"religous zen" poetry by Leonard Cohen, sexual scandals of his "Roshi" (quoting wikipedia)

Who was Leonard Cohen? He was a singer songwriter. He was Canada’s Poet Laureate for a while. He was a practitioner of the Japanese Rinzai Zen school at “Mount Baldy Zen Center”

I thought it might be interesting to quote him a bit. How would you judge him and his continued friendship with a Roshi that was involved in and then been accused of long ongoing sexual abuse?

Now I'm living in this temple

Where they tell you what to do

I'm old and I've had to settle

On a different point of view

I was fighting with temptation

But I didn't want to win

-From “On the level” from the album “You want it darker”

A poem called Roshi said, from The Flame:

Roshi Said

Roshi said:

Jikan san there’s something I want you to

know

yes, Roshi

you are the worst student I’ve ever had

I disappeared for ten years

When I came back to Los Angeles

Roshi Invited me for dinner.

After dinner Roshi wanted to see me alone

Roshi said:

When you left half of me died.

I said:

I don’t believe you

Roshi said:

Good answer

During Roshi’s sex scandal (he was 105)

my association with Roshi

was often mentioned in the newspaper reports

Roshi said:

I give you lots of trouble

I said:
Yes, Roshi, you give me lots of trouble

Roshi said:
I should die

I said:

It won’t help

Roshi didn’t laugh

This teacher or “Roshi” was Kyozan Joshu Sasaki and you can read a bit about him here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyozan_Joshu_Sasaki

A student of Joshu Roshi, Giko David Rubin, raised concerns about Roshi's sexual conduct to Joshu Roshi himself as well as his inner circle. Rubin wrote:

Joshu Roshi told me I would never get enlightened if I thought about these things. I was told by one Osho and one senior student I would be blamed for Joshu Roshi's death if I tried to make him change his behavior, and that I would be responsible for ruining his legacy. "You are killing him!" was shouted at me more than once.[10]

In 2012, Eshu Martin, a former monk in the Rinzai-ji community and student of Sasaki, also publicly accused Sasaki, who was then 105 years old, of sexual misconduct with students.[11]

A February 2013 article in the Albuquerque Journal wrote:

In early January, the senior teachers of Sasaki's community admitted in an on-line statement that the community "has struggled with our teacher Joshu Sasaki Roshi's sexual misconduct for a significant portion of his career in the United States."

Can people like this transmit the dharma? What is there to be said about institutions that let this kind of thing go on for so long? About this singer’s behavior in this case? About “Zen” being used by teachers who are maybe the opposite of enlightened, that are abusive, that are frauds in a very deep and essential way?

Submitted May 22, 2020 at 08:34AM by 2bitmoment https://ift.tt/3cZTUKw