Article commissioned by Medytacja magazine (Poland) issue 4 2013.
There have been several well-publicised scandals involving unethical behaviour by Zen masters. This is not a uniquely Zen problem, nor a uniquely Buddhist problem – there have also been similar problems involving other religions, for example with Christian priests – but I'm going to talk about it from the Zen perspective since that is my tradition, the Chinese Zen tradition of Chan Buddhism.
When you hear of such behaviour, perhaps involving misuse of sexuality, power, or money, in someone who is reputed to be an enlightened master, then it raises doubts about the meaning of enlightenment, and the quality of their certification and appointment. If an ‘enlightened master’ can behave this way, does that mean that the concept of enlightenment is a sham? Does it mean that they were incorrectly approved, and if so how can it happen that their teacher made that mistake? Or is there some other explanation?
What is Enlightenment?
When Zen first became known in the West, the concept of enlightenment being accessible to those who practice Zen was very attractive. It is especially attractive to those with difficulty in their lives who hope and imagine that tasting enlightenment will cure all their problems. They project their fantasies and hopes for salvation onto the enlightenment experience, and also onto those Zen masters who are reputed to personify it. But with Zen being relatively new in the West, and for most of us not part of our culture and upbringing, our understanding of this process may be rather superficial. To untangle this problem we need a deeper understanding of what is meant by enlightenment and Zen training.
All animals have a tendency to interpret the world in terms of its significance for them. This is a biological mechanism, enabling survival in what may be a hostile environment by recognising possible dangers and potential favourable circumstances. Unexpected sound – might be a snake, run away. Colours – might be edible fruit, go and investigate. We humans are complex social beings and add much complexity to this, reacting to opportunities and threats relating to our social position, learning from memories of past events and planning for a better future.
This instinct is important to us as we do need to be able to recognise threats and opportunities, both physical and social. But as a reflex behaviour it is rather crude and does not always serve us well – not all sounds indicate danger, attractively coloured fruit may be poisonous, we may misperceive the attitudes of others, and the future cannot be determined as we are not in control of all the conditions that will create it. We create suffering for ourselves by agonising over lost opportunities and unsuccessful endeavours, with fear of failure in what we seek and of losing what we have gained.
Striving to avoid failure we engage obsessively in trying to interpret the world around us. As a result we hardly ever perceive the world directly; instead we are aware only of our own thoughts about the world. You could say that we inhabit a virtual world of our own creation, full of our conceptions about the world but with no direct contact with the world itself.
If you doubt this, observe your own mind. How often can you rest in pure clear awareness, without replacing this by opinions and judgements? Do you see a landscape, or do you see a ‘beautiful’ or ‘ugly’ or ‘boring’ landscape? Notice how that value judgement is inserted automatically and unconsciously, and can make it difficult for you to see the actual view in front of you – you may immediately register it as ‘seen’ and turn your attention to something else. Do you see a person, or do you see a ‘friend’ or ‘stranger’ or ‘enemy’? Notice how, even before this categorisation had entered your awareness, you had already started to move towards or away from the person.
A glimpse of enlightenment is a step outside of the virtual world, into a direct perception of the underlying reality. In this state we do not inhabit opinions, we are not anxious about outcomes, and in particular we have stopped creating a sense of duality and opposition between ourselves and the rest of the world. The lack of duality between self and other, and indeed the lack of any sense of ‘self’, abolishes selfishness, and yet our basic self-preserving functions still operate – we can still walk and talk and respond to needs, and will still eat meals and take care when crossing roads. But the usual habitual setting of self before and above others is absent, and so naturally our minds are open and our actions compassionate.
The crucial point to understand is that such an enlightenment experience is a temporary state. Your usual self-centred habits of thought and action return as you slip out of this state back into your usual way of perceiving and interacting in the world. So is this experience of any value? Yes. It confirms to you that such a state of direct contact with nature is possible. It provides a ‘reference point’ for understanding your future states, highlighting to you just how much you live in a dualistic self-cherishing manner disconnected from direct contact with life. But far from freeing you of all of this, as you may have fantasised, instead the enlightenment experience highlights to you just how much work there is still to be done. This is why in Chan it is said that an enlightenment experience marks the beginning of practice, not the end.
I sometimes put it this way – the purpose of practice is not to reveal enlightenment to you, but to reveal your obstructions and bad habits! There may be some relationship between enlightenment and practice but we should look at it the opposite way around to what you might assume. If you practice purifying your mind and awareness then you may be more likely to have an enlightenment experience. But even better, if you have an enlightenment experience then you are better placed to continue practice to deepen your insight and work on your remaining obstructions.
Perhaps we could discuss the fully-enlightened state of Buddhahood, when all obstructions have been resolved, but to do so would rekindle our fantasies about enlightenment. Most masters have had a glimpse of enlightenment, but are not fully-enlightened Buddhas. Certainly I would make no such claim for myself, indeed I would deny it!
Students and Masters
By itself an enlightenment experience is not sufficient qualification to become a teacher. The potential teacher needs to continue practice of meditation and keeping precepts, to stabilise and develop their insight and ethical behaviour. If they also have sufficient knowledge and communication skills then some time later it may be possible to consider appointing them as teachers.
A person who has had such an experience has not become some superhuman perfect being. They are still subject to human frailties including selfish thoughts. Hopefully they will now be more aware of this, and have learned how to continue their practice to work on their karmic tendencies, and so may create less harm than previously. But still it might happen that they behave unskilfully and we should not be confused by that even if they are in the role of teacher.
There can be a difficult and destructive dynamic between teachers and students which can make this problem more extreme. Students may project onto their teacher their hopes for an infallible perfect teacher who will give them total enlightenment. The teacher may collude with this, for reasons of status or because they also believe that one is perfected by an enlightenment experience. Such a teacher can become trapped in this charade – to keep their role the teacher has to continue to project an image of perfection. How do they understand their own imperfections, which contradict their public and private image of perfection? Perhaps they deny them, which means they do not work on them. Or perhaps, even more dangerously, they tell themselves that since they are enlightened then they can do nothing wrong – that whatever they do, even seemingly unethical actions, are just their own expression of enlightenment. Here we have a recipe for disaster – an imperfect teacher who suppresses their own awareness of their unresolved imperfections, interacting with hopeful students who trust their teacher absolutely but inappropriately.
The significant error here is to place too much emphasis on the experience of enlightenment. To the general public, and to some Zen practitioners, and perhaps also for some Zen teachers, it can be seen as the goal of practice, with a belief that once achieved then practice is complete. This is a very severe and dangerous misunderstanding. Much more important is to cultivate a practice of awareness and ongoing investigation of one’s karmic tendencies, which will enable one to notice and intercept one’s own selfish thoughts before they are translated into harmful actions.
To reduce the risk of future problems, both students and teacher need a better understanding of the purpose of Zen training, and to drop any fantasies regarding enlightenment experiences. Masters must have the humility to recognise that they too may have faults, and diligently continue their practice to continue the process of purifying their thoughts and actions. And students have responsibilities too. They must not be star-struck – they must realise that their teachers are human and they must not be shocked if their teachers show human frailties. But they should be shocked, and complain, if their teacher takes an incorrect attitude to their own errors: claiming these are their expression of enlightenment; harming others yet not admitting fault; or failing to continue their own practice of investigation and purification.
