A few weeks ago I posted here for the first time a little about my experience with monastic training as a lay student. It was about Zen and mental illness. I really appreciate the feedback and support.
I come on this subreddit everyday and read what you guys are chatting about. I get a lot of info to ponder on. So that's cool. I see mostly though discussions on scripture and books, which I've never been much into, so I'm always hesitant to write on here. Besides the basic teachings of"Buddhism", I've hardly read anything, though I have a good size collection. I always found it strange in my 10 years of visiting temples around the world that those with good scriptural knowledge seemed to think very highly of themselves. Like the ones who can quote the masters the most were the best students. I look for example, my ex Zen master. He knows "Buddhism" in and out when it comes to scripture, and yet he is obviously a total fraud. We had lots of fights, and a few of those fights concerned me not wanting to read texts. And I just don't like reading most stuff because I find it boring, but that's just me.
Anyway to get to the point, I don't consider myself a Zen student anymore even though"the path of awakening" is still top priority. I learned from my traumatic experience, and just try to live a meditative lifestyle.
On my last post, the word cult came up, and I see it used on this forum a lot too to describe the model of Zen of today. And I was just wondering how many of you really see it like that? That the Zen schools of the west are cults? Are there really any "enlightened Zen masters out there"? Are they just claiming to be because they can charismatically play that role, and everyone just blindly goes along with it? Is the so called Dharma now just another product on the market?
For 2 years now I'm recovering from my experience in that monastery. I grew a strong dislike for my ex teacher because of the bullshit he's doing and the history of the whole lineage as a matter of fact. His teacher and the teacher of his teacher were both involved in scandals. It pisses me off. A few people asked for his name, and I almost shared it but I don't feel that's right. Though I feel the Zen schools especially in the west should be exposed. People don't know what they are getting into once they go to these temples. The amount of time and money they put into just for the lure of this enlightenment thing that no one seems to ever attain. The whole hierarchical structure of Zen temples in the west is flawed. I've seen people come in for the first time with humble attitudes and after a while end up with inflated egos. I've seen other people like myself with mental issues come to temples and leave worse than before.
And I have yet to see people coming out and exposing this shit. Do any of you also feel it's about time to professionaly expose this shit? Would love to be apart of that.
Submitted January 05, 2019 at 04:18PM by introspectar http://bit.ly/2AGiLlt
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