1. I read this book in the 80's for a comparative literature class, and didn't pick up on the Buddhism. At that time I was years away from trying meditation and reading Zen stuff and scratching my head. Unmemorable essays mean I didn't completely engage my meaning systems.
I'm reading it again and surprised to find Buddhism in the mix in the meditations on liberty. It's not clear what ideas Kazantzakis has about Buddhism. His writing a life of the Buddha is seen as intellectual. Zorba is someone who seems fairly spontaneous and in the moment, seems to try and squeeze all the joys out of life, but he shoots for the middle, not the top or the bottom. The narrator stays up all night writing an essay about Buddhism but doesn't mention it thereafter. Zorba thinks he's too much in his head, but he has interesting art memories, enjoys literature, and likes to think. The novel sets up a duality between learned, and spontaneous, meditating on liberty and freedom, with a side of Buddhism.
I don't believe you really engage with Buddhism unless you meditate. For Kazantzakis, it's unclear the source of his knowledge. He engages at the sort of pop level, the intellectual level, but he's a deep thinker. At least he's thinking about it.
He tries to be celibate, but without the benefit of meditative states. He's OK during the day, but at night he hungers for companionship. He often leans on his friendship for entertainment, but sometimes Zorba doesn't want to entertain him, play music for him.
From his wikipedia page: "As he traveled Europe, he was influenced by various philosophers, cultures, and religions, like Buddhism, causing him to question his Christian beliefs." (cite)
2. There was an interesting exchange on Reddit that got deleted. Someone quoted what Zorba said about a Russian guy who expressed himself through dance. The women resisted being raped, but then gave into it with pleasure. Surely that's not woke enough for today's people. But the person was pointing out that perhaps the writer wasn't condoning what Zorba was saying. One little sentence is an amazing book, and a youth feel entitled to cancel the book. Of course rape culture is terrible and assumes perhaps that women even want it, but he's saying that's what a Russian guy said through dance, and Zorba, a character in a novel was reporting it. Since it was reported in a dance, it's probably not very accurate communication and probably Zorba was projecting. I have no desire to defend Zorba, he's not really a hero of mine. But it's an interesting and complex novel. Zorba does have offensive ideas about women. It's part of the character study. Do you want him to get some comeuppance in the novel to show that the writer has a sense of justice? I guess I wouldn't mind, but then it stops being Dionysian and becomes Apollonian. I don't imagine I'll get my ideas about woman from Zorba. The larger point of Zorba is that men are alienated from their bodies. And who's to say if you aren't alienated from your body that you can't communicate through dance. The narrator sees Zorba as a relic of the past, that is not apt for modern times (published 1946, it will be even more so for our current times.) But he also admires his spontaneity, the easy joy he has, unfettered by anxiety or qualms.
3. Zorba is a sexist git. He has rape fantasies, and he thinks he's god's gift to women. He preys on lonely widows. He is not to be read during since we have had the #metoo era. He is an obsolete kind of hero.
4. Zorba is very tender towards women. He tells the story of his grandmother. The local guys would come and serenade the beautiful young woman across the street, and she thought it was for her. Zorba relieved her of this dream, and apparently she went downhill and died very quickly after that. She said he killed her. I think of that line from Sheryl Crow song, "lie to me, I promise to believe."
5. Zorba is the Buddha because he has beginners mind. He looks at narcissi as though for the first time. He considers wine as though for the first time. He is integrated with his body and can communicate still through dance. He can smell a book waffler a mile away. He gets absorbed in his activities, to the exclusion of all else. The concentration is seen as similar to the Buddha.
6. He thinks everything is alive. That's an animist. I kind of like that because it would naturally lead to environmentalism, IMHO.
7. He says if you look at water with a magnifying glass, you'll see all the worms in it. He sees the narrator as dying of thirst because of intellectualism. He's cultured, he reads, writes, and went to museums all over Europe.
8. Page 182 he mentions meditation but it seems to be thinking about a book he's reading. But the book came out in 1946, and I am sure it was revolutionary in it's way of considering Buddhism, as flawed and minimal as it is.
9. Zorba talks about starting Zeus Marriage Agency. He would pay guys to go sleep with the undesirable women. He says if he can't find anyone, he will go himself. That got me thinking about the 37 vows of a Bodhisattva. There's a suggestion that a Bodhisattva would sleep with ugly women to make them happy.
10. This book reminds me of the bawdy novel Thom Jones. It's a rollicking, make the most of life type novel. People who live close to the edge. I could see the Beats liking the novel.
11. I don't really agree with Zorba's ideas about manhood, I've never really felt any pull of concepts of gender. My male role models couldn't fix their cars. I know women in my past wished I was more protective, or took more financial responsibility. Every time I've played the lusty fellow is wasn't so much appreciated.
I have worked with the transgender, and felt deep sorrow at their plights and persecution. The murder rates are high, the early death rates are high. Once a year they read all the names of the people who have died at City Hall in NYC. The list feels too long.
I myself could never imagine trying to mutilate my body to be like a different gender. Even though I'm not a stereotypical man I have no desire to switch to be a woman. To me if feels like I need to adjust to being in the body of a man. When I was young the call to adventure made me brave, and that was perhaps manly. In middle age, I became caring and supportive. I can see how modern times expects you to be relational all the time instead of competitive and individualistic, and that it would be an advantage to be a woman now. I wish my body was desirable and could give pleasure the way a woman's body does. The tragedy of male sexuality is something I could do without. I never wished to somehow switch genders, though I am quite accepting of my "female" side. I feel sorry for a transgender person who wants to be recognized as the opposite gender they were born with. Their performance is sad at best, convincing at worst.
The anti-transgender perspective (TERF) don't want to be kind. The chief complaint as far as I can tell is the aggressive sexuality of the Male to Females, who they feel invade their female sex spaces. Sex as opposed to gender is not something they claim can be changed. Men as women still have aggressive sexuality, and the demand to be wanted is not appreciated. Don't enter female space with male aggression dressed as a woman. The MtF Transwomen feel unjustly excluded, what more can they do? Feels like an intractable conflict.
I used to focus more on the tragedy of being transgender, but some focus on the aggressiveness of being told they have to want them. They reject that. I didn't really like the aggression of being told I wanted them. They can be attractive, I don't begrudge them that, but I was not attracted to them in general. I'm attracted to people not gender, and the obsession of gender performance is the opposite of what I want: Gender irrelevance. I don't like men who embrace masculinity or women who embrace femininity. I like the new indeterminate character on Star Trek. But I get it that transgender want to cleave towards the opposite of what they are born. To me it feels more ideological than real, and I'm sure that's a barrier in my empathy. There are so many ways in which we have to adapt to the world. I suppose it's a marvel of modern technology that we don't have to do that with gender.
Women as men are not as offensive. Go ahead and be that way if you want to. Chop off the meaty fun bags, take the hormone. Pump some iron. You're not going to have a functioning penis, which is of dubious use anyway. Lesbians are better at making women come than men are. Anyway, strapons exist. You've gone the wrong way in the zeitgeist. We need to be more empathetic and relational. Manhood is obsolete. I'm not saying we don't need support or that we can't feel male pride. We just don't need super macho hunters, and super macho men seem tragic nowadays. Zorba seems an exaggeration now, a way of being that time has passed. He does not deny his desires, and seems to live life to fullest, I like that. There is a sort of integration and beginners mind. But in terms of gender performance, he's obsolete. I know there are women who wants that, want men more macho, don't agree with their taming. Mostly they can't function in our society, which is just a small fraction of why it's so hard to function in our current society. I guess an update on Zorba would be to confront a transgender male to female, and even a female to male. What would Zorba make of that? It would probably jam his pagan mind.
12. When I was a therapist, I believed in people's experience. If you tell me a ghost picked you up in the street, then I believed that is your experience. I don't contradict people and say ghosts don't exist. That would make things worse. If someone says they're in the wrong sex body, then I believed that was the best description of what someone was experiencing. My above meditation is not to void transgender experience, it's to express my experience. People can't blot out other people with their experience, because everyone's experience is valid as their experience. My heart goes out to the transgender.
13. Shaking off Christianity's prudery is a goal of some Buddhists, to work to integrate it beyond Christian judgements, and eventually rise above it. The pagan Zorba may in some way point to some of the working out of it. Zorba's integration with his body is perhaps to be admired. He can communicate by dance, how many people can say that, even if it's self reported?
14. In the end, I'm sure in 1946 it was a very Buddhist literature book, but today in 2020 it's not very insightful into Buddhism. The world has quite evolved in terms of the western appreciation of Buddhism. The western appreciation is skewed away from magic and miracles, perfect knowledge and Christian terminology, skewed towards meditation, even as more Buddhists are Pure Land and chant instead of meditation. Chanting is meditative. I know it is for me when I do it. But they are Buddhists and they don't dominate the Reddits because they're more other powered and most vocal Buddhists are fleeing from the blind faith of Christianity. Zorba understands with more than his head, which is all the narrator can understand Buddhism as he tries to write about it.
15. He does pick out beginner's mind perhaps before that was a term. Zorba has a kind of integration, aliveness, and energy. And I do quite enjoy the friendship in the novel.
16. It's terrible they cut off the head of the widow. That it's not really explained makes it more troublesome. I worry over it. They killed her because she slept with the boss? That is terrible. They owned her sexuality? I guess it's to emphasize the horribleness of a small village on Crete. Their brutality. Then Bouboulina dies, and they ransack her home before she is even cold. Quite terrible. The fantasy of Americans is that Europe is more civilized, but of course A Portrait of a Lady puts that to bed. The novel is filled with Cretan customs and ways of being.
17. "I felt deep within me that the highest point man can attain is not Knowledge, or Virtue, or Goodness, or Victory, but something even greater, more heroic and more despairing: Sacred Awe!" (p.269)
18. Women get more pleasure from giving pleasure to men, than the pleasure she gets from men? Zorba says that. I don't know about that. That sounds more like a male fantasy. And everyone, male or female get pleasure from other's pleasure.
19. Quite a touching friendship.
The Fallen Woman is about a courtesan (Violetta) who is sick with consumption. The opera is by Verdi and it's on the Met for free today until 630pm EST.
One of the things I'm grateful for is the free streaming of the Met during this pandemic. I'll be forever grateful to them. I get overwhelmed by opera and have to take breaks, but I keep coming back to it, because they're still streaming it for free every day. Yesterday was Rusalka, which I loved!
It occurred to me that Alfredo is making merit by supporting Violetta in her dying days. We're all going to die, whether it's from consumption or whatever. She starts out by wanting to party, but then she finds love. The father doesn't like the match, but in the end he is sorry. The music gets me.
Alfredo's father comes to tell Violetta that his daughter can't get married if his family is known to associate with a courtesan. She agrees to break it off. They sing at each other the hope that they are happy, in parting.
Reaching for higher things is the ultimate spiritual development. Rejecting hedonism, while perhaps still kissing the joys as they pass by. It's about impermanence. That's such a Buddhist cliche but it's true, cliches are the ketchup of truth, the Jim Belushi of Truth, according to Jeffery Winger in Community.
The ballet interlude is amazing.
So Violetta ends it with Alfredo, and they see each other at a party. She's on the arm of some old fossil, who forbids her to speak to him, but they do and sparks fly, they still love each other. He throws money at her, and his father comes out and says he has disgraced himself.
I can't help but fall in love with Damrau. Diana Damrau, Juan Diego Flórez, and Quinn Kelsey are the stars, and it is conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. (From December 15, 2018)
Visuddhimagga Study Group Podcast
The Buddha and his natural environment in Thai manuscript art
I read a prequel and watched Picard. I find the Qowat Milat fascinating. It is an all female monastic order. They are dedicated to open communication, which is the opposite of the Romulan society, which is secretive. So in a way, they are perhaps an example of an aspect of right communication, in not being secretive. They are the keepers of a secret.
They had a fascinating ritual where they looked at something, the secret knowledge, and it led some of them to commit suicide, and one to go crazy. But one didn't die, and she carries out the mission.
I think sometimes if you look at all the suffering in the world it might lead to suicide. It's hard to maintain equanimity. I guess that should give me sympathy for people who obviously don't want to see things, the obvious example is Trump with Covid. Death is another notorious secret we can't hold.
Theradithi's drawing
Love these YouTube monk talks. This one is "How To Sustain Your Mindfulness". Going to listen to one every full moon. I'm copying monks, cut hair on moon day, talk Dharma and confess (with myself if I can't find a friend).
I like this blog by Dhivan Jones.
I'm upset this morning, I thought I would wake up to good news. It has reminded me to turn inward and control the things that I can control. Be the change I want to see.
I liked this answer in r/Buddhism to the question of whether it's possible to be omnipotent:
"...if I have omnipotence, I would snap and everyone attains to nibbana immediately. Snap, even hell beings are liberated, and instantly goes to heaven and attained to arahanthood, awaiting the final death. Snap, includes all beings from lower realms to have the same effect, snap, all beings in all realms, in all multiverses become enlightened, no more need for Buddhas to appear. Snap, why stop at arahant? Everyone become fully enlightened Buddha. Why if there's a God, had he not done all these just by having the power of omnipotence and knowledge of Buddhism?" by u/DiamondNgXZ
I was going there to say it doesn't matter, irrelevant about whether you're mindful or kind. I hadn't thought of that answer.
Samhain is a Gaelic festival marking the end of the harvest season and beginning of winter or "darker half" of the year. This is about halfway between the autumn equinox and winter solstice. It is one of the four Gaelic seasonal festivals, along with Imbolc, Beltaine and Lughnasa.
Day of the Dead: The multi-day holiday involves family and friends gathering to pray for and to remember friends and family members who have died. It is commonly portrayed as a day of celebration rather than mourning.
Halloween: One theory holds that many Halloween traditions may have been influenced by ancient Celtic harvest festivals, particularly the Gaelic festival Samhain, which may have had pagan roots; some scholars hold that Samhain may have been Christianized as All Hallow's Day, along with its eve, by the early Church. Other academics believe, however, that Halloween began solely as a Christian holiday, being the vigil of All Hallow's Day.
1. Abstention from killing of living beings. With deeds of loving-kindness I purify my body.
2. Abstention from taking the non-given. With open-handed generosity I purify my body.
3. Abstention from sexual misconduct. With simplicity, stillness and contentment, I purify my body.
4. Abstention from false speech. With truthful communication I purify my speech.
5. Abstention from harsh speech. With words kindly and gracious I purify my speech
6. Abstention from frivolous speech. With utterances helpful, I purify my speech.
7. Abstention from slanderous speech. With utterances harmonious, I purify my speech.
8. Abstention from covetousness. Abandoning covetousness for tranquility I purify my mind.
9. Abstention from hatred. Changing hatred into compassion, I purify my mind.
10. Abstention from false views. Transforming ignorance into wisdom I purify my mind.
I have a similar poster of the Tibetan Wheel of Life (Bhavacakra). Sometimes I just stand and look at it for a while. I consider staring at this and my Avalokita tanka as a practice. Staring at great religious art. I realized when I searched my site for a post on this subject, I didn't get anything.
For me the most important part is the 12 nidanas. Inside that are the 6 realms. Inside that are the cock, the crow and the snake: ignorance, attachment and aversion.
Links:
12 Links (Wikipedia)
I've forgotten my desire to be mindful of the 5 skandhas. I was reading the Nidanasanyutta in the Samyutta Nikaya, and it occured to me that I could do a 12 Nidana meditation, and then it occured to me that I needed a good base of a 5 skandhas meditation. Combining wouldn't be good because there would be some overlap with vedena, sankara and vinnana, but the others were composed of other larger or smaller categories. Rupa (form) in the skandhas in added on name in "name and form. Contact could be perception but they are different pali words. Anyway, I'll do one, and then the other.
"More than twenty years have passed since twenty-eight fragile birch bark scrolls, now known to be the oldest surviving Buddhist manuscripts in the world, came to light."
Read the article in Lion's Roar by Richard Salomon
"The discovery of previously unknown texts also offers a hint of how much of the Buddhist literature that once existed has not come down to us."
If you've got $50-$100 for the 6 books on Amazon in the USA, you must have made good merit.
It looks like an academic area when you look at all the primitive stuff that includes grafiti.
"On one hand, one can safely ignore the new material without missing anything essential to the theory or practice of Buddhism. On the other hand, Buddhists may wish to dip a toe—or even plunge headfirst—into these previously uncharted waters."
Links
Gandharan Buddhist Texts (Wikipedia)
Gandhara art (Britannica)
I was stuck in a waiting room and among the things I did to pass the time, I did 10 times around my mala. That's 1080 mantras. I was wondering what is the most auspicious number of times to go around my mala, and I found this article that thinks 3, multiples of 3, 13 are auspicious. Of course 108 is the number of beads on a mala so that's also auspicious.
My mala is precious to me because my beloved Anandi gave it to me. She had it specially made. I was thinking that when I die, I want one of my children to have it. I've done so many "om mani padme hum" on it.
Many times in modern existence, we are left standing there with nothing to do. So take your mala and do some mantras. "Om mani padme hum" means the "jewel in the lotus" which is about the Buddha. He is the jewel, among the three jewels. And lotus are a symbol of the Buddha and enlightenment. The flower grows up out of the mud. In the mud we find the challenges that help us to grow.
I like Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of compassion that has many manifestations in all the cultures. I love the way it travels through the world, and comes out as Kanon in Japan. Because I am selfish, I strive to be compassionate to others. When I got bored, I worked to visualize her in white, with nine faces looking in all directions with Amitabha on the top, the red bodhisattva of love. She has many arms to do what is needed. Doing what is needed is quite a skill. My 4 year old daughter can be kind and thoughtful, but sometimes her kindness clangs with what is needed. I happens with everyone. Getting in tune, attuned, with people is not easy. There is some trial and error. And with all helping of others there is the question of idiot compassion, and fostering dependency instead of independence. So the striving is for smart compassion that really helps.
I love Avalokita because it's who wrote the Heart Sutra. I think of the balance between wisdom and compassion. Avalokita is naturally paired with Manjushri. Avalokita is white like Vairocana.
My friend Srisara talked about using a mala while on the subway.
I need to read the Kāraṇḍavyūha Sūtra, which can be read here. There is also chapter 24 in the Lotus Sutra.
I have not been empowered to do the Avalokita sadhana, but I do it anyway a little with the mantra. I'm not sure if I can visualize in my brain, but I can think visually of sorts. I also like the real Buddha, the example here on earth.
I wrote asking what the positive American Dharma will be, but there's also a negative version. Spiritual materialism. Maybe that's the demon we must pin to the wall
Unfortunately it was Chogyam Trungpa, the charismatic, abusive and alcoholic founder of Shambhala, who came up with that idea.
The Buddhist star system, has people flocking this way and that to touch the robes of famous spiritual teachers.
Buddhism has become big money in America. And where there's big money, there's people seeking power and not love.
And how should you regard solid food? Suppose a couple who were husband and wife set out to cross a desert, taking limited supplies. They had an only child, dear and beloved. As the couple were crossing the desert their limited quantity of supplies would run out, and they’d still have the rest of the desert to cross. Then it would occur to that couple: ‘Our limited quantity of supplies has run out, and we still have the rest of the desert to cross. Why don’t we kill our only child, so dear and beloved, and prepare dried and spiced meat? Then we can make it across the desert by eating our child’s flesh. Let not all three perish.’ Then that couple would kill their only child, so dear and beloved, and prepare dried and spiced meat. They’d make it across the desert by eating their child’s flesh. And as they’d eat their child’s flesh, they’d beat their breasts and cry: ‘Where are you, our only child? Where are you, our only child?’
What do you think, mendicants? Would they eat that food for fun, indulgence, adornment, or decoration?”
“No, sir.”
“Wouldn’t they eat that food just so they could make it across the desert?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I say that this is how you should regard solid food. When solid food is completely understood, desire for the five kinds of sensual stimulation is completely understood. When desire for the five kinds of sensual stimulation is completely understood, a noble disciple is bound by no fetter that might return them again to this world. (SN 63:3)
“It’s incredible, sir! It’s amazing, in that this dependent origination is deep and appears deep, yet to me it seems as plain as can be.”
“Not so, Ānanda! Not so, Ānanda! This dependent origination is deep and appears deep. It is because of not understanding and not penetrating this teaching that this population has become tangled like string, knotted like a ball of thread, and matted like rushes and reeds, and it doesn’t escape the places of loss, the bad places, the underworld, transmigration.
There are things that are prone to being grasped. When you concentrate on the gratification provided by these things, your craving grows. Craving is a condition for grasping. Grasping is a condition for continued existence. Continued existence is a condition for rebirth. Rebirth is a condition for old age and death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and distress to come to be. That is how this entire mass of suffering originates.
Suppose there was a great tree. And its roots going downwards and across all draw the sap upwards. Fueled and sustained by that, the great tree would stand for a long time.
In the same way, there are things that are prone to being grasped. When you concentrate on the gratification provided by these things, your craving grows. Craving is a condition for grasping. Grasping is a condition for continued existence. … That is how this entire mass of suffering originates.
SN 12.60 Sujato translation
Survivors of an International Buddhist Cult Share Their Stories by MATTHEW REMSKI
This is an article about Shambhala and Chogyam Trungpa.
"Trungpa’s personal doctor would cite liver disease from alcohol abuse as the cause of death."
"Trungpa’s kingdom presents less like an “enlightened society” than it does a longitudinal study of intergenerational abuse and of how thin the line between religion and cult can be."
"In a series of 1983 sermons, he compared the attainment of spiritual wisdom to the act of rape."
"...according to Hays, her job as a “spiritual wife” (traditionally a consort for ritualized sexual meditations) involved offering Trungpa bumps of cocaine, which she remembers his lieutenants pretending was either a secret ritual substance or vitamin D."
"“What Trungpa did,” says Liz Craig, “was create an environment for emotional and sexual harm in which nobody was accountable for their actions.” Craig worked as a nanny in Trungpa’s household. “If he’d been publicly violent, it would have been easier to identify him as harmful and Shambhala as a cult.”"
"Michal Bandac, now living in Germany, says that, in the 1980s, Shambhala adults introduced him to cocaine use when he was twelve."
"There was statutory rape going on all over the place.”
"Thomas Rich, had been having unprotected sex with an unknown number of men and women while being HIV positive."
"The legal entities that held Shambhala’s assets were dissolved to avoid liability."
"Between 1999 and 2018, Mipham’s restructuring helped Shambhala’s global membership grow from under 7,000 to 14,000. Members participated in programs and training at outposts around the world, drawing an annual revenue of $18 million (US) in North America alone."
"Mipham also moved to shield what were reputed to be the most mystical elements of his father’s teaching content behind a pay-wall."
"Through the summer and fall of 2017, stories about similar abuse ripped into other spiritual communities. In July, eight former attendants of the late Sogyal Rinpoche, a celebrated Buddhist teacher and the author of the bestselling Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, published an open letter describing decades of physical, sexual, and financial abuse by the religious leader."
I've quoted so much, read the article to get the rest. The fallout, and the inevitable copying of behavior, and how the survivors gained confidence to speak their truths. The efforts by Shambhala to get out from under these legacies is scary too. It will be hard to survive for a lineage with such a history. I don't have any books by him, but if I did, I would get rid of them. I visited the center once for a Wesak celebration. I would never enter a center now. There exist enough centers without such a history.
You could compare the legacy of Sangharakshita and the TBC with Chogyam Trungpa and Shambhala. Sangharakshita did experiment with sex, and there were others who took his example and copied it, throwing off the Christian taboo of sexuality. I feel like this cultic strain was snuffed out, and the organization talked about the Guardian article quite robustly.
There was no substance abuse by Sangharakshita that I'm aware of. Supposedly he quite drinking wine with meals when he saw how much land was devoted to wine on his travels. The children in the organization were not groomed for anything to my knowledge. I remember seeing an article shaming a minister in the government for being a member and calling it a cult. There is the FWBO files, FWBO being the old name of the TBC.
I am not aware of any cultic behaviors by the council that took over from Subhuti. I'm not aware of any accusations about Subhuti. Feel free to comment with information.
I do know a fair amount of members resigned from the TBC as a result of reflecting on some of the revelations. The majority remained. I see online that more and more people are being ordained. There is no evidence that the TBC and order have been hit financially.
I feel like Sangharakshita's experiments with sexuality as a founder of an order, were more like Lama Surya Das. He did them, later people expressed they were not all positive, and they regretted them, and with Das, he got married, and with Sangharakshita he went celibate.
Reading about other sanghas and their struggles to grapple with the legacy of their former charismatic founders makes me sad. It seems to be a stage many new sanghas need to go through in America. Charismatic people are flawed and people who are not see as traditionally charismatic can seem so when they are the head of an organization. I tend to feel that TBC can survive. I wish them well. I'll keep my books and go on retreats at their centers. I feel like they have grown up and survived their scandal.
Recommended is Sex and the Spiritual Teacher by Scott Edelstein. You never have to do anything you don't want to do and "spiritual teacher" isn't a license to rape. "Spirituality" isn't a license to forget common sense. I would say that consensual sex with a teacher needs to be closely monitored.
If you want to be completely safe, I'd say a Theravadan sangha has monks that have a vow of chastity, and that while I'm sure I could find a Theravadan sangha that had a sex scandal, I would argue that they are the safest if you are concerned about being sexually exploited.
I used to scoff at the idea that traditional sanghas with lineages, because I think lineage is a fairy tale. And they have less sexual misconduct. I believe that now. I think that's proven by the data.
I have no idea about the IMS householder Theravadan movement. I bet you could find someone who felt exploited by a teacher somewhere along the line, and Against The Stream and Noah Levine has come under scrutiny. The Dharma Bums of NYC and Josh Korda doesn't seem to be effected by it, to my knowledge. Just know there is a difference between Theravadan and IMS, though IMS gets its inspiration from Theravadan.
Reginald Ray is another American founder of a sangha, The Dharma Ocean, which came out of Shambhala, and has accusations of abuse.
I have read Shoes Outside The Door about Richard Baker, and The Buddha from Brooklyn about Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.
I write this out of love for Buddhism, not to gossip negatively, but for the long term support of Buddhism in America. This is a painful growing process. In the end, I don't think meditating all the time is very sexy, and a good sangha will be less sexually oriented, even if they are trying to shake off Christian conditioning.
I am not free from sexual misconduct throughout my more than half a century of life. I am deeply sorry and regretful. I think about my misconduct every day. I can only hope to move forward every day trying to live the opposite of misconduct, which is to live with simplicity, stillness and contentment.
More links
The first response as of today on Reddit r/Buddhism about Shambhala has a positive experience report on CT
1979 issue of Boulder Monthly with article by Merwin about being stripped naked with his girlfriend by Trungpa.
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