[Buddha-l] Sex Scandals Has U.S. Buddhists Looking Within

[JKirkpatrick]

Katherine, forwarding a NYT article:
 
“...We habitually denied what was in front of our faces, felt
powerless and lost touch with our inner experience,” Ms. Butler
wrote.Clark Strand, who led Mr. Shimano’s Upper East Side zendo
from 1988 to 1990, said that on American soil, Asian Buddhism’s
sexual ethics, in particular, had to change.
 
“What you see in America is a lot of Asian Buddhist teachers
coming into contact for the first time with spiritual communities
that include women,” Mr. Strand said. “And they weren’t
necessarily prepared for that.”
 
“To be blunt about it, a Japanese Zen monk could go over the wall
and visit a prostitute and a blind eye could be turned to that.”
In America, he added, “it wasn’t as easy to turn a blind eye to
going over the wall in his own monastery.”
____________________

There's a lot more that most American Buddhists either don’t want
to know about, or turn a blind eye to,  because of the
brainwashing mentality promoted by many Buddhist sects of total
surrender to your teacher. Another delusional idea is the
untouchability of the higher monastic authority. Versions of
these two ideas are not limited to American (or any other kind
of) Buddhists, but also surface as the psychology underlying many
Protestant Christian and Roman Catholic incidents.  

Joanna

 





      
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