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In most situations in which the teacher is having sexual relations with students, it is not the actions themselves that prove destructive, but the secrecy in which they are pursued. Students believe in their teacher and model themselves after him. A deep trust is established. When that is broken, much psychological harm is done. Also, the senior students usually know the affairs, keep the secret, and thus the hypocrisy spreads. Certainly the teacher's participation in secret affairs affects his ability to give guidance to his students, especially in the area of relationships.


Often the sexual liaisons are only part of a larger picture in which a hierarchical structure results in some students feeling taken advantage of, as their unpaid labor built the Zen center and their loyalty allowed their Zen master to enlarge his domain of influence and function in a dictatorial manner.

Two women who recently have looked critically at their teacher's behavior and the context in which it occurred are Sonia Alexander of the Cambridge Zen Center and Loie Rosenkrantz of Empty Gate Zen Center in Berkeley. These institutions are branches of the Kwan Um Zen School headed by Korean Zen Master Seung Sahn, called by his students Soen Sa Nim.

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Sonia Alexander, a small blonde woman who radiates friendliness and amused intelligence, was a director of the Cambridge Zen Center, which occupies several row houses on a street behind Central Square. She lived there with her husband and worked outside as a medical photographer. Now she believes that she was simply being used in order to build Zen centers and establish Korean Zen practice in this country.

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When I first spoke with Sonia in Cambridge, the news of Soen Sa Nim's intimate relationships with students had not yet come out. Sonia, who knew nothing of these affairs, spoke of the example of pristine conduct set by her teacher. By the time I spoke with her again, on the telephone from California, her life had changed drastically. This woman whose whole existence had been based in the Cambridge Zen Center had moved with her husband to a condominium in Jamaica Plain and severed all official ties with the Zen center after learning that her teacher, whom she had been led to believe was a celibate monk, had several long-term sexual affairs with women in Zen centers.

"When he was questioned on it," Sonia tells me on the phone, "he said he slept with the women because he needed someone in the Zen center he could trust. It wasn't love, it wasn't desire."

She and others were outraged at this news and began to take a hard look at the assumptions and procedures in their Zen center. They began to identify instances of questionable behavior that they had previously rationalized, and they saw the Zen center as a little world of its own, which functioned to exploit them and give them an unreal view of themselves.

"We bought into the 'mystery' of Zen," Sonia Alexander says. "And we created a closed community where we had status, where a lot of people are economically and morally tied in."

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A woman more deeply disturbed about the dynamics within the organization founded by Soen Sa Nim is Loie Rosenkrantz, who was at one time director of the Empty Gate Zen Center in Berkeley and representative to the council that oversees all of the centers under Soen Sa Nim's direction. She speaks particularly of the method in which deception is perpetrated, and she points out that it is our giving up of power in these situations that allows them to continue.

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"I was a participant in this community for a good eight years and had become one of the old-timers, and I never knew that Soen Sa Nim and the women in Providence had slept together for five years and subsequently that he and another woman who lived at Cambridge Zen Center had been lovers, and perhaps there have been some other women..."

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When the information about Soen Sa Nim's intimate relationships reached Berkeley, Loie says, people responded with shock, confusion, and anger--and some relief in finding out that Soen Sa Nim was "not so perfect."

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Her eyes are wide with outrage as she tells me about the letters to a friend of hers in which her teacher explained his actions.


"He said that he slept with this woman because she could be the core of the then Providence Zen Center and that sleeping with him helped make her strong." She adds ironically, "It took five years to make her strong! And he said the same thing about the woman at Cambridge Zen Center: that the Zen center was floundering, and by making her strong, it made the Zen center strong, and therefore he acted for the benefit of all the people. And he believes it!"

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"If you live in these communities for years, it's not just how you feel about your teacher, it's your home, it's all your friends, it's where you're raising your kids--do you have enough independence in your own life to move, give up your job, your community? It's like you give up everything! So a lot of these people are too attached. Or they haven't really gotten the information how serious it is. Because it's very serious. It's fascistic. And Soen Sa Nim is a dictator!"


"Isn't fascist too strong a word to apply here?" I [Sandy Boucher] object.

She shakes her head. "Let me clarify for you what I mean by that. Basically it describes a situation where there's an inherent lack of democracy, where power comes from the top down, where decisions are often made in secret without a genuine process of consultation with the group as a whole."

And she goes on, "The lack of democracy can express itself in many ways; its essence is control which tends to be oppressive and dictatorial, in which the group's thoughts and actions represent or are heavily influenced by the will of the leader or in this case the 'enlightened master'."

Many people have left the Cambridge Zen Center and the Empty Gate Zen Center, Loie tells me, and many of the old-timers from the Providence Center have moved to Cambridge or Providence proper, so that these centers are now peopled with newcomers. Many of the new people coming in don't know about the teacher's sexual behavior.

"One of the biggest issues for me is if people don't know what's going on, then you're abusing their ability to make decisions for themselves. So people are thinking once again the Soen Sa Nim is celibate, when he's not. If he really believed in himself and what he was doing, he could say, 'Well, I dress as a celibate monk, but what I really am is single, which means that I'm not married and I don't have attached relationships.' So someone can ask, 'Well, is five years' continuous relationship with somebody not attached? What do you mean by attached? Why is it okay for you to do this, and why do you still wear the robes of a celibate monk?'"

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Loie herself is no longer a Dharma teacher and no longer lives at the Empty Gate Zen Center. She has sent back her robes and bowl with a statement of withdrawal.

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I have been a Zen practitioner for roughly forty years. Many years ago I became interested in viewing Zen from a scholarly point of view as a way to explain the great disparity I witnessed between how the Zen institution claimed its leaders behaved and what I saw first hand. I was driven to understand what was happening and why, not out of a dry, academic interest, but rather, by the confusion, trouble and suffering that I and others were experiencing.


By luck, in the early 1990's, I met an academically-minded monk connected with Chinese Buddhism. From him, I was introduced to an academic view of the history of Zen that strongly contrasted with the more familiar history promulgated by the Zen institution. Needless to say, it was an eye opener that led to many exciting hours of study up to this day. Later, through a friend, I became interested in the sociology of religion and of institutions.

Looking at Zen through both the lens of academic history and the lens of the sociology of religion and institutions, I hope to show how Zen developed over time, and how it responded to historical settings and necessities. I will show how the institution that has grown up around Zen functions - as do most institutions - to promote and protect itself, and how it empowers its leaders and enables that power to function.

I am attempting to make clear for myself and other Zen practitioners what is happening at Zen centers in America. I have found some conceptual tools that helped me analyze how these Zen centers operate. These tools were especially helpful in understanding how the conceptions of Dharma transmission and unbroken lineage and their supporting structures impact Zen students' lives at their Centers.

Critical thinking is Buddhist and Buddhism is critical thinking. By demanding tough answers and not being satisfied with easy ones, I hope to improve the situation of Zen in America which, since the mid-1960's, has suffered from repeated scandals - scandals that hurt its practitioners, caused others to leave and marred its reputation for years to come.

Buddhism has a history of adaptability to many cultures. No doubt, it will adapt to the West. We have an opportunity, by understanding the institutions and history of Zen, to claim its true spirit and inherent freedom for our lives.

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The Anticult
Why would anyone JOIN a group right at the time the sex scandals are becoming public, and most people are leaving the group?

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quackdave

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The Anticult
Why would anyone JOIN a group right at the time the sex scandals are becoming public, and most people are leaving the group?

I have an idea: Maybe ol' Stewie is putting his 'boo-boo' where it doesn't belong, like his master. It's only my guess, of course; it could be way more sickening than that.
qd

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If I may add to your insight, I offer the following for reader consideration and possible reading:

Declaration of Reverned Pamela Cooper-White:
called as an expert witness in the matter of Bertolucci vs. Ananda

http://www.anandainfo.com/cooper-white.html

Two books:

Pamela Cooper-White, the author of the book:
"The Cry of Tamar: Violence Against Women and the Church's Response", published in 1995

Peter Rutter, M.D., psychiastrist on the faculty of University of California, San Francisco Medical School, and the author of "Sex in the Forbidden Zone" (published by Tarcher, 1990)

I also highly suggest visiting the website of Joan Radha Bridges, former member of Siddha Yoga, and sexually assualted by Swami Muktananda. Ms. Bridges has brought together different survivors of sexual assault, of differeent groups.

Ms. Bridges is in the process of publishing and releasing a video.

http://www.shadowoftheguru.com

I highly applaud Ms. Bridges.

As a footnote:
There are those who were sexually assualted by family members in their formative years. They have been noted to go on to give an affirmation to future sexual assualt(s) by spiritual fathers (and/or high ranking members of groups). The transference of imprinting/natal experience to another source beyond DNA family, is a subject of deep study and consideration.