demonic omnivores . . .
http://buddhism.about.com/od/basicbuddhistteachings/a/vegetarianism.htm
And Shimano isn't the only one. There is another Zen master, also at an advanced age, with a similar history. And many others with lesser histories of misconduct whose existence would indicate that it's not a case of a few bad apples in the barrel, but that there's something inherent in the barrel that causes apples to go bad. Together, we can learn to build a better barrel so the Dharma can shine and provide a path to the cessation of suffering, rather than being a vehicle for causing more suffering.