A look at the sex scandal of Seung Sahn in the book
Turning The Wheel: American Women Creating The New Buddhism by Sandy Boucher (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993)...
Excerpts from pp. 225-230:
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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!"
Loie further says:
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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.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/08/2009 10:32PM by helpme2times.