Where's Eko?

First topic message reminder :

Where is eko little? Has anyone heard from him ever since he got kicked out of Shasta Abbey? Im curious

Enida,
Thank you so much for sharing your experience and insights. I found them deeply moving and inspiring,  especially your words "...the bright light is to learn from it and make necessary changes so it won’t happen again in the future."

Enida - beautifully put.  Thanks so much for sharing your experience and path. I do totally understand what you are going through, since it was very much like my own process.  I do meditate with some Buddhist groups - Tibetan and sometimes Vipassana - but for many years - like 10 years -  after I left Shasta, I totally avoided any groups and teachers.  I had an allergic reaction to them.  Now, when I am involved with groups or teachers, it is as a spiritual adult and I keep only a few toes in any given pond.  If something does not feel right to me, I either speak out or walk out.  I don't care what their rules are.  If I feel a NO, I say NO.  It took me years to process my experiences with Kennett and Shasta - i could say I am still digesting them. The core values and insights of Buddhism stayed with me as still so valuable and true, but not because Kennett said so - but because I found them real in my daily life, worthwhile in my experiences.  Some of the Dogen and Zen stuff I still find of great value - AND others aspects I see as not worthwhile, as false, self-promotional.  

Many groups after an unavoidable scandal goes public use some form of external process - like the Faith Trust.  But as we see, it is often superficial, half-hearted.  The organizations want to process the issues as quickly as possible and usually like to use the "bad apple" approach - there was one bad guy - he's gone - and yes, we went along with some of the abuses, but he's gone and let's just move on - and not dwell on the past, etc.  Most groups never want to look deeper, under the surface, and question some of the main beliefs that lead them to the crisis in the first place.  Also, many of these processes are driven by lawyers who tell groups that they must do some public process to avoid lawsuits - and thenmake a few new rules and procedures... and so they do.  And Shasta was never going to look at Kennett's shadow which, as I have said, is alive and well, in fact it's running the show there - they are the underlying beliefs that make this scene the church of Kennett.

I feel a large part of the issue is needing. I certainly needed a group or teacher and I think it is reasonable to assume the so called teacher has a big need for followers for various reasons. For me practice can not mature till that need is understood and gradually let go of

in healthier communities I would hope that these needs and projections would be acknowledged and worked with as part of becoming more aware, of bringing things to light.  My guess is that because of the nature of the big Zen narrative of masters, enlightenment, and so on, these issues will always be in play. There will always be the potential to get seduced one way or another.  There needs to be much more open communication, processing, mutual respect constantly - those things would go a long way to help the situation. Since I never visit Zen centers, i have no idea the psychological state of these communities.  It doesn't matter what these groups say they are doing - but what is actually lived. I have seen some Tibetan communities - and they are all over the place - and clearly dominated by the stature of the lamas and lineage.  Behind the gold brocade curtains, not sure how healthy they are.

Although there are many great teachings and sayings   a very pertinent one is 'be a light unto oneself'
Enida above said she had to adapt to not having to always ask a senior for approval of any little action.  

For a temple to keep control of people and not allow them the freedom to grow for themselves,shows incredible lack of real understanding and compassion and also fear that ultimately the person being told what to do may find a deeper truth than what is being taught. In reality spiritual understanding is not dependent on anyone nor situation.
If what I say has a measure of  truth then it should perhaps be pointed out that this type of control and not allowing personal understanding is without doubt not the practice of Buddha and as such is breaking the core precepts

Sophia said wrote:

However, the most senior monks, the ones that had been there and were the most influenced by RM Jiyu, were not willing to change the "trust your Master no matter what he says or does, or asks you to do."  They believe that is the basis of the Master/Disciple relationship and the foundation of the teaching. They fear that without that blind trust, the teachings can't be passed on.

This is a common perversion of the real teaching and is used to subjugate rather than to free. Yes you have to trust your teacher completely in the same manner that you would need to trust your brain surgeon completely. The surgeon cannot be perfect and indeed may make mistakes but we put our trust and confidence in them to do their best, realising that like everyone else they are human not gods (though a couple of surgeons I've known would disagree with that!). Teachers like surgeons have a duty of care to those who they teach, but will always remain human beings. When a teacher expects their followers to believe them to be infallible then they are leading their followers astray, into subjugation not freedom. It is not just a matter of lip service, Jiyu often used to say 'I could be wrong' but woe betide anyone who took her literally. We are all imperfect which is why the final lifelong set of koans in Rinzai is the precepts. The training is to lift the veils and see things, and ourselves, as they are, as you are, perfectly imperfect, and then face that and accept it, and because we are free this can be the  starting point for the future growth if we choose it to be.

So well said, Mark!

To grieve there are stages - denial, searching, bargaining, anger, despair, acceptance. Elizabeth kubler ross was the Pioneer in this I guess, with many books by others on the subject. This is generally agreed in the grief counseling world, as I understand it. Grief not expressed stays inside, unresolved, and acts out of us from inside constantly.

To resolve trauma there are 3 main stages, to be removed from the traumatic situation, to fully relive the trauma, re integration with community. For me the best book to start to understand this is trauma and recovery by Judith Herman. She was head of psychiatry at Harvard medical school, and on the board of the 2nd reading of post traumatic stress disorder as a medical condition. Trauma unresolved is still inside us, just as powerful, acting out of is constantly.

Our needs, what drives us, and how we act them out in life, and in groups, are mostly put in place in our first 3 years of life. So our relationships with authority figures are basically how we were taught to be by mummy and daddy. The clinical psychology world used to use the age of 7, but they now say 3.

In a battle between our subconscious and our conscious minds, the subconscious wins every time. I'm the only person I know who says this, and it is my experience. Both with my mind and everyone else's mind I know really well.

So from all the above in order to change the way our needs act out in our world we need to find our way in awareness to our inner 3 year old. And relive the trauma and grieve.

No-where in Buddhism, from the Buddha to today, has this been even mentioned, let alone explored in depth.

At age 19 I knew that until I knew myself, if I tried helping someone it would just be the blind leading the blind. So I used zazen to look and listen to the me hidden inside me. And I found that when we look and listen to our inner child self he/she is immediately wanting to talk to us and show us what's really going on inside.

We just have to be willing to ask him/her the simple obvious questions...

What has been revealed to me through the internet in the last 3 years in the Buddhist world is a lot of blind children leading a lot of blind children around. Everyone wants to see, our say they see, but no-one wants to see or listen to the 3 year old inside. That would be a childish, infantile thing to do...

And yet for me beginners commission class is to learn to love children inside..

And as tic nit han and Carl Rodgers say, love is listening..

And I would add love begins with allowing into awareness...

And that to find out who we really are we really do need to be willing to see who we really think we are...

I found that when I went towards to my 3 year old and listened for a few years, it helped a lot with all this :-). And it changed totally for me what people's rules, morals, ethics and the "power" behind them are..

Oh, and I guess I have to admit that listening to my 3 year old for a few years was rather messy. My 3 year old was traumatised and felt unlovable, and was hidden under my 5, 6, and 7 year olds, who were also traumatised and felt unlovable. And they all wanted to tell their story too. In a rather uncontrolled messy kind of way. Because that was how it was inside. And outside too if truth be told.

And boy was I acting out of my 3 year old in my present day life..

Of course now I'm completely sorted.

david. wrote:

So from all the above in order to change the way our needs act out in our world we need to find our way in awareness to our inner 3 year old. And relive the trauma and grieve.

No-where in Buddhism, from the Buddha to today, has this been even mentioned, let alone explored in depth.

Agreed that it isn't talked about in the traditional literature, but, as you say, the truth is you're going to encounter the 3 year old (and all of the rest of the inner children) on the journey; they will block the way until they are acknowledged and given what they need.  Perhaps the seeming absence of info about it is due to big differences in language and culture?  Maybe men don't want to talk about it?  Certainly it is one of the significant advances of our culture that there is now permission to talk about many things that until very recently were taboo.