zen masters...

[alan...]

i don't doubt that many of these masters deeply understood buddhism and possibly were even enlightened. i really dig zen and have read a LOT of zen literature, from tang dynasty masters works to dogen all the way up to shunryu suzuki and dt suzuki. i have trained zen at a zen temple and gone to retreats and loved everything about it for the most part. so don't think i'm hating or anything, zen really is wonderful.

that being said,

what is up with zen masters in history (and today i suppose) drinking alcohol, sleeping with women, beating people up, and not losing their status of being accepted as a master with a great understanding of satori and the dharma???

correct me if i'm wrong but if a bhikkhu in the buddhas time or even today in the theravada tradition was well respected and thought of as a stream enterer or higher and then started getting wasted on booze, got married and started beating people up, wouldn't they generally be understood to have fallen away from the dhamma at best or at worst to have been total frauds in the first place? i recall one sutta (somewhere in the vinaya i believe) in which the buddha created a new rule, because a bhikkhu slept with his own wife, that bhikkhus could not do this, so i'm fairly confident that i'm right in this regard.

asking a zen person this will get a reply such as: "that's just zen. all things are one, non dual, so sleeping with women is zen, so is beating people up."

now i'm wondering what theravada people say about this?

[tiltbillings]

i
now i'm wondering what theravada people say about this?

This Theravada people would say: Go to Zen Forum International and go to the Ask a Teacher section and ask a teacher. In that section you are less likely to a bunch of bombastic bombast.

[Dan74]

asking a zen person this will get a reply such as: "that's just zen. all things are one, non dual, so sleeping with women is zen, so is beating people up."

Have you actually asked any Zen practitioners about this and gotten this answer? I can't think of one who would say that.

Also don't confuse the very few and far in between "crazy wisdom" characters with the predatory sex and money scandals of today. They are completely different things.

[alan...]

asking a zen person this will get a reply such as: "that's just zen. all things are one, non dual, so sleeping with women is zen, so is beating people up."

Have you actually asked any Zen practitioners about this and gotten this answer? I can't think of one who would say that.

Also don't confuse the very few and far in between "crazy wisdom" characters with the predatory sex and money scandals of today. They are completely different things.

i'm not confusing them. i'm mainly talking about people in previous centuries who were married, drank alcohol and beat people up regularly and were still accepted as masters.

the most common one is violence, many many zen teachers beat people and were still considered masters. this is way to common to be called "very few and far in between". and many drank alcohol... many married... and so on.

hakuin drank sake and smoked a pipe and he is regarded as one of the greatest masters ever. his autobiography is full of venom and anger toward all other sects of zen and he was a violent person, i'm not sure what the deal is with any of this or how people could not notice these things if they have experience with zen literature. i really like hakuin, "wild ivy" is fantastic so again, not hating. just pondering.

yes i have asked practitioners.

so what is your explanation if that one is incorrect? why were all these violent masters called masters when in the buddhas time they would have been ejected from the sangha for being violent? and the same for all the ones who drank, married, etc. free from desire does not equal marriage and booze.

[alan...]

In that section you are less likely to a bunch of bombastic bombast.

??

i don't want to ask on a zen forum as i imagine i will get a bunch of smooth over zen answers that border on non sense or answers from specific sects that simply say that their sect doesn't do these things, i'm looking for an outside perspective in relation to theravada buddhism: would this stuff have been accepted in the buddhas time and would it be accepted today in a theravada sangha?

and how did zen formulate ideas to circumvent the vinaya and still maintain status of masters without becoming a splinter faction with low status? even if not vinaya, most of the rules i'm talking about exist in the eightfold path itself (at least non-violence and non-drinking of alcohol). if a buddhist from buddhas time walked in on a zen master beating a student up they would surly be quite disturbed by this and would never believe this person was a "master". i don't know about modern theravadins but i imagine it's the same.

again, this sounds terribly negative toward zen, but i even love the teachings of the violent masters such as lin chi and i'm willing to bet that a whack with a cane at the right time and place might help one reach nibbana. but it is still against the rules and teachings of the dhamma and that's the source of my question: how does it fit together? why did people accept this and still do today?

[Dan74]

asking a zen person this will get a reply such as: "that's just zen. all things are one, non dual, so sleeping with women is zen, so is beating people up."

Have you actually asked any Zen practitioners about this and gotten this answer? I can't think of one who would say that.

Also don't confuse the very few and far in between "crazy wisdom" characters with the predatory sex and money scandals of today. They are completely different things.

i'm not confusing them. i'm mainly talking about people in previous centuries who were married, drank alcohol and beat people up regularly and were still accepted as masters.

the most common one is violence, many many zen teachers beat people and were still considered masters. this is way to common to be called "very few and far in between". and many drank alcohol... many married... and so on.

hakuin drank sake and smoked a pipe and he is regarded as one of the greatest masters ever. his autobiography is full of venom and anger toward all other sects of zen and he was a violent person, i'm not sure what the deal is with any of this or how people could not notice these things if they have experience with zen literature. i really like hakuin, "wild ivy" is fantastic so again, not hating. just pondering.

yes i have asked practitioners.

so what is your explanation if that one is incorrect? why were all these violent masters called masters when in the buddhas time they would have been ejected from the sangha for being violent? and the same for all the ones who drank, married, etc. free from desire does not equal marriage and booze.

There a few things here that I have to query. I have not heard of Hakuin drinking or being violent (please provide evidence) but that he was critical of other groups is not necessarily a problem. He had a lot of respect for Dogen, just not Soto of his own time.

Also being closer to us in time, it is not surprising that we get more of a human portrait of him rather than an airbrushed hagiography. I suspect teachers of old were not quite perfect regardless of the sect, but genuine teachers are always upright, honest and compassionate. And sometimes this compassion may manifest as a physical hitting of a disciple, though not often at all.

Again, this picture of iconoclastic Zen masters is mostly a modern creation, first when different schools competed for Imperial patronage and so Chan/Zen manufactured this brand, then Japanese school isolation and some loss of its Mahayana roots and lastly Western translator bias.

The Buddha had different concerns to the Chan school in China or Zen in Japan. He needed to protect the reputation of the Sangha within contempirary Indian society as well as maintain it's integrity. Things need to be placed in context.

[alan...]

Have you actually asked any Zen practitioners about this and gotten this answer? I can't think of one who would say that.

Also don't confuse the very few and far in between "crazy wisdom" characters with the predatory sex and money scandals of today. They are completely different things.

i'm not confusing them. i'm mainly talking about people in previous centuries who were married, drank alcohol and beat people up regularly and were still accepted as masters.

the most common one is violence, many many zen teachers beat people and were still considered masters. this is way to common to be called "very few and far in between". and many drank alcohol... many married... and so on.

hakuin drank sake and smoked a pipe and he is regarded as one of the greatest masters ever. his autobiography is full of venom and anger toward all other sects of zen and he was a violent person, i'm not sure what the deal is with any of this or how people could not notice these things if they have experience with zen literature. i really like hakuin, "wild ivy" is fantastic so again, not hating. just pondering.

yes i have asked practitioners.

so what is your explanation if that one is incorrect? why were all these violent masters called masters when in the buddhas time they would have been ejected from the sangha for being violent? and the same for all the ones who drank, married, etc. free from desire does not equal marriage and booze.

There a few things here that I have to query. I have not heard of Hakuin drinking or being violent (please provide evidence) but that he was critical of other groups is not necessarily a problem. He had a lot of respect for Dogen, just not Soto of his own time.

Also being closer to us in time, it is not surprising that we get more of a human portrait of him rather than an airbrushed hagiography. I suspect teachers of old were not quite perfect regardless of the sect, but genuine teachers are always upright, honest and compassionate. And sometimes this compassion may manifest as a physical hitting of a disciple, though not often at all.

Again, this picture of iconoclastic Zen masters is mostly a modern creation, first when different schools competed for Imperial patronage and so Chan/Zen manufactured this brand, then Japanese school isolation and some loss of its Mahayana roots and lastly Western translator bias.

The Buddha had different concerns to the Chan school in China or Zen in Japan. He needed to protect the reputation of the Sangha within contempirary Indian society as well as maintain it's integrity. Things need to be placed in context.

evidence? google it man! seriously? look around. read wild ivy. he rips on "silent illuminating monks" throughout the book and there are many references, either by him or the translator, that he was violent. it's not hagiography, it's an autobiography, he wrote it himself.

why are you in some extreme form of blatant denial? canings in zen (violence through beating students with a cane) have been a thing since tang dynasty! i'm really at a loss. i can't even imagine how long it would take to bring out all my books and cite page numbers and authors for you for this information that is common knowledge.

so forget it, you're right, only two or three zen masters beat people, zero drank and had wives and even the ones that supposedly did any of this stuff is just hagiography and didn't really happen. zen is pristine, totally in line with the pali canon rules and all zen masters were and are identical to what the buddha said is an arahant: totally perfect, non violent people who don't drink or have wives or sleep with women. never mind that even today zen monks are allowed to marry in japan and can teach and be considered masters of the dharma even though they clearly still have desire to have a wife and what not which is contradictory to the idea of enlightenment. and no i can't cite a reference for that, it's just true, i don't even know where i heard that it's been so many different places as it's common knowledge. oh and hakuin was an easy going totally non violent guy who never drank or smoked a pipe.

oh also, ikkyu, another guy who was accepted as a master but in his own writings, by his own pen literally says he drank and slept with women all the time. "the crow with no mouth" by ikkyu, page numbers blah blah blah, almost every other page.

sorry if that came off as harsh, i am just shocked at your denial and how blatantly you are implying that i am grossly misinformed. seriously though, no sweat

EDIT: yeah this is super harsh. i'm sorry.

[Dan74]

Well, it's not that it's harsh, alan, it's that you are not addressing what I wrote.

I queried your claim that Hakuin drank and was violent. And so far you have not provided evidence.

Again, I didn't at all say that he was squeaky clean perfect human being. Maybe you should read my post carefully?

Zen teachers like teachers of all traditions are usually imperfect. I am not sure that in Zen that we cut people more slack for that - it's just how it is and if a teacher still have some insight into the Dharma, can transmit it and genuinely cares for their students, they are Zen teachers.

And yes, since the Meiji reforms, Japanese monks are not required to stay celibate. Some do, it's optional. This does not apply to Chinese Chan or Korean Seon, equivalents, which are also part of the "Zen" school in most people's vocab and who follow Vinaya, albeit not as literally as Theravada monks. Whether in practice it translates to worse or better adherence to Vinaya, I don't know, but would be interesting to investigate.

Ikkyu is influential in Japanese poetry and folklore. He is not studied in Zen nor is he an example of how a Zen practitioner should behave.

[alan...]

Well, it's not that it's harsh, alan, it's that you are not addressing what I wrote.

I queried your claim that Hakuin drank and was violent. And so far you have not provided evidence.

Again, I didn't at all say that he was squeaky clean perfect human being. Maybe you should read my post carefully?

Zen teachers like teachers of all traditions are usually imperfect. I am not sure that in Zen that we cut people more slack for that - it's just how it is and if a teacher still have some insight into the Dharma, can transmit it and genuinely cares for their students, they are Zen teachers.

And yes, since the Meiji reforms, Japanese monks are not required to stay celibate. Some do, it's optional. This does not apply to Chinese Chan or Korean Seon, equivalents, which are also part of the "Zen" school in most people's vocab and who follow Vinaya, albeit not as literally as Theravada monks. Whether in practice it translates to worse or better adherence to Vinaya, I don't know, but would be interesting to investigate.

Ikkyu is influential in Japanese poetry and folklore. He is not studied in Zen nor is he an example of how a Zen practitioner should behave.

"a well known passage from "idle talk on a night boat" ... "Students gladly endured the poisonous slobber the master spewed at them. They welcomed the stinging blows from his stick."

wild ivy by hakuin, translated by norman waddell page 33 and page 115

that is one of many talks about such things in that book.

ikkyu was accepted as a zen master. canings and other such things have been going on since the tang dynasty. i have given you the evidence you requested now please do as i request and google around or get library books and find the violence in zen. it's very much fact, not hagiography, not legend. if you truly cannot find any information on this after looking earnestly i'll find it for you, let me know please.

[Dan74]

Well, it's not that it's harsh, alan, it's that you are not addressing what I wrote.

I queried your claim that Hakuin drank and was violent. And so far you have not provided evidence.

Again, I didn't at all say that he was squeaky clean perfect human being. Maybe you should read my post carefully?

Zen teachers like teachers of all traditions are usually imperfect. I am not sure that in Zen that we cut people more slack for that - it's just how it is and if a teacher still have some insight into the Dharma, can transmit it and genuinely cares for their students, they are Zen teachers.

And yes, since the Meiji reforms, Japanese monks are not required to stay celibate. Some do, it's optional. This does not apply to Chinese Chan or Korean Seon, equivalents, which are also part of the "Zen" school in most people's vocab and who follow Vinaya, albeit not as literally as Theravada monks. Whether in practice it translates to worse or better adherence to Vinaya, I don't know, but would be interesting to investigate.

Ikkyu is influential in Japanese poetry and folklore. He is not studied in Zen nor is he an example of how a Zen practitioner should behave.

"a well known passage from "idle talk on a night boat" ... "Students gladly endured the poisonous slobber the master spewed at them. They welcomed the stinging blows from his stick."

wild ivy by hakuin, translated by norman waddell page 33 and page 115

that is one of many talks about such things in that book.

ikkyu was accepted as a zen master. canings and other such things have been going on since the tang dynasty. i have given you the evidence you requested now please do as i request and google around or get library books and find the violence in zen. it's very much fact, not hagiography, not legend. if you truly cannot find any information on this after looking earnestly i'll find it for you, let me know please.

Idle Talk on a Night Boat was written by Hakuin, was it not? This passage you referred to seems to me to extoll the hard work of the students. That the teacher was harsh in speech and gave them blows is his own description of his behaviour, right?

No evidence of drinking, but never mind that.

What you continue to fail to understand is that when I wrote:

Also being closer to us in time, it is not surprising that we get more of a human portrait of him rather than an airbrushed hagiography. I suspect teachers of old were not quite perfect regardless of the sect, but genuine teachers are always upright, honest and compassionate. And sometimes this compassion may manifest as a physical hitting of a disciple, though not often at all.

I meant that we are more likely to get accurate portrayals of masters closer to our time than the classical ones. Again I am not in denial and I said several times already that usually teachers are imperfect.

What I disagree is that you seem to imply that in Zen it is somehow OK to do immoral things. There were many immoral monks in all traditions. Ikkyu is remembered because he was brilliant and iconoclastic - he is an archetype. But such behaviour is never held up as an example to follow.

[santa100]

One would need to ask what the purpose of those alleged "beating" instances were for. Did the master simply beat up his students indiscriminately to satisfy his sadistic nature or did he only do it to a selected few out of great compassion to help them make the necessary breakthrough toward enlightenment? The wiki page about Linji suggests the second scenario is more likely:

Chán faced the challenge of expressing its teachings of "suchness" without getting stuck into words or concepts. The alleged use of shouting and beating was instrumental in this non-conceptual expression - after the students were well-educated in the Buddhist tradition.[9]
Linji is described as using The Three Mysterious Gates to maintain the Chán emphasis on the nonconceptual nature of reality, while employing sutras and teachings to instruct his students:[9]
The First Gate is the "mystery in the essence"[10], the use of Buddhist philosophy, such as Yogacara to explain the interpenetration of all phenomena.
The Second Gate is the "mystery in the word"[10], using the Hua Tou[a] for "the process of gradually disentangling the students from the conceptual workings of the mind".[10]
The Third Gate is the "mystery in the mystery"[10], "involving completely nonconceptual expressions such as striking or shouting, which are intended to remove all of the defects implicit in conceptual understanding".[10] ( ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linji_Yixuan ) )

[alan...]

One would need to ask what the purpose of those alleged "beating" instances were for. Did the master simply beat up his students indiscriminately to satisfy his sadistic nature or did he only do it to a selected few out of great compassion to help them make the necessary breakthrough toward enlightenment? The wiki page about Linji suggests the second scenario is more likely:

Chán faced the challenge of expressing its teachings of "suchness" without getting stuck into words or concepts. The alleged use of shouting and beating was instrumental in this non-conceptual expression - after the students were well-educated in the Buddhist tradition.[9]
Linji is described as using The Three Mysterious Gates to maintain the Chán emphasis on the nonconceptual nature of reality, while employing sutras and teachings to instruct his students:[9]
The First Gate is the "mystery in the essence"[10], the use of Buddhist philosophy, such as Yogacara to explain the interpenetration of all phenomena.
The Second Gate is the "mystery in the word"[10], using the Hua Tou[a] for "the process of gradually disentangling the students from the conceptual workings of the mind".[10]
The Third Gate is the "mystery in the mystery"[10], "involving completely nonconceptual expressions such as striking or shouting, which are intended to remove all of the defects implicit in conceptual understanding".[10] ( ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linji_Yixuan ) )

no, traditionally there is zero violence allowed, it has nothing to do with context. if the buddha caught a teacher beating a student it would be an offense possibly leading to expulsion. the question is why did this change for zen masters?

[alan...]

Idle Talk on a Night Boat was written by Hakuin, was it not? This passage you referred to seems to me to extoll the hard work of the students. That the teacher was harsh in speech and gave them blows is his own description of his behaviour, right?

No evidence of drinking, but never mind that.

What you continue to fail to understand is that when I wrote:

Also being closer to us in time, it is not surprising that we get more of a human portrait of him rather than an airbrushed hagiography. I suspect teachers of old were not quite perfect regardless of the sect, but genuine teachers are always upright, honest and compassionate. And sometimes this compassion may manifest as a physical hitting of a disciple, though not often at all.

I meant that we are more likely to get accurate portrayals of masters closer to our time than the classical ones. Again I am not in denial and I said several times already that usually teachers are imperfect.

What I disagree is that you seem to imply that in Zen it is somehow OK to do immoral things. There were many immoral monks in all traditions. Ikkyu is remembered because he was brilliant and iconoclastic - he is an archetype. But such behaviour is never held up as an example to follow.

okay whatever i say you're going to counter so it doesn't matter. you ask for evidence that hakuin was violent, i give it and you just blow it off. it doesn't even make any sense, you imply that because it's his own words makes it more okay that he hit people? you said you didn't know of him being violent at all,

I have not heard of Hakuin drinking or being violent (please provide evidence)

then i prove it and you still counter!

Idle Talk on a Night Boat was written by Hakuin, was it not? This passage you referred to seems to me to extoll the hard work of the students. That the teacher was harsh in speech and gave them blows is his own description of his behaviour, right?

we're going in circles. hitting people is actually a known technique in zen, promoted by many in history and some today, violence was an offense in the buddhas time. these are absolute facts that you cannot deny. you are obviously a zen practitioner being that your avatar is one of the ten bulls so i think this discussion is to close to your heart for you to be unbiased.

drinking, marrying, etc. i have no time or desire to dredge up citations from books for you (other than ikkyu, another citation you blew off. he was accepted as a master which fits perfectly as a proof for my OP), that is why i have stuck to violence and my statement above is factual: violence is in zen, it was not allowed by the buddha. how is this so? that is the question. if you want to answer that then please do but i'm not having this circular discussion any longer where you just keep asking me to prove things that are common knowledge and then dance around even glaring proof.

again, i really do love zen, this is why i know so much about it, so don't take it to heart. i truly believe that a whack with a cane at the right time can help one have satori. i'm just wondering how they justify it considering it's an offense according to the dhamma.

and again, i feel like i sound like a jerk after re reading that! sorry!

[daverupa]

i'm just wondering how they justify it

Probably they

truly believe that a whack with a cane at the right time can help one have satori.

but asking Theravada Buddhists to justify Zen tactics is somewhat odd, isn't it?

[alan...]

but asking Theravada Buddhists to justify Mahayana tactics is somewhat odd, isn't it?

apparently it was quite a waste of time lol!

although everyone shares vinaya i think right? so it's still a reasonable question: how do they get around the vinaya and still maintain status as masters?

but clearly i'm getting no where and asking actual zen practitioners already proved useless as well so i give up.

[darvki]

but clearly i'm getting no where and asking actual zen practitioners already proved useless as well so i give up.

I don't see your question on Zen Forum International. I would seriously try there. I guarantee you won't get "it's all Zen" answers.

[Dan74]

but asking Theravada Buddhists to justify Mahayana tactics is somewhat odd, isn't it?

apparently it was quite a waste of time lol!

although everyone shares vinaya i think right? so it's still a reasonable question: how do they get around the vinaya and still maintain status as masters?

but clearly i'm getting no where and asking actual zen practitioners already proved useless as well so i give up.

Japanese Zen does not have the Vinaya, not for a long time really.

As for your earlier statements, a narrative by Hakuin like the one you've quoted does not make him a violent man in my book, nor within the Japanese culture of the time. When you said in your earlier post violent, this to me implies intention, and this is how the Buddha taught. If the intention is to harm, this makes a person violent. I don't see that passage by Hakuin going anywhere to prove his intention to harm.

But more importantly can you show me the Vinaya rule about striking your disciple? I am not familiar with it.

Yeah, sure, I am biased. But it'd be good to get things straight first. As it stands we have one Rinzai Zen master writing about his poor disciples who toiled and suffered under his harsh words and blows and another known much more for his poetry and eccentric ways. Have you actually studied under a Zen teacher? Mine's a celibate nun who neither drinks, nor beats me, nor goes to brothels, and neither did her teacher who was one of the foremost Zen masters of his generation. The two other Zen teachers I know, who are Japanese Soto are hard-working gentle people who do none of these things either.

So what are you after, exactly? A condemnation by the Theravadins of Zen masters as heretics? Actually Japanese Zen establishment said that of Ikkyu during his lifetime and afterwards too.

The bottom-line for me is human beings do as human beings do. And if one is a true Zen master he/she will manifest their enlightenment in skillful compassionate action and yet sometimes they may have some rough edges. Maybe some don't, but most will!

PS As for useless, perhaps communication needs some fine tuning here..

[m0rl0ck]

Being a student of chan myself, i have been following this thread with interest bordering on soporific stupefaction. In the interest of completeness i dont think we can afford to forget the amputations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhidharm ... ff_his_arm

and

Whenever anyone asked him about Zen, the great master Gutei would quietly raise one finger into the air. A boy in the village began to imitate this behavior. Whenever he heard people talking about Gutei's teachings, he would interrupt the discussion and raise his finger. Gutei heard about the boy's mischief. When he saw him in the street, he seized him and cut off his finger. The boy cried and began to run off, but Gutei called out to him. When the boy turned to look, Gutei raised his finger into the air. At that moment the boy became enlightened.

In addition zen / chan masters over the centuries have no doubt been guilty of halitosis, not rewinding, crossing against the light and other crimes against humanity.
I for one am shocked and have no choice but to express my alarm by taking a nice nap.

EDIT: and again, just for the sake of completeness i think we should add that zen people have also sometimes been guilty of satire.
2nd EDIT: changed sarcasm to satire

[tiltbillings]

Being a student of chan myself, i have been following this thread with interest bordering on soporific stupefaction. In the interest of completeness i dont think we can afford to forget the amputations.

Actually, for completeness, don't forget Bobo Roshi.

[Alex123]

what is up with zen masters in history (and today i suppose) drinking alcohol, sleeping with women, beating people up, and not losing their status of being accepted as a master with a great understanding of satori and the dharma????

So some people had problems, it doesn't mean that ENTIRE teaching is wrong. It is probably the problem of THOSE people.