The Vinaya is not followed by most Zen practitioners. That’s why my lineage uses the term “priest” instead of “monk” (and a number of others do the same). Within Japanese Zen (and, in fact, all of Japanese Buddhism) the Vinaya is not a part of the life of an ordained practitioner. The schools follow the ordination reforms originally promulgated by Saicho 1200 years ago. Japanese Zen does not expect its teachers to be celibate and temples are actually commonly passed down within families these days.

The Pali Canon is only canon, officially, for Theravada. Others, especially in modern times, may read it, but that specific collection, in Pali, is not part of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Tibetan, etc. Buddhism. There are sutra collections, often derived from Chinese organization, that are canon for those traditions. Additionally, for the Tibetan tradition and some Japanese traditions, there are tantric texts as well.

As far as being “allowed” to teach, well, we aren’t Catholics. There is no official Church or Pope that decides who can and cannot teach. Making information available concerning who was ordained by whom, where the lineage comes from, etc. is pretty much the best that we can do. Speaking negatively about teachers also goes against vows and the Dharma, oftentimes.

A point of clarification: There are five precepts for lay people — those are the BARE MINIMUM. There is the Vinaya for teachers. Yet we are supposed to accept teachers who drink and use their students as sexual fodder???

You should not underestimate the damage this sort of behaviour does. Talk about some bad karma. There is RIGHT and WRONG in Buddhism. Go back and READ THE BUDDHA’S WORDS in the Pali cannon. You may find it doesn’t jibe with your “new age” watered down hippy-dippy variant.

And then Al, despite your regards for Mr. Bainbridges acquaintance with Tantra and Buddhism in general, -however I think it is problematic to bring up the issue of “samaya” when discussing the conduct of a Zen priest. There is no samaya within a Zen Buddhist’s relations with their teachers. Likewise discussing the stories of Jigme Lingpa’s conduct with his close students, -or Naropa and Tilopa, or even Drukpa Kunleg for that matter– these are all examples of Tantric gurus from a non-dual tradition, one in which the students have voluntarily taken vows of pure-perception in regards to the teacher. I think it’s important here to emphasize that there is a recommended examination period before one makes this commitment and that it is a huge commitment, -and a voluntary act. Once one makes that commitment then one’s devotion may be tested, and ones normal attachments to pleasure, aversions to pain, and all kinds of other dualistic patterns may be thrown in the crucible of the guru’s play. But that is what one signed on for. None of the behaviors of most of the great Tantric gurus through history would hold up well to conventional moral or legal scrutiny….and that seems to be what Bainbridge is touching on. However, this is not the issue at hand in the article above. And even within Vajrayana Buddhism, -it is believed that before one just starts publically exhibiting the conduct beyond conventional norms, -one should be able to at least exhibit some spiritual powers (siddhis) to inspire faith (and avoid inspiring doubt) . An example is the 6th Dalai Lama who when people were up-in-arms about all his apparent romantic partners, climbed to the top of the Potala palace and publicly urinated down, -then midway-down and midstream sucked all the liquid back into his “vajra”.

Obviously this case in question has none of the trappings of the “skillful means” of a tantric yogi, and the fact that his female partners were ending up in mental institutions speaks volumes. How one could reconcile keeping silent about this seems hard to comprehend.

This kind of behavior only thrives when people are willing to hide it in the dark.

Mr. Bainbridge is well acquainted with Tantra and Buddhism in general so you aren’t telling him anything that he doesn’t already know. His personal point of view is as a tantric practitioner though.

You are confusing two different traditions. Samaya is something uniquely of the vajrayana, or (tantric) diamond-vehicle of Buddhism, and Zen is of the mahayana, or great-vehicle. Therefore, -while there are vows in Zen, and general codes of ethical conduct aside from those vows.. the vows of Zen are generally minimal. The basic 10 do’s and don’ts of any practicing lay Buddhist. This of course includes avoiding sexual misconduct. However, Samaya is a vow taken at the time of tantric-empowerment, and usually includes the general 14-root vows of the vajrayana as well as any specific vow that the presiding guru gives at that time.. in general one promises to do whatever the guru wishes. Because total trust in the guru is a requirement in the vajrayana path, it is generally recommended in the tradition to study the prospective teacher for a period of twelve years prior to making this leap of faith. Examining them for their inner qualities and outer conduct. It seems that many of our (western) foibles when it comes to suffering through these scandals with gurus would be vastly diminished if not completely eliminated if we were to follow this simple advice. However we are incessantly impatient, -that’s part of our cultural model.

In terms of the Zen transmission, it seems that a great deal of emphasis is placed on the Roshis’ Dharma transmissions to their lineage heirs, -and it does take on the feel of an almost tantric level event. However there seem to be as many flaws in this tradition as any other, -and apparently there is room for worldly concern where there shouldn’t be. So it’s left to the buyer to be beware. Perhaps all Buddhists should subscribe to this 12 year examination period before they put undue faith or trust in a teacher to guide them to Enlightenment. Until then, maybe it is better to see them as an uncle, as one poster said. No one would hesitate to out a pervert uncle, would they?

@apuleius platonicus I tend to agree that this is what Westerners want, expect and deserve in general: business feeds on the people via the media, the media feeds on scandal, and people feed on the media and business – it is a symbiotic, if necrotic, relationship. Scandal is like a high sugar food.

But I do doubt that anyone involved (including the Roshi) wanted this precise unhappy situation for themselves. And I seriously doubt that having “open investigations” and the like – that is exposing everyone to the glare of a public spectacle – will help anyone except those people publishing the letters and the producers and consumers of media scandal. Follow the money…

We do worship our guru figures as messiahs and this leads us into stupidity. I was thinking about the phenomena of groupies and wondering what kind of pressure the Roshi was under from his disciples – how much sex was being implicitly and/or explicitly offered to him I wonder. Or to put it another way – did Monica ask to suck Bill off, or merely make it clear that she wouldn’t object. Did the Roshi simply make the mistake of accepting an unconscious proposition? I note that he’s not accused of rape, just underspecified ‘inappropriate’ behaviour. Inappropriate, not illegal. So what does this even mean?

None of the now legion scandals has resulted in a far-reaching self-examination of our own attitudes to sex. We look for someone to blame. The weird thing is that it follows the Judeo-Christian moral principles for establishing guilt and exacting punishment (which always involves inflicting harm on the guilty party). Done in a way that provides a public spectacle – for we like nothing better than a public hanging. The veneer of our civility is very thin in places.

I think it speaks to our attitudes to sex generally: the combination of wantonness and puritanism which creates these bizarre situations. That we fight for the right to publicly flaunt sexuality, for men and now women to make themselves sexual desirable (but ambiguously available); and then we condemn some people for having sex at all. Images designed to be sexually stimulating are everywhere, they saturate the media, and yet we scorn those who respond to them sexually. There is a fundamental hypocrisy that never gets addressed.

We Western Buddhists seem to have little or no faith that karma works. Like angry Christians meting out God’s justice, we seem to think that we must give karma a hand by punishing wrong doers. That unless there is some public retribution then justice is not served. It is a sickness amongst us.

Follow not the gourd (Al is a heretic) follow the Shoe, the Holy Shoe… and let us also remove our shoes… for he has shown us the way. And kill that man that says it’s a sandal.

Jayarava

In general I agree with you, and would find it difficult to stick with a teacher who did some of that stuff too, as an abstract proposition. But, I just got done reading the history of Naropa’s studying with Tilopa, where T. ordered, for example, N. to jump on an elephant, grab a bride on the way to her wedding, and drag her to the ground. Then, there’s the biography of Jigme Lingpa, founder of the Longchen Nyintig lineage, who was noted for bringing his students to enlightenment by sleeping with the women and beating the men with sticks. I mean, people got stuff from Jigme Lingpa that they couldn’t get from Jim Baker, or even Richard. Some of this stuff is not simple, and at some level, I no longer feel confident that I understand everything that’s going on.