How to respond??? Genpo Merzel.

I am early in my studying, so my perspective is only a shared idea...

Everything is a teacher not just the most impressive of speakers and motivators.
Even in this challenge the lesson is clear and made exactly how it is suppose to be.
To be a teacher is still to be human, making us all teachers.  Support seems to be needed amongst all of us going through this journey no matter what level we are on.  The sign/reminder of humanity in the best of us, is something to love and try to understand.  I understand the both of you and smile because I see the love and pain come from very good places.  Thank you guys for sharing and teaching me.

For me the integral map, and psychographs and states and types and shadow, all of that just helps me to see that every human is complex and so when I seek a teacher about one skill, that doesn't mean they are good at other skills, or that they don't make mistakes, or have unconscious motives, or just get themselves into messy situations or involved in stuff that overwhelms them.

The other odd thing for me, is that as enlightened teachers seem to be able to get into all sorts of problems, one wonders what's left that is actually the enlightened part... what is enlightenment? 

I know one teacher who said that enlightenment doesn't just make you happy all the time, and so ok, fair enough. But some other teachers seem to say that enlightenment stops people doing immoral stuff, but as we know that's not a simple matter either. One just wonders what's left ... when our shadow is not enlightened. The light is not in the shadow. 

Being enlightened is also being enshadowed?

No matter how bright the light, it can't illuminate what's behind it in the shadows? If so, what's actually the light?

This is almost like a koan all on its own.

I was lucky enough to be in Ameland in north Holland during the 8 day reatreat that he came out publicly about his dishonesty and disloyalty. He told it during the end of the first big mind session the second day, and the response it created was varied. I think there was about 260 partisipants in that retreat and propably 4-8 people left after the annoucement. I feel I'm lucky having been there and witnessing first hand his response to opinions and feelings it provoked, because I was able to see him truly open and hurt, and the dissapointment he expressed towards himself felt truly genuine. He didn't try to hush people or disencourage them from expressing everything they felt about the whole thing and about him especially. I could feel that he really felt sorry and pained about the damage he had created. What was also amazing to see was his capasity to be open to people during big mind sessions and hold that kind of space even though he was on the other hand in great turmoil and pain. As he said himself, he felt that one part of him was completely undisturbed and the other part of him was in hell.

It was a tremendeous retreat, since among other issues I (and we all) really had to own some major (or not so major) projections about what think a teacher is. Coming to see both his utter humannes and also the wisdom and compassion he embodies has made the teaching more real and grounded.

I have felt tremendeous love, gratitude and respect towards him and it hasn't changed a bit. I am not in his close range of relatives students or family to be that much personally affected by the whole thing (since there wasn't anything immoral about the misconduct than lying and having a relationship outside marriage) but I can also relate to the pain that people close to him are having.

The validity of his teaching (and of anybody elses) is always to be found in my own experience, and in the end only I can take responsibility of it, no matter how much I would like validify myself through someone elses opinions or examples. In that respect, what ever Genpo does doesn't change the fact that I've learned a lot from him and continue to learn from him. For that I am truly gratefull to him.

Love,

Pirkka

Hi Justin - Having looked at your profile, I simply want to bow and nod to your good fight with so much complication for so long. Glad you are doing well enough now and look well.

This is a 'place' we can respond from, and that 'place' fulfills all the 'how's' of our response....I mean that we are capable of understanding one another in our full humanity and acknowledge this experience of sexuality and what our expectations are in relationship to the "teacher".

Has the "teacher" understood his relationship to his own sexuality or has the "teacher" created an image of himself that fails to integrate all the subtle, beautiful, and horrific shadows that are cast when the light is at it's zenith?

I will not go into all the subtleties and complexities of sexuality and 'enlightened Mind', but in essence I don't feel that this is the issue....

You have already pointed to the heart of this issue when you used the word "trust".... if the "teacher" fails to live up to the expectations he has created for himself and his student's, then he has violated his own code of conduct and failed to keep his 'promises', implied or direct - he has "missed the mark" and must "step down" and seek to restore his relationships with all his intimates and students..... As Genpo has done and is doing, so my response is; "I WALK WITH YOU GENPO"....

It is simply and directly a matter of honor to acknowledge the pain one has brought to others- and the essence of Zen, is honor.....

BTW - Ambo's comment pointed me to your profile.... I have known illness and suffering and  continue to know it's touch with some of my family members - I respect and admire your courage and I wish you, especially well....

Justin

    "Life is like stepping onto a boat that is about to sail out to sea and sink"....

Shunryu Suzuki

I don’t know of all the details relating to Genpo’s actions. In general I think that if I had an innocent young daughter I would not want her to be sexually exploited by a spiritual teacher. I think that Insight Meditation Center has some very good ethical guidelines relating to this:

“Teachers will not use their teaching role to exploit their authority and position to assume a sexual relationship with a student. Specifically, with respect to relationships between a teacher and a student, we will abide by the following guidelines:

a)                A sexual relationship is never appropriate between teachers and their students.

b)                During retreats, formal teaching occasions, or interviews, any speech or actions indicating interest in a student-teacher romantic or sexual relationship is inappropriate.  This applies to anyone in a teaching role, including senior students.

c)                 If interest in a genuine and a committed relationship develops over time between a teacher and a student, the student-teacher relationship must clearly and consciously end before a romantic relationship begins.  A minimum period of three months should elapse from the time when they mutually agree that their formal teacher-student relationship has ended.  This understanding must be coupled with a conscious commitment to enter into a relationship that brings no harm to either party.”

http://www.insightmeditationcenter.org/fliers-forms/Ethics%20and%20Reconciliation%20Policy.doc

With that said, I also think that there could be room in our hearts to extend forgiveness to a basically good human being who made mistakes, taken responsibility, and will not continue in them. I believe that he can continue to do much good in the world even if he his has taken off his robes.

is being provided regarding the background and history to Genpo Merzel's recent announcement on the Sweeping Zen Facebook page here.

One particular section I found eye-opening was this letter and its references to events in 1992:

Letter from Kakuzen Keido Les Kaye, Kannon Do Meditation Center

Website: http://www.kannondo.org/

Dated 2/14/2011

Dear Chet and Kanzeon Board Members -

Chozen Bays has informed the AZTA membership that Genpo’s Salt Lake City students’ are concerned about AZTA’s failure to respond to Genpo’s recent admissions.

They asked her:

“Why are all the Zen teachers silent about this situation with Genpo? ” ” Is there some kind of conspiracy to protect any Zen teacher, no matter what they do to harm others?”

I am writing to let you know that AZTA has not been silent about Genpo’s behavior, and in fact was quite active several years ago in trying to change what we felt was an intolerable situation. Following is part of that history.

In August, 1992 , the AZTA teachers at the time (known in those early days as the Second Generations American Zen Teachers group) wrote a letter to Maezumi-roshi expressing our concern about Genpo’s on-going sexual exploitations and his misappropriation of funds. We asked that his permission to teach be revoked. That letter is attached.

Those of us who signed the letter to Maezumi received responses from Genpo’s students, criticizing us and denying that he had created harm.

Here is an excerpt from one of those letters to the Second Generations American Zen Teachers:

The issues of student-teacher relationships and sexual misconduct are very relevant to Zen in North America. I have seen Genpo Sensei work personally on these issues and have seen him take responsibility for his past sexual misconduct. I question and am very much disturbed by your approach as a group to address such issues. It appears that it has become somewhat of a personal vendetta for some of you and that a case has been presented to have Genpo Sensei, a lineage holder and Dharma successor, stop teaching.

I feel very sad that Zen in North America has come to this. As a group, would it not be more productive to offer a context of support for one another, and a fair forum to discuss such issues rather than trying to slander and undermine one another? I question your integrity as spiritual leaders to have so irresponsibly signed such a letter without realizing the implications to the Dharma in the West and without investigating its accuracy, not to mention the effects it could have on the hundreds of students that Genpo sensei now has in Europe and America.

- From a women at Kanzeon Bald Peak Mountain, Hillsboro, OR, August 19, 1992.

Here is a second excerpt:

It seems that those of you who felt so ethically and morally responsible for signing this letter attacking the ethical and moral behavior of a fellow teacher do not have the first clue about practicing such conduct in your own lives.

- From another women at Kanzeon Bald Peak Mountain, Hillsboro, OR, August 25, 1992

The following month, Sept. 1992, a meeting – organized by Chozen Bays and Yvonne Rand of the San Francisco Zen Center, and moderated by a paid, professional facilitator – was held with Genpo, Maezumi-roshi, and others, at Green Gulch Farm, an affiliate of San Francisco Zen Center. The purpose of the meeting was to help Maezumi-roshi, and everyone else, understand the situation and to give Genpo a chance to respond to our concerns. Many of Genpo’s students from Los Angles attended, as well as his attorney. Genpo was confronted by four women (actually, three women and the husband of a fourth) who told their stories of being personally abused by Genpo. The meeting was respectful and courteous, except at one point when the husband said to Genpo: “If you touch my wife in the dokusan room again I’ll kill you.”

(One of the women was Diane Baca, a nurse, single mother of a five year-old boy, and student at the Los Angles Zen Center, where she was in contact with Genpo. Diane had been abused by her father as a child, which left her extremely vulnerable and confused. In her testimony at the meeting, she described how she had been seduced by Genpo numerous times and the pain of betrayal that she felt. Several months after the meeting, she took her own life.)

At the end of the meeting, Maezumi-roshi was asked to comment. I don’t recall his exact words but they were something like: “Don’t be the first to throw stones.” He did not accept our request to withdraw Genpo’s sanction to teach the Dharma.

In sum, AZTA has not been indifferent. Almost twenty years ago, we tried to curtail Genpo’s behavior and were told that we were in the wrong. Today we are being told by Genpo’s more recent students that we are in the wrong for NOT doing something.

If others express concern about AZTA’s lack of involvement, please share this message with them.

Respectfully,

Les Kaye

Kannon Do Zen Center

Mountain View, CA

(650) 948-5020

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I think this kind of background information, if correct, should be circulated a bit more as it may put things in a wider context. There are more letters on the facebook page which, taken together, really do not paint a pretty picture of Genpo Roshi. Since Ken and Integral have worked so closely with Genpo's Big Mind, I'm looking forward to any "official"  responses Integral may offer. One thing is now even clearer to me - sitting on one's cushion, even for 30+ years, is no substitute for good therapy.