I've been looking at archived copies of thework.com on the Wayback Machine. [www.archive.org]

The site from 1998 to late 2000 remained the same design. Prior to october 2000 an overight stay at The Center in Barstow was only $25 to cover costs.

In october 2000 at the time she met Stephen Mitchell thework.com was completely redesigned, the school became much more professional and Mitchell's name began appearing on the site. Mitchell gave a short review for the Work and wrote a brief anthlogy of Byron Katie quotes. In december 2000 TIME magazine featured Byron Katie and called her "a visionary for the new millenium". It seems things really took of for BK the year she met Mitchell.

The following also began appearing on the new site which someone is going to need to translate for me: [web.archive.org]

California MFTs and LCSWs: This course meets the qualifications for 84 hours of CE credit for MFTs and LCSWs as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences (Provider # PCE-1283).
Counselors: BKI is recognized by the National Board of Certified Counselors to offer continuing education for National Certified Counselors. We adhere to NBCC Continuing Education Guidelines (NBCC Provider # 5914). Offered for 84 CE hours.
Nurses: BKI is approved by the California Board of Registered Nursing, Provider # CEP 13091 for 98 contact hours.
Teachers: 8.4 contact hours with California State University, Hayward.
Psychologists: BKI is an approved MCEP provider
(Provider #BKI-001) courses under review.

MCEP provider? Mandatory Continuing Education for Psychologists. What does that mean? I know she no longer advertises this.

In case anyone is curious about the Gurdjieff 'school' angle, here are two URLs
describing problematic groups using this stuff.

Its intriguing to hear 'school' and 'work' referred to in this quite different context.

[fourthwaycult.net]


[www.geocities.com]

Stuart Resnik has finally attempted to dispel his connection to Stephen Mitchell and tries to sound ignorant of how the connection developed. He fails to mention that Stephen Mitchell was one of the closest disciples of Seung Sahn (from 1973-1989) who founded the Kwan Um School of Zen of which Resnick is now a senior Dharma Teacher.

From the RandomStu blog we learn of a fellow yale graduate and LSD compadre who Resnik names as "Erik". Erik was ordained a monk by Seung Sahn in the mid-eighties and through this association Resnick also came into personal contact with Seung Sahn in 1988. So through the Zen Master himself or the many other disciples who would know Mitchell personally, Resnik has become acquainted with Mitchell. And as Resnick confirms he attended a Seung Sahn talk where Stephen Mitchell gave an introduction.

My favorite cult apology/blame the victim comment from Stu is: "If authoritarian gurus didn't exist we would have to invent them."

[guruphiliac.lefora.com]

Jay, I looked at your list.
April 2009, the California Board of Behavioral Sciences :
Accredited and approved schools to provide continuing education and are not required to have a continuing education provider number :
Byron Katie International Inc
Tucson
AZ
85750
520-615-0231

Here is a link to a bk "Satsang Report" by what appears to be an uninitiated, fairly objective guy who apparently "reviews" gurus. Make of it what you will, I found it interesting in that he inadvertently exposes some of the LGAT techniques that are employed at her workshops and their effects.

[www.globalserve.net]

He also reviews Tolle.

Quote
Jay Cruise
I've been looking at archived copies of thework.com on the Wayback Machine. [www.archive.org]

The site from 1998 to late 2000 remained the same design. Prior to october 2000 an overight stay at The Center in Barstow was only $25 to cover costs.

In october 2000 at the time she met Stephen Mitchell thework.com was completely redesigned, the school became much more professional and Mitchell's name began appearing on the site. Mitchell gave a short review for the Work and wrote a brief anthlogy of Byron Katie quotes. In december 2000 TIME magazine featured Byron Katie and called her "a visionary for the new millenium". It seems things really took of for BK the year she met Mitchell.

Wowee, amazing uncovering, thanks, Jay!

[If someone wants to cross-post any relevant information from this post]

regarding RandomStu, he does not put forward intellectually honest arguments, as noted previously, and as stated by a number of people. [forum.culteducation.com]

Also note, that the analysis of the Byron Katie LGAT seminars in that Guruphiliac forum thread, has been completely disrupted and derailed by the intrusion of RandomStu, exactly like he attempted in this thread.
Why is RandomStu pushing himelf in there? When he "claims" to know nothing about Byron Katie or Stephen Mitchell?
Disrupting honest analysis, distracting, and killing the discussion...mission accomplished.


In this case regardling Stephen Mitchell, RandomStu even goes even further than that, as anyone with basic common sense can see.
His first comment about Stephen Mitchell in the Guruphiliac forum appear to be rather cautious and "restrained", which is not characteristic!
Why the careful spin-control?

Its pretty amusing...RandomStu says..."as best as I understand it" about the connections with Stephen Mitchell. That is literally laughable. Its like a politico saying, as best as I understand it, Dick Cheney met George W. Bush a few times.

Stephen Mitchell was Seung Sahn's FIRST WESTERN MONK, his right hand man for many years, was deeply involved with Seung Sahn and Kwan Um School, and later edited books for Seung Sahn.

It seems that Stephen Mitchell himself is trying to minimize his deep connections with Seung Sahn. Stephen Mitchell appears to have been his right hand man from at least 1973-1989? Until the Seung Sahn sex scandals?
And then after that was editing the books? If someone has time, could they check into that timeline in more detail?

How can RandomStu try to pretend he doesn't know that?
Of course he knows all about it, and has for many years, right from the beginning.
How can he try to pull such a transparent bluff-tactic?

Again, due to the nature of how these Kwan Um Zen folks literally see life as a poker-chess-zen game and WAR, they believe they can literally say anything they like, including bluffs, and complete fabrications. Its all part of the game/war of life for them. And it goes way further than that, as they also believe they can DO anything they like, without any regard for general standards of "ethics". To them, life is a war, and anything goes, so beware.

As far as RandomStu, if a person is looking for a reason to defend harmful and dishonest Guru's you are on "Staff" for, you can always fabricate reasons and excuses, like for Muktananda, Gurumayi, Seung Sahn...


A few minutes of basic research turns up plenty of information.

There are LETTERS on the Kwan Um website in which Seung Sahn talks about Stephen Mitchell. There are all kinds of links to Stephen Mitchell, and probably more with his Kwan Um Zen name...Mu Gak Sunim.
There would be masses of internal information which are not as easily available.

They say in their own information in 2002 that Stephen Mitchell was Seung Sahn's FIRST WESTERN MONK.


Teaching Letters of Zen Master Seung Sahn
[www.kwanumzen.com]
QUOTE: "Stephen Mitchell has become a monk. He is now studying Zen in Korea. His Buddha name is Mu Gak Su Nim. He will come back to this country July, 1976"...
"Please convey my best to your students, especially to Stephen Mitchell. Tell him that I have just finished my thesis for Harvard (at long last) and that I.."


[www.kwanumzen.com]
QUOTE:
"Mu Gak is thirty-two years old. His worldly name is Stephen Mitchell. His parents live in New York, and his father is a doctor, the third generation doctor in the family. Stephen, the oldest son, studied French literature at Yale University and after his graduation became known as a young poet. But he always had doubts about life which made him turn to the study of religious philosophy. Still he was not able to resolve his doubts. Finally he came to know about Zen Buddhism, and travelled from Zen Center to Zen Center until he met Seung Sahn Su Nim one and a half years ago. He then studied Zen very hard and qualified himself as a Dharma teacher. Soon afterwards he established the Cambridge Zen Center, where he is now Director. Wanting to go a step forward, he cut off his hair and became a monk, thus renouncing family life."



[www.kwanumzen.com]
QUOTE:(1974) "In the autumn of that first year in New Haven, Zen
Master Seung Sahn and his first Western monk, Mu Gak
Sunim (now Stephen Mitchell) came to Yale. Mu Gak
Sunim delivered a stunning dharma talk, followed by Zen
Master Seung Sahn taking questions and answers.

QUOTE: Fortunately, in November of that year I was browsing
in a rather famous bookstore in New Haven called Book
World. In the basement of Book World there was a quite
large collection of books on Eastern religions. That
particular day I was perusing a book by Ramana Maharshi
when suddenly a voice came from behind me and said,
“So, you like Ramana Maharshi?” I turned around and
said, “Yeah, I really like Ramana Maharshi.”This person
then said, “I know somebody that knows everything that
Ramana Maharshi knows.” I replied, “Well, that is, indeed,
interesting. By the way, who are you?” He said, “I’m Mu
Gak.” Then I said, “Mu Gak?” He replied, “That means
‘no enlightenment.’” Now that was really interesting,
because I had been searching for enlightenment for a very
long time and this guy was named “no enlightenment.”
It turned out that Mu Gak Sunim actually was Stephen
Mitchell, the famous poet and translator, who many of
you in this audience know quite well. The two of us went
out and had a cup of coffee. In the ensuing conversation
he told me a great deal about Zen Master Seung Sahn and
finally he said, “If you would like to meet him I can arrange
for him to come to Yale and give a public talk.” I, of course
agreed and about a month later Zen Master Seung Sahn
and Mu Gak Sunim came and gave a talk at Berkeley
College. Zen Master Seung Sahn was answering questions
after Stephen’s opening remarks."


AUDIO: December 1982 with Sonia and Stephen Mitchell
[www.kwanumzen.com]


[www.kwanumzen.com]
Praise for The Compass of Zen
"The Great Way and a dozen side paths: all are present in The Compass of Zen. However lost it may get you, it always points to true north, because it issues straight from the great bodhisattva heart of Zen Master Seung Sahn."
-- Stephan Mitchell, translator of the The Gospel According to Jesus


[www.kwanumzen.com]
by Stephen Mitchell. A delightful, irreverent, and often hilarious record of interactions with Western students. 244 pages.


The website for Kwan Um School of Zen, sells these 2 books by Stephen Mitchell
[www.kwanumzen.com]
- Dropping Ashes on the Buddha, Teachings of Zen Master Seung Sahn, by Seung Sahn and Mitchell, Stephen
- The Whole World is a Single Flower: 365 Kong-ans for Everyday Life with Questions and Commentary by Seung Sahn and Stephen Mitchell (Paperback - 1992)

Zen is Understanding Yourself [www.kwanumzen.com]



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/2009 03:32AM by The Anticult.

another thing about RandomStu Stuart Resnick.
And these other so-called "Zen" people along these same lines.

Their pattern is to try to use their methods of Dharma Combat on people.
The problem is, its not done with intellectual integrity, as mentioned by many people.

Its literally being poisoned from the Poker-Chess concepts being used. Even RandomStu's speech on YouTube starts with a poker metaphor.

What is chess?
Chess is a complex game of technical strategy, who's goal is the CHECKMATE defeat of your opponent. (Byron Katie says The Work is a checkmate).
In chess, you can't really cheat, unless you can find a way to DISRUPT a player's concentration, maybe by sucking your teeth, mumbling, or some such sleazy tactic of DISTRACTION.


What is poker?
Poker is only partly a game of technical card strategy, and betting strategy.
At least half of the game of poker, is based on BLUFFING, deceit, lies, and acting ability.
Poker is at least 50% a mindgame, except with experienced players.
The more inexperienced the other players, the easier they are to deceive with bluffs, lies, and cheap tricks. Anything goes.
In fact, a good way to win at poker, is to pretend you are a naive chump at first, or acting drunk, when in fact your are experienced and sober.
In poker, if they are able to DUPE a naive player into losing the entire pot on a BLUFF...do they feel remorse that they duped them into losing everything?
Do two experienced crooked players in cahoots with eachother, feel remorse for secretly working together, and walking away with all the money on the table?
Of course not!! They celebrate how wonderful it was to be able to easily dupe those naive suckers.
Its all about winning the money.


The reality is this is very much the same game these guys try to play in the real world.
Except they do it with their so-called "Zen".
They know that playing with experienced players is too risky, as they will get their asses-kicked, so they choose the easiest "marks" they can find.
And they feel no remorse when they win the entire poker pot, win all the money, on a bluff and a lie.
They don't feel remorse when they can con people into handing their businesses countless thousands of dollars, or even millions.

They won the poker jackpot!!
They feel FANTASTIC, and celebrate and party, and count the money.

also, it would be wise to make a copy of any important information from the Wayback Machine...as the Wayback Machine will become yet another internet scrubbing BK Washing Machine.

The Stephen Mitchell Wikipedia page is high comedy. [en.wikipedia.org] The main page does not mention his former wives, and Zen guru's, etc. (the quotes from Seung Sahn from above could all be put into Wikipedia, as they are referenced, as well as Bio listings about his past marriages, etc)
It could also list his pubished Zen name...

Mu Gak Sunim
Mu Gak Su Nim
(that supposedly means No-Enlightenment)

Stephen (No-Enlightenment) Mitchell.
[zenmirror.blogspot.com]
"Stephen Mitchell was the first Western Monk ordained by Zen Master Seung Sahn and was known as Mu Gak Sunim for 14 years".
"Stephen Mitchell was the first Monk ordained by Zen Master Seung Sahn in the West"



But the real comedy comes in the discussion area, where a 'stephenmitchell' got busted for writing and posting his own self-promotional PR material.


[en.wikipedia.org]
QUOTE:
Autobiographical editing

[edit] Puff removed
i've removed most of this article which was publisher's puff and written by 'stephenmitchell' - presumably the author. Stephen - i'm assuming you're new to Wikipedia, so using the "don't bite the newbies policy": there is a strict 'neutral point of view' policy here and authors should refrain from promoting themselves... see Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons -- rgds, ben Gladstone 17:05, 21 March 2007 (UTC)


[edit] De-educated?
"Mitchell was educated at Amherst College, the University of Paris, and Yale University, and de-educated through intensive Zen practice." De-educated? CES (talk) 04:38, 4 January 2008 (UTC)


[edit] To Mr. Mitchell
I know you've edited this page...Yet it would be much better to cite the praise of actual published reviews. Wikipedia endeavors to be an encyclopedia, not a press release. ... DurovaCharge! 22:20, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Retrieved from "[en.wikipedia.org];



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/2009 05:12AM by The Anticult.