When SweepiingZen asked for a talk on International Blasphemy Rights Day (September 30th), I joked that I do that with most of my posts!
A nice thing about Buddhists is that we rarely kill, burn at the stake or imprison our critics, dissenters, heretics and the doctrinally different (although we have our scattered extremists too, the same as any religion). We are pretty non-violent, but even we aren’t totally immune from forbidding and punishing blasphemy and unwelcome voices.
Keep room in Zen Buddhism for the misfits, square pegs, tradition breakers and “original non-thinkers” on the edges. Learn to distinguish the con artists, shysters, abusers and predators from those who have simply walked their own path, attended the “monastery of hard knocks”, are doing something good even if not how you would do it. Having “set standards” and “required training paths” is useful and generally necessary for helping to assure substance, experience, dedication and ethics in our teachers. Someone can do a lot of harm when falling down in those things, like an untrained doctor or a drunken lawyer. However, keep room for exceptions and “special cases” too. Look at who the priest has become, not so much only how she or he got there.
What often happens in the Zen world is that the standards are made by one kind of priest, with a particular background, to keep out those who are unlike him or her on the road traveled. Organizations like the AZTA and SZBA are guilds keeping some fine people excluded. As a result of the desire of the old guard “establishment” for uniformity, some “con artists, shysters, abusers and predators” get let in or let be … even shielded and protected because they are “one of us inside the tent” … while many real Zen folks with substance, experience, dedication and ethics are locked out.
Throughout its history, there has been a tension in Buddhism and Zen between more conservative folks, keeping their authority, monastic jurisdictions, priestly pomp, required training paths, “orthodox” traditions and narrow views of what is possible, and those on the edge doing something unorthodox, rule breaking, new. Fall to either extreme, and it is not good … dusty “church-ism” and tired procedures on one end … crime, cults and chaos on the other. In fact, we need both new and old, keeping each other timelessly real.
I rant about this for awhile, step on some more toes, call out some folks, say a few (to some) outrageous things, blaspheme. Enjoy.
This talk (minus the raised pinky hand gestures and rolling eyes) is available at TREELEAF PODCAST:
Click for Podcast or Audio Download
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