Amazing Disgrace

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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.

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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.