1
When not just one contemporary Buddhist Master but a baker’s
dozen (pun intended) have been accused of various kinds of financial, sexual, and
social misconduct, we collectively turn our eyes upon them and cannot look away
even as the lurid details continue to emerge. Accounts of the alleged events
are at once horrifying and fascinating. The outmoded theological term
“disgrace” comes to mind. We are rapt, in part because of the feelings that the
stories evoke—simple curiosity, indignation, protectiveness, and titillation. Add
to the mix of feelings a sense of moral dread at the dawning realization that
we are not what we thought ourselves to be, and you have the makings of serious
interest. Perhaps because I am the son and grandson of journalists, I cannot
but view the unfolding story as a writer’s dream come true. I mention this not
in a spirit of cynicism, but because of what it says about our fascination with
such matters as these in an age dominated by mass communications. It is our own
Zen supermarket tabloid headliner.
Like most people who have pondered the continuing
revelations, I am of the opinion that fraud, theft, and predation are not good
things. Where they can be proven, the bad actors should be pointed out, the
behavior stopped and punished. Perpetrators, victims, and members of their
communities should seek justice and healing. That having been said, I am yet
disturbed by the alternation of the commentary between the accusatory and the apologetic.
It is as if I’d fallen asleep aboard a bus bound for the Zen monastery only to
awaken at a church camp abuzz with gossip. The ceaseless discussion of the latest scandals
and the frantic efforts to guard against future scandals have taken on a
Protestant odor and an air of panic that is unseemly in followers of the Way. As
I am not inclined to promote any sect of Japanese Buddhism, and because my
capacity for institutional loyalty is set in the neighborhood of zero, I am
less than wild about the prospects of a Zen Licensing Board. Ms. Shireson and
her cadre of would-be bureaucrats seem determined to make Wayfaring as safe as
a game of canasta. We practitioners, corralled by our self-absorption,
oscillate between moral outrage and frissons of prurient interest. This
unpleasant business is our own private reality show, in which we are both
players and audience. In the background one hears murmurings of ethical
guidelines, committees, and boards of review, of professional standards and training—bodhisattvas
reduced to so many potential shysters and quacks—as if we have not had the
benefit of such things all along. Mazi, Huangbo, and Linji would laugh
themselves sick to hear of it. If the tenets of Buddha-Dharma, the precepts,
and the monastic code are not enough to keep our boys and girls from going
wild, then perhaps it is time to admit that as a society we are not yet mature
enough to undertake the project of self liberation without adult supervision.
“But,” someone will be asking, “How could we let such things
happen?” Up to now it has been possible for us to imagine that to embrace
Buddhism and/or Zen invests us with a higher ethical standard than that of the
general public, a safety mechanism built into the practice that protects us from
what is worst in ourselves. If we ever believed that, we were deceived. But my
aim here is neither to chastise nor to engage in a sociological critique that
might let us off the hook. There has already been a great deal of that sort of
thing. What interests me is what these scandals say and don’t say about our
understanding and practice of Zen and Buddhism.
2
There is widespread agreement that the conduct under
discussion here violates contemporary ethical standards and is not to be
tolerated. Public examination of the unfolding events has focused on such
topics as male sexuality, relations of power between student and teacher, Allzumenschlichkeit, professional boundaries and the like. The social, psychotherapeutic, and
ecclesiastical consequences are being addressed in various ways. Yet relatively
little has been said about the implications of those events for Buddhism and
Zen, as religion and as contemplative practice, except to note that the
occurrence of such improprieties puts them in a bad light. I am quite certain,
however, that there is more to it than that, that we have opened the proverbial
Can of Worms.
In its narrowest compass the undeniable misconduct of our
teachers draws our attention to the supposed connection between moral rectitude
and spiritual accomplishments. That alone ought to be enough to stimulate a
re-evaluation of traditional views of Buddha-Dharma. In its wider application
it raises a cluster of difficult questions about our beliefs and practices as
individuals and communities. We might begin with the most obvious of these, and
ask, “Isn’t enlightenment supposed to immunize the Zen Master against the kind
of temptations that are likely to arise in a situation so rife with
opportunities for abuse? And if it doesn’t, why doesn’t it?” It is widely supposed
that a connection obtains between moral perfection and awakening, such that
without the former the latter is impossible.
The basic idea is simple enough. If the efficient working of
your mental faculties is impaired by shame, remorse, fear of punishment, or any
other manifestation of bad conscience, you will not be able to attain
contemplative equipoise (Samādhi.) Without a calm mind it is next to impossible
to acquire liberating insight. Or so the story goes. It is an hypothesis that
has a certain plausibility in the context of a society whose members share a
clearly defined and well supported moral code. Within a traditional framework
of customs and laws, the vast majority of people can be expected to exhibit
more or less similar emotional responses to knowledge of personal guilt. In the
absence of such a culture we cannot assume that education in normative
standards is sufficiently uniform or thoroughgoing to inculcate a universal ethical
standard. I offer our current situation as prima facie evidence of moral
confusion and weakness.
The ancient values of Western Civilization that form the
basis of our moral life—in theory at least—were never quite so monolithic as we
are sometimes led to think. Our so-called Judeo-Christian heritage is a
hotch-potch of ancient Jewish mythology, mystery religions, Hellenic philosophy,
and Roman law. Moreover, “traditional Western values” have been under attack
from several directions since the late Middle Ages at least. The individualism
of the Renaissance, the ideology of commerce with its emphasis on self-interest,
and the skepticism of science have contributed to the undermining of our sense
of moral certainty. Psychology, philosophy and biology have made destabilizing
forays into the realm of ethics. Increases in rates of literacy and higher
education, modern methods of communication, the international migration of
large numbers of people, and a global expansion of trade have placed us
cheek-by-jowl with a host of competing systems of religion and political economy,
each with its peculiar cultural bias. I dare to say that never have a people inhabited
a more varied moral landscape or stood on shakier moral ground.
In any case, monastic tradition has long considered moral
sensitivity (P. hiri) and a sense of
moral peril (P. ottappa) crucial to
the attainment of higher knowledge. As with so many of the Buddha’s teachings,
the notion can be expressed in terms of contingent causation, as in the
following passage from the Vinaya (V.164):
“[We practice] lifestyle rules for
the sake of restraint; restraint for the sake of non-remorse; non-remorse for
the sake of gladness; gladness for the sake of delight; delight for the sake of
tranquility; tranquility for the sake of ease; ease for the sake of Samādhi;
Samādhi for the sake of the knowledge and vision of the way things are; that knowledge
for the sake of distaste; distaste for the sake of dispassion; dispassion for
the sake of liberation; liberation for the sake of the knowledge and vision of
liberation; that knowledge and vision for the sake of complete extinction (nibānna) through non-clinging. Just for
that reason do we engage in talk, counsel, support, and listening, namely,
liberation of the heart through non-clinging.”
Although some readers might experience puzzlement over the
order or details of the sequence, the general idea seems clear enough. Good
behavior is conducive to a calm mind, a calm mind is conducive to liberating
knowledge, and liberating knowledge brings about non-clinging. The end of clinging
puts an end to the activity of the nidānas, the so-called “links in the chain”
of dependent origination. From that point onward, one is forever free not only of
ignorance, craving and clinging, but of sensory stimulation, consciousness, and
life itself. Game over.
Traditionalist will insist that moral purification is the
sine qua non of both awakening and the cessation of renewed existence. On
account of that relation, belief in karma serves as the bedrock of Buddhist
ethics and the indispensable precursor of moral striving. Of course, that is
not the only way of looking at the matter. As we shall see, there are Buddhists
who deny the connection. For example, in the following passage from the writings
of Genju, author of the blog, 108zenbooks.com, no link between the two
is assumed:
“Professional and personal ethics are
a means of addressing the outcome of being terribly human. And importantly,
without the latter, the former is toothless. That is, being a Zen teacher (or
psychologist) no more makes us upright than sacrificing birds on an altar. Standing
up is the only practice that does, and each time we do so we create a community
of uprightness and from that emerges a model of ethical living. Simply put,
actions among people in a community are operationalized as acceptable or not;
it doesn’t arise out of a naïve belief that our inherent goodness is sufficient
for moral action to occur.”
A bit social-sciency, but you get the idea. Now, if you have
been reading the Pali Canon, you will have noticed that a good deal of what the
Buddha has to say to householders has to do with the moral dimension of action
and its consequences in this life and lives to come. That is a dimension of
conduct that is largely missing from the current discussion of the Rogue Roshis,
about which more in a future post.
