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I practiced Zen Buddhism for many years and left my sangha due to many of the points that Sasha brought up: Many of the teachers and students I knew were not r

I practiced Zen Buddhism for many years and left my sangha due to many of the points that Sasha brought up: Many of the teachers and students I knew were not rising above their neuroses. Many of them were masking their life problems with the Buddhist aesthetic as opposed to really working with them. We would cycle through the same concerns repeatedly without any progress. I started to figure out that the process was to drop the issue and disengage with it. The problem is that does not work outside of a sheltered monastic community because you need to face your problems constantly in the real world. I agree that many modern Buddhist schools stray away from the Buddha’s original teachings (as we know it from the Pali Cannon). Many branches won’t even really teach what Buddha said; only interpretations from later traditions. We did not talk about Buddha much in Zen practice at all. Much more time was given to Dōgen, and the Chinese masters than to Buddha. In Zen everyone is a Buddha so Siddhartha Gautama (O.G. Buddha) gets marginalized. There is also a pantheon of Buddhas which dilutes things even more. Buddhism has a pretty straight forward thesis (Four Noble Truths), but it has become esoteric after centuries of appropriation and reinterpretation. Modern Western Buddhism pushes meditation above all of the other practices. We spent more time meditating than anything else, which was different than how the early Buddhists and even how most Buddhists in Asia practice. This leads to people thinking that all they need to do is sit and not change anything about their lives and it will magically work out. In fact in Japanese Zen Dōgen essentially states that sitting with the correct posture (zazen) is enlightened practice itself. This enlightenment is transitory, so one could imagine that the longer you sit zazen the more time you get to stay in this enlightened state. You can see how this could become an obsession. This in practice leads to a lack of engagement which would have you thinking you are actually putting in the work, but you are just eschewing reality. Buddhism has a rich tradition of debating and challenging teachers. In fact the Pali Cannon is full of these debates. However, these days if you bring up a question or objection to some teachers they don’t really engage with you. In Zen you can cover up inconsistencies with esoteric vocabulary and wave it away. Just sit and it will be okay. Buddha in the Pali Cannon was actually more human than we give him credit for. He made mistakes and learned from them (even after nirvana). He got old and died. He scolded his monks for breaking monastic rules. The Buddha represented in the Pali Cannon can be raw at times which goes against the ideal Buddha archetype. +1 from a long time fan of the Buddha

dang 4y ago
> Many of them were masking their life problems with the Buddhist aesthetic as opposed to really working with them The phrase "spiritual bypass", which I'm sure you know (it is a cliché by now) is often used to describe this phenomenon. I recently learned that it has a specific origin: it was coined in the early 80s by the psychotherapist (and Buddhist) John Welwood, who had a lot of experience with it in spiritual communities. There's a great interview with Welwood from 2011 about this. I have a pdf somewhere, but all I can find online at the moment is this excerpt: https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/article/on-spiritual-bypassing-and-relationship https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/article/on-spiritual-by.... The relationship between spirituality and therapy is endlessly fascinating to me. (Edit: it's no coincidence that the OP eventually ends up talking about IFS.)
- robocat 4y ago
  IFS — I am guessing Internal Family Systems: https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Family_Systems_Model https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Family_Systems_Model (I live on one edge of world and many therapies are alien to me).
- froh 4y ago
  are you familiar with James Finley? he did his PhD in clinical psychology on the relationship of contemplative spirituality and psychological healing, worked as clinical trauma therapist until his retirement and taught and still teaches his open minded down to earth approach to contemplation (what in Buddhism is called meditation) and psychological healing and wellbeing.
  - dang 4y ago
    I watched some of his interview with Rick Archer but I think that was the first I'd heard of him. What have you found most valuable there?
    - froh 4y ago
      I find his work down to earth, approachable, undogmatic and tender Most valuable to me is his for lack of a better term non-violence. I've never read or heard him say negative things about other schools or teachings. He simply puts out his approach to things and lets you free to take, pick, choose, whatever. For example he gives _criteria_ for a practice, a teaching, a community. The other extremely valuable aspect is his explicit approach to trauma, to overcoming deep rooted early onset trauma, little by little. He fluently moves between traditions, if he is teaching a Christian audience then he'll use Christinesian lingo, if he is in a neutral settings (like training therapists) he'll "translate" concepts, like "contemplative church" or "sangha" or Ashram"; or "blind" and "see" vs "unknowing" and "awakened". Like a stream enterer would know that rituals are valuable (to some or many) but interchangeable or not useful to some. Which leads me to the third valuable thing: I'm rooted in a very liberal Catholicism and it's rituals, noises, smell and lingo feel "home" to me while the Zen noises, smells and lingo confused me, while not being _substantially_ different. so in summary I was happy to find someone in the intersection of being trauma sensitive (healing even), being open minded and seeing Jesus-as-Zen-teacher-not-mage. :-) on the cac.org site they host some podcast, teaching series, really, with nice transcripts even: https://cac.org/podcasts/instructions-for-the-practice/ https://cac.org/podcasts/instructions-for-the-practice/ https://cac.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/TTTM_Transcript_InstructionsForThePractice.pdf https://cac.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/TTTM_Transcript_I...

dang 4y ago

> Many of them were masking their life problems with the Buddhist aesthetic as opposed to really working with them The phrase "spiritual bypass", which I'm sure you know (it is a cliché by now) is often used to describe this phenomenon. I recently learned that it has a specific origin: it was coined in the early 80s by the psychotherapist (and Buddhist) John Welwood, who had a lot of experience with it in spiritual communities. There's a great interview with Welwood from 2011 about this. I have a pdf somewhere, but all I can find online at the moment is this excerpt: https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/article/on-spiritual-bypassing-and-relationship https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/article/on-spiritual-by.... The relationship between spirituality and therapy is endlessly fascinating to me. (Edit: it's no coincidence that the OP eventually ends up talking about IFS.)

robocat 4y ago
IFS — I am guessing Internal Family Systems: https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Family_Systems_Model https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Family_Systems_Model (I live on one edge of world and many therapies are alien to me).
froh 4y ago
are you familiar with James Finley? he did his PhD in clinical psychology on the relationship of contemplative spirituality and psychological healing, worked as clinical trauma therapist until his retirement and taught and still teaches his open minded down to earth approach to contemplation (what in Buddhism is called meditation) and psychological healing and wellbeing.
- dang 4y ago
  I watched some of his interview with Rick Archer but I think that was the first I'd heard of him. What have you found most valuable there?
  - froh 4y ago
    I find his work down to earth, approachable, undogmatic and tender Most valuable to me is his for lack of a better term non-violence. I've never read or heard him say negative things about other schools or teachings. He simply puts out his approach to things and lets you free to take, pick, choose, whatever. For example he gives _criteria_ for a practice, a teaching, a community. The other extremely valuable aspect is his explicit approach to trauma, to overcoming deep rooted early onset trauma, little by little. He fluently moves between traditions, if he is teaching a Christian audience then he'll use Christinesian lingo, if he is in a neutral settings (like training therapists) he'll "translate" concepts, like "contemplative church" or "sangha" or Ashram"; or "blind" and "see" vs "unknowing" and "awakened". Like a stream enterer would know that rituals are valuable (to some or many) but interchangeable or not useful to some. Which leads me to the third valuable thing: I'm rooted in a very liberal Catholicism and it's rituals, noises, smell and lingo feel "home" to me while the Zen noises, smells and lingo confused me, while not being _substantially_ different. so in summary I was happy to find someone in the intersection of being trauma sensitive (healing even), being open minded and seeing Jesus-as-Zen-teacher-not-mage. :-) on the cac.org site they host some podcast, teaching series, really, with nice transcripts even: https://cac.org/podcasts/instructions-for-the-practice/ https://cac.org/podcasts/instructions-for-the-practice/ https://cac.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/TTTM_Transcript_InstructionsForThePractice.pdf https://cac.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/TTTM_Transcript_I...