I've been reading the comments section here more often lately than before and it's been interesting to note that some readers are complaining that I talk too much here about my self and the issues of spiritual celebrity and don't deliver enough of what they call "the Dharma."I already know enough not to take what I see in the comments section as the majority opinion of what I write here. I get something like a thousand hits a day. So even when there are 500 comments that still represents far fewer people than are actually reading. Yet it is interesting that people say this. Because I tend to feel completely the opposite.
I tend to write about things that I want to read about but which I don't see anyone else writing about. So I write about spiritual celebrity not because I think I'm so god damned interesting and everybody wants to read about my exploits, but because I think the subject itself is very interesting and no one else seems willing to say anything about it.
Spiritual celebrity is a huge business these days. Look at guys like the Dalai Lama, Eckhart Tolle, Thich Nhat Hahn, Gempo "slimebag" Roshi, etc., etc., etc. These guys make weenies like me look like... I dunno... maybe like Zero Defex as compared to Green Day. Guys like this have "people." Like in the sense of "have your people call my people and we'll do lunch." They've got entourages to keep the fans at bay. They've got limos to drive them to the airport. They're flying first class. Yet I've never seen any of them talking about the issues involved in all of that. Maybe they do and I'm just not paying attention. But I doubt it.
Spiritual celebrity-hood isn't something new either. Yogananda was a big star in the mid 20th century. Krishnamurti too. Dogen was well known in his day and Buddha was said to have attracted thousands to his talks. What was up with that?
Maybe it's just me. But I'm always interested in the nuts and bolts stuff much more than in the airy fairy philosophical side of things. Even my fascination with Japanese monster movies is much more a fascination with how they were created than with the movies themselves. When I get a DVD I always watch the "making of" bonus materials before I watch the film. Sometimes I don't even watch the film at all.
As for "the Dharma," to me all of this stuff is the Dharma. It's every bit as much the Dharma as the more philosophical matters. And, don't worry your pretty little heads, I plan to get more into the philosophical stuff in the new Safe For Work Suicide Girls column I'll be starting soon.
But this stuff is what drives the Dharma. This is how it gets out there to the people who need it. It is all bound up in the same thing. It is the Dharma.
I had a funny conversation with Nishijima Roshi on the eve of the publication of Hardcore Zen. I said, "Once this book comes out, if it sells well I'll become famous. Doesn't that go against what Dogen says about not seeking fame and profit?"
He said something like, "Dogen was talking about seeking fame and profit. You didn't write the book with the objective of becoming rich and famous. Sometimes you do something sincere and people like it, then fame and money come. In that case you deal with the real situation as it comes up."
Well I haven't become rich, nor even that famous. But a certain degree of fame (and no degree of profit, at least not yet) has followed. Well, what does one do about that? How do you keep your head as a Buddhist practitioner? Do you run away? Many people in my position have. Do you fall head first into fame and money and forget your practice? Again, many have done this too.
I have been trying to see if there's a middle way. Spending a month in Tassajara recently was a way of trying to radically reconnect with Zen. I'm still trying to see if the effort was successful or not. Based on my experience of Tassajara and of coming back into the world after, I'm starting to understand the vast difference between enforced discipline and discipline that comes from oneself. But that may be a whole 'nother topic.
The economics of being a Zen teacher are both frustrating and fascinating. Take, for example, the matter of getting a "real job." When I started writing about Zen I had a 5-day a week, 10-6 job. But because of that I could not do things like lead multi-day sesshins or run off to Europe for two months to talk Buddhism to the people of Poland and Finland and Ireland and all those other lands over there. I also couldn't devote several hours a day to pure writing practice.
Now people want me to do those things. But about half of those who extend such invitations have no clue about the nuts and bolts economics involved. They imagine, for example, that I'm making loads of money from book sales. Not true. My advances are about 1/3 of what my salary was when I had a "real job" and the market will only realistically bear about one book every two years from me. So I'm now making about 1/6 what I used to. It really is not enough to sustain one person. Thank gosh I don't have a family to support!
So there are people out there who want me to come and lead three-day retreats and yet do not understand when I start talking about how the event is going to be financed, particularly when it comes to how I will get paid. Maybe they think the Dharma should be free. And it should! But rent and utilities are not free. So the choice seems to be find a way to make money from the Dharma or just stop.
The most common solution to this dilemma is to create a communal base of support for the teacher. You start something like San Francisco Zen Center or Plum Village or whatever and a lot of people with "real jobs" contribute some of their money to allow the teacher to do her or his thing without having to get a "real job."
This may not be a viable option in my case because I'm just too damned anti-social. I mean, I like people and all. But I really chafe at all of the things it takes to hold together a community.
So I'm testing out other options. Sometimes I entertain vague dreams that Sex Sin And Zen will sell in the same tonnage as The Power of Now or the latest book of ghost-written musings by Great Master What's His Face (I just talked to a guy who ghost writes books for some spiritual master dude who gets $15,000 as his standard speaking fee, I write all my books myself, thank you, and my speaking fee is a whole lot less than that). Then I could be independent and do what I need to do that way. Hence all the annoying self-promotion (and if you think you're annoyed by it, imagine what it's like to have to actually do it!).
One of the people I met at Tassajara and talked to about this stuff had been involved in promoting spiritual masters before. He told me the secret was to include what he called a "promise." You have to tell folks they're gonna get something of value from coming to your talk or seminar. That's a tough one for me because I'm so steeped in the "Zen is good for nothing" tradition established by Sawaki Roshi. So maybe I'm screwed.
Anyway, I leave you with the photo above which proves positive that zazen has given me the power of levitation (click on the photo to get a larger version and see for yourself). If you want the secret of levitation use the "donate" button on the upper left of this blog.
