dazui macphillamy

this man passed on long before i became involved with the OBC but from what i've read on the forum, he sounds like a person i'd like to learn more about. it sounds like he had a prominent role but i haven't heard many people talk about him.

what was he like?

sandokai wrote:

this man passed on long before i became involved with the OBC but from what I've read on the forum, he sounds like a person I'd like to learn more about. it sounds like he had a prominent role but i haven't heard many people talk about him.

what was he like?

There is some information about him on this website:

http://www.obcon.org/RMDaizui/RMDaizui.htm

In retrospect I would describe him as both dedicated and fair minded. He stayed at Shasta Abbey after many of us could not, and continued as an assistant to RMJK even though he was not always in agreement with her policies. Most people could not both love her and stand up to her - I certainly could not - but he held his ground and remained authentic. If he were still here I think the OBC would be much more open and willing to engage with former members.

Was there anything in particular you were curious about? Quite a few people that post here knew him well.

Isan wrote:

Was there anything in particular you were curious about? Quite a few people that post here knew him well.

i don't know. nothing specific, i guess. from what ivee read here he sounds like he touched a lot of people's lives. i'd like to learn more about who he was and how he taught but there doesn't seem to be much on the net. and the only writing i have by him is the intro to 'roar of the tigress' which is mostly about JK

Rev Daizui also has a book I'm currently looking at called "Buddhism From Within", published in 2003.

I found him approachable and very down to earth...a uncommonly, common man. I never felt any pretension or judgment from him. He seemed a man who had found Buddha in his daily life.

Dear Sandokai and others--

~15 of RM Daizui's Dharma Talks are available for streaming or download at the Shasta Abbey web site, along with talks from the former Abbots and several of the other senior teachers:

http://www.shastaabbey.org/teachings-RMdaizui.html

In case you're interested.
--Dan

There is much lag time in posting on this. Daizui (whom I knew as Doug), I knew as a friend and a sweet, gentle person. He was extraordinarily bright and analytical and often expressed himself in formal, abstract ways, yet had an open and loving heart. I had the privilege to be a friend, and a colleague, as well as a student. He was a trained psychologist and worked with me for a time in a community mental health center. We co-led a therapy group at one point and did some informal research in the effects of meditation and psychotherapy work combined. Doug had the mind of a scientist and the compassionate heart of a very human monk. In my view his most fatal flaw was his willingness to sacrifice his own integrity and deepest commitments for the sake of a personal loyalty to his teacher. For this he paid a high price.

I treasure my friendship with him and grieved on the news of his death, and look with warmth and fond remembrance on his photo. Doug was present and presided over the naming of my son, and presided at his funeral and sat in meditation with me and my wife at the time and place of his cremation. It was an intimate and deep gift to me.

cmpnwtr wrote:

Doug had the mind of a scientist and the compassionate heart of a very human monk. In my view his most fatal flaw was his willingness to sacrifice his own integrity and deepest commitments for the sake of a personal loyalty to his teacher. For this he paid a high price.

Yes, he did pay a high price. It would have been much easier if he had simply capitulated, but what he did instead was struggle to walk a line between his loyalty to RMJK and following his conscience regarding behaviors and policies that he felt were harmful to the community. That put him at odds with her on occasion.

@ Isan
The sad reality is that he did capitulate and deny his own conscience for the sake of harmony with JK on the matter of shunning, and admitted as much in his final letter to me, which he said would be his last, cutting any further communication. For that capitulation I am certain he paid higher price than for any psychological tensions he might have had for staying on in apparent collaboration with JK and cooperating with and sanctioning her actions and pathological approach to leadership. He said in the letter he hoped for a better day when our relationship might be restored (meaning when the shunning edict was no longer operative). But that was the end of all communication, in 1987. From then until his death he remained obedient to the shunning command.

Bill Ryan

Great postings Bill

No other Senior that I met at the OBC could listen to a laymans criticism of Shasta, analyze it and respond seemingly unconstrained by the Shasta party line.
Rev. Dazui could both carry the party line or lay it down when asked, to examine the possibilities beyond it. He could give advise that wouldn't suit party lines when he thought it would better help the needs of the individual. He was an uncommon monk.

I never knew how or why one could walk the line he did but perhaps this is why I also never understood the master/desciple relationship. Nevertheless, I will always be grateful for his help with riding a wild zafu.

@ Howard-"He was an uncommon monk."

Indeed and I would second your comments. In the end with regards to our relationship and the practice of shunning I believe he knowingly and willingly betrayed his conscience and that saddened me. Without conscience we're done.

As with all of you on this thread, I had the greatest fondness, and highest regard, for RM Daizui.

Bill, I would like to suggest another possibility. This option does not exclude the conclusion that you have reached and presented.

I believe that Daizui found himself unable to "cut the cat in one".

He was able to question, and even challenge, RMJK on specific issues. He was clearly not able (or felt that he was not able) to engage in a one person intervention--to confront her with her own existential-trauma, fear-based, anger-fueled, abusive behavior--or her biased dictates. Within the institutional culture that she had created, there was simply no context for doing so at the time.

RMJK provided a gateway for others, through her teaching, to the transcendent ground of Awareness itself. Her gateway was flawed in a number of crucial respects. Within this larger experience however, the shape and condition of the gateway (at first) does not seem very important.

Daizui, I believe, was neither willing nor able to respond to RMJK's flawed gateway issues from duality. He was not willing to "cut the cat in two". And while I am certain that he did his best to respond from non-duality, it was clearly not enough to effect changes in the overall dynamic that developed, either for RMJK, or within the OBC.

In the longer term, as we can clearly see from many accounts posted on this Forum, a flawed gateway--and the legacy of a flawed gateway--becomes very significant.

It is easy to assume that the damage has been done and that it is too late for change. I feel certain that this is simply not true. The issue, and the koan, are in front of us in this eternal moment. It seems to me that it is up to those of us here today to cut the cat in one: to do our best to recognize, heal, and transform the misunderstanding, trauma, and dysfunction that have developed--back into original immaculacy. Or, in other words, to get it right.

At any rate, that's why I'm still here.

@ Kozan

Thank you for your thoughtful reflection on this. The idea of the "flawed gateway" has merit. I have come through that "flawed gateway" myself, and both benefited and been harmed. Fortunately for me my injuries were few and have been transformed to good. However, I come from a simpler perspective, an ethical one. When a person knowingly and willingly participates in something that is harmful, a serious breach of the precepts, it does harm to oneself and to others, including, in this case, Daizui's own teacher. And in this case his very acquiescence was an avoidance of a crucial responsibility to his own teacher and to the community of followers. In so doing Daizui continued the harm in his support and acquiescence of it, and he did a disservice to Jiyu Kennet and to the OBC, and to future students who would come to the community by not standing up to it. Frankly at the psychological level I believe Daizui was conflict-avoidant, and I would hold the psychological model applies that he was a member of an abusive family system at Shasta Abbey and the OBC where most of the family members were unwilling call out the abuse for fear of losing their parent and family.

I dispute your assertion that Daizui was "unable" to confront this behavior in his teacher and his community. He was a mature adult man with a strong psychological make-up. He was a trained psychologist with a Ph.D. from the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute with substantial training, schooled and committed to both the diagnosis and the ethical training and commitment in addressing psychological abuse and pathological behavior. He was simply afraid and unwilling in my view, to suffer the loss of relationships, support, and community that would inevitably ensue from this conflict. And he had substantial financial resources and professional skills to go out and make a life of his own.

As for redemption and healing, I always believe in that. It has been true for me. At the present moment I see no signs that there is any claim of responsibility by the leadership of the OBC community for what has occurred, nor a desire to amend it. In the world of immaculacy Daizui is always held with deep bows, gratitude, and love in my heart, and no harm exists. In the relative world of phenomenon, he blew it, big time, in many ways, in my view. I can hold both without difficulty. That is "cutting the cat" for me.

Hello Kozan and Bill,

Daizui was a strong supporter of Gyokuko and me during the early phases of our final conflict with the Abbey. His reversal and subsequent position and actions remain a mystery to me.

What I want to say here, however, is that all gateways to the Dharma are flawed. All teachers are flawed. The real problem is not owning up to this truth, this leads to the height of arrogance. Zen as a path is not perfect, and the people who practice it, even at the highest levels, are not perfect. Coming to terms with that is cutting the cat in one.

Calling out the problem involves acknowledging this basic truth. When it is acknowledged, then gentleness, holding the practice, oneself, and others with a light touch is possible. Without the humility of this acknowledgment, harshness is inevitable. The more egregious the flaws, the worse it gets. It all depends on sange, and the openness of heart that happens in that moment of grace. Somehow that all got lost.

With palms joined,

Kyogen

Kyogen,

You stated with elegance what I desired to say. Especially this:

" ...all gateways to the Dharma are flawed. All teachers
are flawed. The real problem is not owning up to this truth,
this leads to the height of arrogance...
Calling out the problem involves acknowledging this basic truth. When it
is acknowledged, then gentleness, holding the practice, oneself, and
others with a light touch is possible. Without the humility of this
acknowledgment, harshness is inevitable. The more egregious the flaws,
the worse it gets. It all depends on sange, and the openness of heart
that happens in that moment of grace. Somehow that all got lost."

Indeed Daizui's choices are a mystery to me. He remains always a powerful and beneficent presence who walked with me for a time in my journey, a brother I shall always love and cherish. That is what is truest and deepest for me, despite my judgments of his behavior.

Blessings,
Bill

Hi Bill,

Quote :

Indeed Daizui's choices are a mystery to me. He remains always a powerful and beneficent presence who walked with me for a time in my journey, a brother I shall always love and cherish. That is what is truest and deepest for me, despite my judgments of his behavior

.

Agreed.

Kyogen