Sex, death, and food.

Dainin Katagiri Roshi admonishes Issan!

This life we live is a life of rejoicing, this body a body of joy which can be used to present offerings to the Three Jewels. It arises through the merits of eons and using it thus its merit extends endlessly. I hope that you will work and cook in this way, using this body which is the fruition of thousands of lifetimes and births to create limitless benefit for numberless beings. To understand this opportunity is a joyous heart because even if you had been born a ruler of the world the merit of your actions would merely disperse like foam, like sparks. —from Tenzo kyokun: Instructions for the Tenzo by Eihei Dogen zenji 

Let’s talk about death while we’re still breathing. Talking about it after we’re dead might  be challenging.

A dying Isaan told me something Katagiri Roshi said to him when they were both very much alive. I find myself revisiting this conversation about impermanence and death. And while I’m at it, can I also include a conversation about sex? They’re both dead and can’t have that conversation, or we’re not privy to it, but I will try to do it for them. 

And I’ll even stick my tongue out at you, Katagiri, even though you may only be a ghost.

And now, in reverse order, sex, death, and food

During one practice period at Tassajara, Issan ran the kitchen—the position of tenzo is highly respected in Zen monasteries thanks to Dogen weaving a spell about the cook’s practice of making food. Issan told me he’d been working night and day in the kitchen. According to the Founder of Soto Zen, this is really good practice: “Day and night, the work for preparing the meals must be done without wasting a moment. If you do this and everything that you do whole-heartedly, this nourishes the seeds of Awakening and brings ease and joy to the practice of the community.”

But Katagiri Roshi called him in. 

Of course he went. The Roshi asked him why he was missing so many periods of zazen. Issan said he felt he had to explain himself—he was terribly busy; there were a huge number of students to cook for; directing the preparations required an enormous effort; and, cut to the chase, Issan  admitted that he was challenged working with some of the students as well as not complaining about foodstuff he didn’t think was terribly wonderful to begin with. 

Katagiri sat stone-faced. Then he said, “Yes, we work hard long hours. Then we die.” That was it. And as they say in the koans, Issan bowed and left. A true koan exit.

Issan told me this story just months before he died. In both his smile and the bright tone of his voice, I could sense his gratitude for the decades old warning. The certainty of death added urgency to his story. HIV was ravaging his body. He knew he was dying. His body felt it. Denial was no longer possible, but I didn’t hear even the faintest note of resignation in his voice, rather a note of surprise that seemed as fresh as the day of that meeting. Past and present seemed to merge.

He never forgot those few words. They changed his life. They were a blessing. They shook something loose. They turned every excuse and explanation upside down, and released unexpected wonders.

A conversation about food ended in death. Issan spoke honestly. He was dying as the direct result of a sexual encounter with his longtime boyfriend. What did he have to hide, and how could he hide it anyway? Despite the fact that many people loved Issan, they also found his relationship with James troublesome, not particularly because it was gay love, but the love of his life was a man addicted to methamphetamines. 

I began to look for other things Katagiri might have said about death, and found several. The old horse always found his way back to the barn. The words of a beloved and respected master have a way of creating their own currency. In Zen the phrase “turning word” points to a phrase that helps a student refocus his or her attention, perhaps even prompt a realization. In turn students circulate a good turn of phrase. 

Steve Allen told me that when Katagiri visited Suzuki Roshi just before Suzuki died, Katagiri cried out, “Please don’t die!” Another version of his plea is more personal and direct, “I don’t want you to die.” I had also heard that Katagiri’s last words were, “I don’t want to die,” but that may just have some sincere student either misquoting, conflating or confusing time and place. I can find no solid confirmation, but none of these statements are what you might expect from a Zen master. They certainly don't fit any sentimental notions of a master’s death poem.

But each version of the story rings of something real, gut emotion crying out. I accept the invitation to get real. 

Onto Questions about Sex!

Dosho Port quotes you, Katagiri, as saying: "After my death I will come back and haunt over you, checking on your practice."* Yes, for me, Roshi, even though I was not your student, you have come back to haunt my practice, but not checking it as you did Issan’s work as the tenzo. I find myself weighing the value of your words. They have some punch, but is it a strawman? If I deflect the impact of your admonition about dying with the volatile ammunition of sexual scandal, am I ducking the question?

"But I kept my mouth shut"

Can I take you seriously? Revelations about your sexual misconduct have come to light after your death. I am unsure if you actually lied about your relationships with women in your community, and there was no accusation that you were abusive. But keeping your mouth shut is not entirely honest either. I get that your reputation did depend, to some degree, on the perception of your being a steady family man. Perhaps you felt that if you were not directly confronted, your silence would serve the dharma. You are often quoted as saying that a good Zen student kept his or her mouth shut, followed directions, and sat upright. Roshi, I am told you were a good sitting monk, that you followed directions, well mostly; your form was good; and you certainly kept your mouth shut.

I have also tried to keep my mouth shut. I have not commented on your sexual dalliances, Roshi. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't even judge them—if it were left to me, I would allow you any sexual expression you felt drawn to as long as it didn’t hurt others. But you were not fully transparent about your affairs. Did you really think that they would not come to light? Your naivete has come back to haunt us.

I am obliged to add your name, Katagiri, to the list of teachers who have abused their position. Of the more than 450 Zen teachers in the United States, the amount of oxygen taken up by the small proportion who have been involved in sexual scandals is enormous. The distraction alone gravely harms the teaching.

I will name names: Issan’s own teacher, Richard Baker,* Joshu Sasaki, Taizan Maezumi, Eido Shimano, Dennis Merzel. High profile Tibetan teachers whose names have been dragged into the same mud include Sakyong Mipham and Sogyal Rinpoche. These men, and they are all men, truly hurt us in real ways.

Po-chang and Huang-po: "The Buddha-Dharma is not a small affair”*

When the hurt goes away, does it mean that we have understood? I’ll stick out my tongue!

One day the Master [Po-chang] addressed the group : "The Buddha-Dharma is not a small affair. I twice met with the Greater Master Ma's 'K'AAA! ' It deafened and blinded me [for] three days."

Huang-po hearing this, unconsciously stuck out his tongue saying "Today, because of your exposition, I have been able to see Ma-tsu's power in action. But I never knew him. If I were to be Ma-tsu's heir, afterwards I'd have no descendants." 

The Master Po-chang said, "That's so, that's so. If your understanding is equal to your teacher's, you diminish his power by half. Only if you surpass your teacher, will you be competent to transmit. You are very well equipped to surpass your teacher."

Roshi, you were saved by the queer guy! Issan fished some sound practice advice out of a muddy pond and passed it on. He wasn’t blinded or deafened by a few words. but he wasn’t blindsided either. He carried them in his heart for more than three days. In fact he used them till the day he died.

Your dharma heir, Teijo Munnich, quotes you, Katagiri, “Please don’t call me ‘Zen Master.’ No one can master Zen.” And you also said, “Do not make me into a god after I die.” 

Don’t worry, Roshi. I won’t. Thank you.

The Maori people of New Zealand have created a ritualistic dance, the Kapa Haka,

in celebration of light triumphing over darkness.

_______________________

* Tenzo kyokun: Instructions for the Tenzo by Eihei Dogen zenji 

*Dosho Port,  Me in Your Heart a While: The Haunting Zen of Dainin Katagiri

* Bivins, Jason C. “‘Beautiful Women Dig Graves’: Richard Baker-Roshi, Imported Buddhism, and the Transmission of Ethics at the San Francisco Zen Center.” Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation, vol. 17, no. 1, [University of California Press, Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture], 2007, pp. 57–93, https://doi.org/10.1525/rac.2007.17.1.57.

*following the Ming version as translated by Cleary. Also quoted in Zen's Chinese Heritage

The Masters and Their Teachings by Andy Ferguson 

Is life over when it’s over?

Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973)

"Each one of us, not only human beings, but every leaf, every weed, exists in the way it does, only because everything else around it does. The individual and the universe are inseparable". ~Alan Watts Sensei

Are there reasons for living and reasons for dying?

Why should we think that Zen is in trouble simply because there are flawed people who practice and flawed people who teach? Certainly punches and counter punches are distracting, especially in a scandal, but they are not off limits. In my view, idolizing revered teachers also limits the possibilities in practice for anyone who sets foot on the path. This presents its own set of problems which I might explore at another time. Zen is devised for humans, not gods.

Many years ago I went to a meeting with several of Claudio Naranjo’s old Seekers After Truth students on the “Vallejo,” the Sausalito houseboat where Alan Watts talked and drank, womanized and created legends. It is common knowledge that he was an alcoholic, but I have no knowledge of sexual excess.  From both my reading and first hand reports, however, I can say with certainty that he did go on and on. He wrote and published 25 books before his death; 40 more have appeared since. That is the stuff of legend, and an enormous contribution.

I also visited a couple who lived in the rustic cabin in Druid Heights near Muir Woods where Watts died. One report is that he slumped over his desk drunk and died though some say he made it to bed that night. The story is vague as are a lot of stories about alcoholics. We will never know the truth because we don’t really need to know. But his desk was kept in the same condition as it had been when he died as a kind of shrine to assist his passage to the Pureland, or Byzantine Heaven, or some New Age version of Limbo. I asked hesitantly if I could sit in the chair where he sat when he wrote. My host said, “Of course. This way is open to anyone.” I imagined that I heard a faint echo from the Master.

Phil Whalen told me that he loved to listen to Watts on the old Berkeley KPFA. Many of the people who first gathered around Suzuki Roshi did. For some it was their initiation into Zen. Watts read widely and wisely even if at times he speculated wildly.  David Chadwick recounted in his biography of Suzuki, Crooked Cucumber: the Life and Zen Teaching of Shunryu Suzuki, [that] when a student of Suzuki's disparaged Watts by saying "we used to think he was profound until we found the real thing", Suzuki fumed with a sudden intensity, saying, "You completely miss the point about Alan Watts! You should notice what he has done. He is a great bodhisattva.” Suzuki did not disparage the ox who tilled the soil even if all the rows were not perfectly lined up. That would come later, and in some cases the insistence on plowing perfectly straight lines got a bit out of hand. 

At dinner in Mandala House I remember a lively conversation with my host's wife who was very close to a dear friend who was also present. The woman's son by another marriage, a bright, handsome guy had driven across the Santa Cruz mountains to be with his mother. Not long after he died in a car wreck on a treacherous part of that same highway. His mother chose to join him. She took a huge number of sleeping pills and never woke up again in the same house, perhaps the same room where Watts died.

I never met Alan Watts, but I met his ghost. I also carry with me the memories of many other men and women who left life with a troubled past. Though I might think I understand some of their reasons for living, I cannot claim to know the reasons for their dying.

____________________

Michael Papas was a guest student at Tassajara during the Summer of 1980. He recalled a talk by Issan that he says was a real downer. “I can’t repeat any of it, and the memories of the specific content are vague, but I didn’t find any good news in it at all!”

Afterwards, he asked Issan, “If things are so bad, why don’t we just kill ourselves ?”

 

Issan's answer came quickly, “Because it wouldn’t help.”

 

My friend is a long-time Zen student. He says, “It was a great answer obviously. It has stayed with me for more than 40 years. I thought of it many times in 2016 when my wife left me and suicide seemed like the only way to stop the pain. But truthfully back then, having children was my main reason for sticking.”

Issan died on September 6, 1990. He was 57 years old. If he were still alive, he would be 88 years old today. Watts was only 58 when he died and his legend spans decades. I might complain that they both died too young with so much left to contribute. I might sing that tired old tune “only the good die young,” but I’d add that sometimes the good die young because they were bad, or at least not as good as we would like to believe.

Michael, thank you for sharing Issan’s kind answer. It still has life.

“They Never Get the Pleats Right”

A Mondo

Master Nansen* was washing clothes.

A monk asked: "Is the master still doing such things?"

Master Nansen, holding up his clothes, asked: "What is to be done with them?"

 

*Nansen was the accomplished teacher of the famous Mu-dog guy, Joshu, who when Nansen died went into a deep state of grief that, we’re told, lasted decades. I’m not Joshu, but I will tell a Nansen style tale to focus my own grief that reappears from time to time decades after Issan died. 

 

 

A more formal sounding Buddhist name to this story might be “there’s nothing too small that you can let escape your attention, even if no one’s going to notice,” but “They Never Get the Pleats Right” tells the story.

When we began Maitri at Hartford St, we carried on a full meditation schedule on top of running the Hospice.

One Saturday we were sitting meditation from early morning till dusk. Issan was not sitting. It was during the last six months of his life, and actually he was in bed. His fever had spiked to almost 103 the previous day; his doctor, Rick Levine, was sitting with us and monitoring his patient.

That evening Issan had a longstanding commitment to officiate at the wedding of two men, old friends, at the Hall of Flowers in Golden Gate Park. Issan married same sex couples in the religious tradition of Soto Zen long before the issue of gay marriage exploded, Prop 8 passed, was then voided, the Supreme Court—well, that’s a whole other story.

After lunch I came upstairs from the zendo, and noticed that Issan’s formal white kimono had appeared on the coat rack in the hallway, wrapped in plastic fresh from the dry cleaner. The simple garment had several deep pleats around the waistline, but with the Okesa, the Buddha’s robe, worn over the left shoulder, not much of it is actually visible. It’s almost like ceremonial underwear.

I went back to my cushion in the zendo. When I came upstairs again about 3:30 to fix tea before the last block of sitting, Issan was standing behind his ironing board in the living room, in his bathrobe, wearing a little head band. Sweat was dripping from his forehead. He was ironing the kimono fresh from the dry cleaners. I stopped on the stairs, and had to stop myself from telling him sternly to get back to bed--the hot iron didn’t mix with an elevated body temperature. He saw my shock. He turned towards me, smiled and said, “They never get the pleats right.” I knew he wanted me to laugh. But he was serious about his task, and didn’t want me to stop him. How could I argue with a man obviously in a deep state of concentration if I was laughing? I didn’t. I didn’t dare.

I went back to the zendo, and Issan returned to his bed. Just after the closing ceremony, we met again. Steve and Shunko, part of the ceremonial team, had packed the car, and everything was in place. Issan came down the stairs perfectly dressed. He might have been brushing off his fears when he said, “It’s such a long complicated ceremony. I hope I get it right, but it's a Zen ceremony—When I forget what I’m supposed to do, I just bow. That's always right.” This time we both laughed.

Everyone came home relieved. The wedding had been fabulous. When Shunko complained that the husband’s gift list of toasters and table service included nothing for the Hospice, Issan was quick to remind him that it was the couples’ special day. They were setting up house together for the first time.

Oh that man loved to iron. He also ironed his non-priestly underwear. I saw it with my own eyes. I don’t know if the newly married couple were given a shiny new steam iron, but I do know that Issan gave them the gift of his practice.

Issan taught me ironing practice though I am not as devoted to it as he was, but there’s another lesson here about gifts and toasters and table service. It took me a long time to digest and I still struggle with it: There is always enough money to do what you need to do. And most likely it will be just enough, not a penny more or a penny less. When you are tight, (or especially if you’re tight) it’s probably time to reorder your priorities, and mindfully count your pennies.

The Verse is from the poem, “Ironing,” by Vicki Feaver

And now I iron again: shaking

dark spots of water onto wrinkled

silk, nosing into sleeves, round

buttons, breathing the sweet heated smell

hot metal draws from newly-washed

cloth, until my blouse dries

to a shining, creaseless blue,

an airy shape with room to push

my arms, breasts, lungs, heart into.

In memory of Issan Tommy Dorsey Roshi (March 7, 1933 — September 6, 1990)

Don't Worry. Be Happy. Just do your best!

Issan loved the Bobby McFerrin song “Don’t worry. Be happy.” I am not sure whether or not he knew that it came from Meher Baba, or that Meher Baba took a vow of silence. It doesn’t matter. He'd humm it like a mantra.

But he also said that Meher Baba didn’t get it entirely right. It was incomplete. He was insistent. “I always tell people: life is uncertain. Just do the best that you can. We aren’t asked to do more. It’s more than enough.”

I almost forgot. If you told him about some unhappiness, he would have happily given you his phone number. "People call me all the time. They need to talk about things."

Who better to supply the verse?

Bobby McFerrin

Here's a little song I wrote

You might want to sing it note for note

Don't worry, be happy

In every life we have some trouble

But when you worry you make it double

Don't worry, be happy

Don't worry, be happy now

don't worry

Ain't got no place to lay your head

Somebody came and took your bed

Don't worry, be happy

The landlord say your rent is late

He may have to litigate

Don't worry, be happy

Oh, ooh ooh ooh oo-ooh ooh oo-ooh don't worry, be happy

Here I give you my phone number, when you worry, call me, I make you happy, don't worry, be happy

Don't worry, be happy

Ain't got no cash, ain't got no style

Ain't got no gal to make you smile

Don't worry, be happy

'Cause when you worry your face will frown

And that will bring everybody down

So don't worry, be happy

Don't worry, be happy now

Now there, is this song I wrote

I hope you learned note for note

Like good little children, don't worry, be happy

Now listen to what I said, in your life expect some trouble

When you worry you make it double

But don't worry, be happy, be happy now

Honolulu Haircut

After the sesshin with Bob Aitken where I met Ken McDonald, one afternoon Ken and I found ourselves cruising around Honolulu doing a drop-in-the-local-Temple kind of tour.

At the Soto Shu main temple in Nuuanu Ave, the head priest was cheerfully spending the afternoon with his wife trimming the hedges that abutted the parking lot. He looked up and smiled, acknowledging us. Then he said: “Giving haircut.”

We asked if we could sit zazen in the hall, and, after what I took to be a strange look of puzzlement, he took a key out of his pocket and opened a door to what appeared to be a closet filled with racks of folding chairs where there were three or four zafu’s placed facing a concrete wall.

If we had dreamed of an Eiheiji styled zendo, it was not to be found. But we had just completed 7 days of intensive zazen so the bare room was welcoming. All there was was sitting. There was no need for liturgical trappings,

"The End of the Rainbow"

Over thirty years ago at the height of the AIDS epidemic, Steve Allen asked Issan, “The world is ending. Where is the great peace when we need it?” 

Steve tells us that the setting for his question was the formal ritual in which Issan took the high seat of a recognized Zen teacher, his mountain seat. Steve imagined that he was simply cementing his relationship with his root teacher.

Issan remained silent.

After a while Issan turned the question around and asked Steve what he thought. Steve answered, “We find it with each other.” Not just a good answer--but one that held real answers to questions that we didn’t even know we had.

A disciple’s question might bring forth the deep understanding of his or her teacher, but Steve also found a way to liberate himself. Our connections with each other are not limited. The ancient ritual might have required that Issan portray the immutable stone face of one mountain, but his follow-up question revealed a heart of gold. 

When the end of the world gets in your way, follow the way that brings us together. When the storm clears, it may lead to the end of the rainbow.

David Bullock, Del Carlson, Angelique Farrow, Steve Allen, Issan Dorsey

The Hands and Eyes of Great Compassion

The Hands and Eyes of Great Compassion

Maha Shobogenzo Case 105

Book of Serenity Case 54

 

 

 

The Case

 

Yunyan asked Daowu,

“How does the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion (Avalokiteshvara) use so many hands and eyes?”1

Daowu said, “It’s just like a person in the middle of the night reaching back in search of a pillow.”2

Yunyan said, “I understand.”3

Daowu said, “How do you understand it?”4

Yunyan said, “All over the body are hands and eyes.”5

Daowu said, “What you said is roughly all right. But it’s only eighty percent of it. “6

Yunyan said, “Senior brother, how do you understand it?”7

Daowu said, “Throughout the body are hands and eyes.”8

 

The Commentary

If your whole body were an eye, you still wouldn’t be able to see it. If your whole body were an ear, you still wouldn’t be able to hear it. If your whole body were a mouth, you still wouldn’t be able to speak of it. If your whole body were mind, you still wouldn’t be able to perceive it. Because the activity of Bodhisattva of Great Compassion is her whole body and mind itself, it is not limited to any notions or ideas of self or other. Bringing it up in the first place is a thousand miles from the truth. Answering the question only serves to compound the error. Don’t you see? Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva has never understood what compassion is.


The Capping Verse

All over the body, throughout the body.
It just can’t be rationalized.
Deaf, dumb and blind — virtuous arms, penetrating eyes
Have always been right here.

My Comments:

Here's Wansong’s comment, "When reaching for a pillow at night, there's an eye in the hand; when eating there's an eye on the tongue, when recognizing people on hearing them speak, there's an eye in the ears."

Why is this so difficult to understand? I really want to ask Wansong why he’s making such a fuss. Has he never slept with a pillow? I think the poor old guy was just deluded. The hand doesn't need an extra eye to reach out to grab the pillow. If he’s waiting for an eye to appear on his tongue before he speaks, that’s our good luck, we won’t have to listen to his double talk. An eye in the ear won’t help him either. He’s already muddied Quan Yin’s Great Compassion song with too many notes. And about that painter guy who did the famous portrait--he had too much time on his hands and the paint in his pots must have been overflowing.

There are innumerable qualities in Great Compassion, but that doesn't mean that it’s complicated or something mere human beings shouldn't strive for, or that it’s impossible to attain. Tonight you can practice: when you’re deep in sleep, reach behind you and hold onto your pillow. Better yet, follow Issan’s example. Fluff the pillow of a friend who’s in pain and can't reach behind to do it for themselves, wipe their brow, help them hold a glass to their lips, cook them chocolate chip cookies. That will clear out some of the webs in your notions of the Great Compassion.

Keep it simple.

The Footnotes

1. Why does he ask? Is it out of curiosity or an imperative?

2. Miraculous activity; it’s not to be taken lightly.

3. That’s exactly the problem that you started with in the first place. Stop understanding.

4. It won’t do to let him get away with it.
5. Many Zen practitioners fall into this pit.

6. It’s because he understands it that he only got eighty percent of it.

7. Make it your own; don’t rely on another’s provisions to support your life.

8. No gaps! But say, did he really say it all? If you say he did — wrong! If you say he didn’t you have missed it. What do you say?

Dokusan goes Kung-an

Talking publicly about sex

Zen students don’t talk about our private meetings with our teachers. “Dokusan” means "going alone to a respected one." These conversations have an aura. They take place in the context of meditation. We respect their privacy because they can be very intimate, shaking our world to its very foundations. 

I’m going to break that rule, and talk about just such an intimate conversation I had with Issan Dorsey Roshi. I’m going public and talk openly about a private conversation about sex. In Zen these kinds of conversations are called koans, a term which comes from the Chinese characters, 公案, Kung-an, which literally means “public notice.” 

Issan has been dead for almost 30 years. In the traditional koan collections, the teachers have been dead a lot longer, and, as most of these dialogues were between celibate members of the sangha, most talk about sex is, how shall I say it, in a different context. You’ll also have to take my word that the conversation was one that shook me to the core, and helped me, as a gay man, focus my meditation. Issan can’t verify his side of the conversation, but if I’ve hit the mark, and done my job as Issan’s student, you might be able to use his teaching to untie some personal knots about meditation.

I grew up in a traditional Irish Catholic family, or at least I had a very traditional Irish mother. Her word was law. She taught us to avoid talk about sex in polite conversation which meant that it was rarely, if ever, spoken about. Drunken conversations were of course another matter. There politeness was optional. As drunken conversations, they carried less weight, but they were at least a time when you could talk about sex. Good Jamison could be counted on as the Irish un-inhibitor.

Fitting quite nicely with my preconceived notions, in Zen settings most talk about sex focuses on the prohibitory precepts, or that has been my experience. 

At one of my first sesshins, a long intense meditation period, hours upon hours with a few breaks to eat and get the blood flowing back into the legs, my mind began to play a nasty trick on me, or so I thought. I imagined myself in love with a very cute guy who was sitting about three seats to my left. Let’s call him “R.” R has been a Zen priest for many years. He also knew and practiced with Issan so I’m sure he would love being part of this koan, but I don’t know how useful it would be for the public to know the real name of R who was the object of my sexual fantasy.

My mind couldn’t do anything else but fantasize! When I got up after a period, I glanced in his direction to know that he was still there. Even if I managed to focus on my breath for a few seconds while I was sitting, It required enormous effort.

My obsession had totally hijacked my mind.  

I went to see Issan after the first period. His bedroom doubled as his interview room, a few candles, a bell, two cushions set close to one another. After I bowed, I blurted out the whole story.

He looked at me, entirely present, and then we both began to laugh, slowly at first, but then louder and louder.

Finally he took a breath and said, “Oh, I fell in love with someone every practice period at Tassajara. They were usually straight so you can imagine how that went.”

Then he told me a story. 

“When I was tenzo at Tassajara during one practice period, I fell head over heels in love with a very handsome young man. I suppose you could say I was obsessed. It was hard enough to escape all those fantasies in meditation, but it even got to the point where it was dangerous--when I was chopping, I had to consciously pull my mind back to the vegetable, the knife, and the board to avoid mindlessly chopping off a finger. 

"When you’re actually in deep concentration the strangest things can happen. It got to the point that it was even difficult to concentrate when I was cooking--and that was my responsibility--so I went into the Roshi and talked about it!

“And then I discovered that I could just stop it. I mean it really stopped. I think I might have just been more able to return to my breath. Probably nothing more.”

Then he asked, “Can you stop loving R? Would that even be a good thing? I just don’t want you to chop off your finger.”

Issan & James 

The funeral of Ösel Tendzin. Deliver us from cults.

My friend Barbara O’Brian alerted me to an article by Steven Butterfield, When the Teacher Fails. It was published in 1989 while Ösel Tendzin was still alive, and just at the time when the extent of Tendzin’s reckless sexual conduct as a person with HIV/AIDS was coming to light. Butterfield’s article does not address this controversy that was ripping the fledgling Western Buddhist world apart.

In 1990 Ösel died in San Francisco where he’d come for treatment of advanced HIV disease. At the time I was living at Hartford Street Zen Center and working as the Director of Maitri AIDS Hospice; for some reason I felt it was important that Maitri, a Buddhist program set up for helping ease the pain of the AIDS epidemic, should be present for the funeral of an important Buddhist teacher who’d died from the disease. I didn’t realize how deeply I would wade into the murky waters of denial.

Shambala was going to conduct the elaborate funeral ritual at their center on 16th and Mission. We phoned, asked if we could attend, and were given a time; we put on our rakusus and climbed to the second floor above a Jack in the Box in a pretty marginal neighborhood.

I can’t adequately describe my shock.

It may have been the first Tibetan ritual that I’d attended, but after we’d entered the hall and made our prostrations, there was Ösel’s corpse trussed up in an awkward meditation posture, full regalia barely masking the ropes and poles required to hold it upright. I’d sat with many men who died of AIDS so it was not that the body itself showed the ravages of the disease. There was no attempt to hide them. It was not that the ritual seemed foreign or exotic. It was, but it was a Tibetan ritual, and I wasn’t expecting a low church Episcopalian service.

What totally overwhelmed me was the veneration of a man who had knowingly infected others with AIDS. Shambala tried to mitigate the damage with a mystical smokescreen. It was rumored that some had spread the lie that the guru’s Vajra powers bestowed by the lineage would prevent reinfection, or that it was even an opening for the great enlightenment. There was at least one teenage boy involved, a young man whose life would now be cut short. Everyone present, and there were several hundred, knew that their Regent had knowingly infected people with HIV and that their deaths would be soon upon them. It was all supposed to be OK in the great scheme of things. The drums beat, the chanting began. Steve Allen got up and motioned for us to leave. On the way down the stairs he said, “All that was missing was the bones in their noses.”

We returned to Hartford Street. I was shaken, but managed to get up the next morning and take care of Bernie, J.D, and the five other men in our care.

I have never picked up “Cutting through Spiritual Materialism” again, brilliant as it is. Nor have I recommended it to anyone, and I never will. I feel that it would be condoning the damage to the precious dharma caused by the actions of these men.




Some people have tried to defend Ösel. One wrote to me and said, “hindsight is easy.” I lived through that period, I took care of more than 100 men who died of AIDS. My own teacher died. It was a terrible time. Of course there were mistakes. Of course it was difficult. Of course it takes time to sort things out. It took me years.

Steven Butterfield writes about his personal interactions with Ösel, wondering why in an airport lounge he can’t muster the courage to ask him a question about his HIV disease. He chose to remain silent, and they go on pretending that their world of limousines, crazy wisdom practice and unprotected sex could just go on and on. In retrospect can Butterfield even question his belief in guru transmission? He says he can, but I get the distinct feeling that there are still far too many threads that tie him to the myth.

But there can be no passing the buck here. It was arrogance and grave harm. We have to name it. Hindsight may be easy, but murder is still murder. Sexual abuse is still abuse. People say, oh it was the 80's, things were different. I strongly disagree. We knew that HIV was sexually transmitted for certain by 1983 when the virus was isolated by the Pasteur Institute in France. Ösel knew that he was positive for the virus, and still had unprotected sex with at least one minor. Sorry. Call it what it was.

Searching Google for a picture of Mr. Thomas Rich, I found vajraregent.org. When I entered “AIDS” into the site’s search engine, nothing. But I did find these verses. I think that some people are still in deep denial.

This is offered with love, appreciation and gratitude to Vidyadhara, the Venerable Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, and his Vajra Regent and dharma heir Ösel Tendzin, for the benefit of their present and future disciples, and all beings.

Through hearing, seeing and contemplating these teachings of the Vidyadhara through his Vajra Regent,

May we realize the essence of transmission from teacher to student.

May we hold precious this seed planting of Vajrayana dharma and Shambhala vision in the West.

Through their gestures and words, may we wake up on the spot.

May we not become confused by spiritual materialism in any form.

Now, practicing moment by moment until the end of this life and beyond, may we free all beings.

And I will add my own petition to this list:

May we work diligently to repair any damage to the transmission of the precious Dharma caused by our heedless actions.

And deliver us from cults.