I picked up a little newsletter from the magazine rack at a Zen center I visited, a publication put out by the Soto Zen Buddhism International Center in San Francisco. And there was an article in there that, to me, spelled out why institutionalized Zen sucks dead donkey puds.
The article was by a European Zen monk who tells how he got invited to participate in the 2007 Sotoshu Ango in Europe. What on God’s green Earth is an ango, you may ask. I did. I had to go look it up. Turns out an ango is an intensive 90-day Zen training period. In this case it was a very special training period organized by the Soto Sect’s central governing body (Sotoshu) in Japan to be its very first official duly licensed training period in Europe. That’s Soto Zen®, to you buster! So basically we’re talking about the Zen equivalent of a tractor and farm implements trade show or an annual meeting of the Midwestern Nabisco Cookie Company sales reps.
The guy writes that just before he got the invitation, “my 72 year old father was diagnosed with spreading colon cancer.” Nonetheless he elected to go to Soto-shu’s big party. “I wished my father a peaceful death and went on my way,” he says. His dad died the first day of the big to-do. Our friend did not leave the festivities to attend the funeral. All along, he says, he asked himself, “what importance do I give my greatest desire of simply living a religious life, and how is this deep desire obscured, pushed away in a far away corner by some idealistic or romantic desires that disperse my attention and bring along so much suffering and frustration in this life, in this society?” Like maybe the frustration of a dying parent? God I hate it when that happens. It’s worse than hangnails.
Now look. Pay attention to what I’m about to say, Internet trolls. I am not addressing this blog entry to the guy who wrote that article. If I wanted to communicate with him I’d write him a letter. You’ll notice I haven’t named the gentleman in question. Nor do I have any reason to believe he reads this blog. What I am addressing here is the presence of an article like this in an official publication of the Soto organization and the utterly fucked message it sends. Got that? I know some of you don’t. But I’ll keep going anyway.
I have no idea what this guy’s relationship to his dad was. For all I know maybe dad beat him with a coat hanger every day until he was big enough to hit back, and that’s the real reason he skipped out on him during his last moments on Earth. But even if that was the case, all of us have a far bigger commitment to our families — our real families not our fake “spiritual families” — than to some big corporate religious institution that’s throwing a jamboree.
The article makes it sound as though our friend was so dazzled to be one of the elite few allowed by the Masters in far off and oh-so-truly-Zen Japan to participate in the event that he lost sight of his real duties. The Soto organization seems to want to promote the idea that we should run away from the suffering and frustration of our real lives and hide in the warm and protective bosom of big mama Sotoshu. This is what whacked out religious cults do. There is no place for this kind of nonsense in Buddhism. If only this were the only instance where the Sotoshu acted this way…
And just FYI, the folks in most Western Zen institutions have Yellow Fever so bad they need high dosage antibiotics stat. Whenever someone from the magical land of Japan steps into the room they’re all ready to slaughter each other to be the first to stick their tongues up his ass. Look, I lived in Japan for eleven years. I’ve seen more homeless guys in stolen black robes collecting spare change for booze money in train stations than I can count, and more “real” Buddhist monks in flashy imported cars bought with the money they charge to give peoples’ dead relatives Dharma names in Heaven than I could possibly vomit over. Get over it, people. But I digress…
The ancient Buddhist teachers often talked about leaving home and family for the religious life. Fine. But this is not an example of “leaving home and family.” As presented, the story given in this article is an example of getting sucked into the power games of a corporate elite with a vested interest in expanding their authority and control. “Leaving home and family” means switching your focus from trivial materialistic entanglements towards a larger more universal purpose. It doesn’t mean skipping out on your dying dad because you might miss the opportunity to kiss the asses of the higher ups in your cult. And this is sure as heck what the article seems to be promoting. Once again, trust me, I know there are a lot of legitimate reasons people might want to miss out on the death of a parent. I’ve heard stories that would curl your toenails. But getting invited to a big pow-wow by the sect bosses is not one of them. Never. No.
The guy goes on to gush about how the experience of the ango promoted the development of compassion and wisdom towards oneself and towards others. Huh? Compassion and wisdom is when you tell the big guys at the home office in Japan to stuff their party invitation, your dad is dying. Again (again), as much as it might seem like it, I am not, not, not addressing the guy who wrote the article. He gives hints that other factors were involved in his decision. But if the editors of the magazine did not want to send the message that cult activities take precedence over dying parents they should have asked for a rewrite. They didn’t.
Organized religion can bite me. The Sotoshu can bite me. I’ll go to their clambakes from time to time just to see how much distance I need to put between me and them. That is, if I ever get invited to one again. But more and more I’m seeing just how great the gap really is between the kind of Buddhism I learned and now teach and the stuff the higher ups in the Soto Organization World HQ want to spread. I remain a card-carrying member of the cult for now. But, man-o-man do I regret it sometimes.
