Cheerleader Buddhist

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Dear Fellow Buddhist:

I moved in to the Zen Center right after New Year's, last January. I brought all my college cheerleader’s doubts and questions about relationships, work and love with me. All I knew, at that time, was that this Zen Center had been established by this wise-woman Teacher, about twenty years ago, a Teacher, who by now, managed to absolutize the beginnings, to turn it into The Story, told repeatedly, a reified absolute, unsurpassed by any other story around, the Saga of the Teacher arriving, penniless, after many years of Strenuous Training, the Teacher, who, inspired by a soaring eagle above the grounds, somehow secures necessary funds to purchase an old farm, and over the years, together with Her Students, gradually converts it into a boot camp-like, New Age resort, Zen training Center with a Very Successful Media Office disseminating Videos with the Teacher's Talks.

She was known for running a tight ship there (one of the Teacher's favorite metaphors), guiding Her Monks through one of the most extensive koan system ever, over 700 hundred of them, more then any other known Center in the US, Japan, more than probably any other Zen Center ever.

The Teaching was based on the few basic classics of Zen (Chinese /Japanese sect of Mahayana Buddhism), the Gateless Gate, The Blue Cliff Record, the Book of Serenity followed by a number of Private Koan Collections put together by the Teacher Herself for the benefit of challenging and developing Her students even more.

Creating more Koan Collections also meant prolonging the training of Her students, assuring their constant and devout presence as She was getting older and slowly retiring into the comfort of Her new house, (bought by the Center's funds), removed from the main area to allow Her unrestricted freedom to go on line or to watch TV for hours at a time, while Her devout Students had a chance to engage in so called Work Practice.

Work Practice had been one of the components of Training, carefully designed by the Teacher, where all American common sense was often challenged by purposely confusing instructions, or what appeared (to less advanced and therefore unable to judge correctly) students to be incompetent or trivial, for example, to haul wood from one section of the forest to another, or to gather wood to burn it in huge piles of timber on their so called Nature Site, devoted to protecting the habitats, as most students, in their ignorance, could not understand the obvious purpose of burning the wood and sending billows of dark smoke into the air.

Some of the more advanced students, whose so called sensibility and common sense became less entrenched, were given an opportunity to clean the Teacher’s house, as She believed it would allow them to express their gratitude for Her Teaching. It was painful to watch how some of the students indulged in their anger and a sense of humiliation, how their rigid egos protested in vain having to clean Her bathroom and wash dishes in the kitchen, not only for Her but also for Her 20 years younger Lover and the First Successor, but also for the Lover's young daughter.

The Teacher would periodically inspect the grounds riding high in Her Truck which was always kept shiny by some other Devout Students who also served to bring Her supplies and food as She engaged in Spreading of the Teaching through the Internet or re-editing or re-writing Her old music.

I knew that the Teacher was believed to be a Wise Woman, and that She knew how to keep the place in order. Intimate relationships were not allowed between students because they were believed to interfere with the devotion to practice and work. Contrary to other spiritual traditions, (all of them invariably believed to be inferior by the Seniors) actually - in exact, ironic opposition to them - only the Monks were allowed to be sexually active and to live as couples, whereas the lay students were expected to refrain from any intimacy with the opposite gender.

The rules of No Cross Gender Intimacy (NCGI) were strictly enforced by the so called Seniors, some of the Monks themselves who, from the place of Compassion and comfort derived from having an active sexual life and eagerly flaunted Togetherness, enforced the No-Intimacy Rule for others with the utmost strictness. Some of the Most Senior Monks would be dispatched or would volunteer to mingle casually with the students to find out whether there are any signs of Cross Gender Intimacy. That was often confusing to obviously ignorant younger Students who often could not understand why Cross Gender Intimacy was not allowed but all other forms of the SAME gender intimacy were acceptable? Particularly when all the Seniors were ostentatiously displaying their Successful and Healthy Relationships and Intimacy with a tacit understanding that others would be inspired by it.

Unauthorized Cross Gender Intimacy would cause the Teacher to intervene and She often delivered angry and scathing sermons explaining how experiencing feelings of attraction and love would interfere with the Practice, with meditation or would alienate others from the particular Cross Gender dyad.

Only the Teacher Herself in Her Wisdom knew how to navigate turbulences of a budding romantic relationship, as She and Her current lover, and now the Next in line to succeed Her as the teacher, managed to negotiate their romantic relationship in the past.

The policy of No Cross Gender Intimacy was successfully implemented and enforced, and only the Monks and Seniors were allowed to walk in couples, to eat together, separately from others, and to create their Healthy and Successful Dyads which made others feel so incomplete and awkward around them.

Work Practice was another great opportunity to learn. Students and visitors had a chance to engage in work practice from about 8 in the morning to 6 at night with an one hour break in between for quick lunch. It added up to about 9 hours of work daily, sometimes more, if needed. To preempt any complaints, the Teacher, in Her Wisdom, often angrily criticized the Community for procrastination in their selfishness and, from Her Spiritual Authority eradicated any seeds of discontent or questioning. Those Students who could not keep up with the strict rules of the Community, specially those who could not understand why only the Teacher, Monks and the Seniors were allowed to live as couples or to have an active love life, were promptly asked to leave, which needles to say, was extremely upsetting to me and some of the friends I made there.

I am young and relatively new to all this, but I am just wondering -

is what I saw typical of other Buddhist Centers as well?

Yours truly,

Ananda S.

Cheerleader Buddhist