The next morning I was among the dozen or so recipients of an email from Nananda.
I read.
Nananda appreciated, she said, the emails she had received from the master, from Nikki, and from Eleanor. At the time Nananda and the master had a sexual relationship, she explained, Nananda had been hurting deeply and felt very confused. It had been only by seeing how even a loving relationship between two consenting adults could be and had been harmful to her, Nananda said, that the two of them could untangle their relationship. In the 1970s many Zen teachers had been sleeping with their students, Nananda explained, but by the 1980s sanghas had begun to see the destruction caused when such a relationship ended; often it was the woman, Nananda said, who had to leave since her teacher was going nowhere. The student lost her insurance, her housing, her employer, her friends, her lover, and her teacher.
"If the woman screamed about it she tore the sangha apart," Nananda explained.
I could well imagine.
Sit—
Submit—
"So the woman was blamed and shamed."
Out.
Nananda and the master had been perhaps in the 1990s the first such couple to try to resolve in a different way this kind of "violation," she said. Nananda and the master clarified—"with the help of a wise woman"—the relationship they really wanted; and without the blame and shame they created a new relationship, deeper and cleaner than the last, and they had not torn apart the sangha. But just to refrain from sexual activity was not enough; and for that reason both the master and Nananda had become advocates of firm ethical statements on this subject.
"I am proud of our role," Nananda said.
Should teachers and students slip across that ethical boundary, Nananda explained, she and the master served as an example to them that they could wake up, see clearly, and choose the relationship they wished to be in. But once the master and Nananda had resolved what Nananda called a clear violation of ethical standards and had transformed that mistake into positive action to benefit others, Nananda believed, then the issue became personal and the business of nobody else. Neither felt any responsibility, Nananda explained, to disclose their past relationship the moment someone walked through the door of the temple. Though the master and Nananda did use their experience to inform others, Nananda said, they did so only when they felt it was appropriate and would benefit the recipient of the information. This communication was usually teacher to teacher, Nananda explained, and when they had spoken to others of their past sexual relationship they always expected them to follow the precept and rule of not speaking ill of others.
Had I spoken ill of others?
How?
Of whom?
I wondered.
How—
"If people are not in the room," Nananda asked, "should we speak of them at all?"
I wondered.
But in the past the master had spoken to me of many persons who were not present.
So had we all.
Indeed it had been the master of course who told me of him and Nananda, and of his having told Eleanor, too, of the relationship, and the master who had suggested that I approach Eleanor and propose that Eleanor and I discuss his sexual relationship with Nananda and, though Nananda I hardly knew, never had the master indicated that in this talk there might be anything amiss.
"If we learn information disturbing to us," Nananda said, "we should speak directly to the party."
Disturbing—
No.
Not really.
The secrecy only, the preservation of reputation—
Intrigue.
The master was "the party."
To him I spoke.
"Or speak to a counselor," Nananda advised.
No.
In my situation this suggestion did not apply.
Zen—
"Perhaps best of all," Nananda believed, "to the zafu."
The cushion.
Sit.
I wondered if Nananda knew that the master had asked me to discuss their sexual relationship with Eleanor.
What was gossip, what not, what a secret, what not, what triangulation, what not, what teaching, what not?
The master believed, he had told me, that by everything he said and did, right and wrong, he was teaching.
Dogen:
What need is there for special effort? If the least like or dislike arises the mind is lost in confusion. Put aside the intellectual practice of investigating words and chasing phrases and learn to take the backward step that turns the light and shines it inward. Do not think "good" or "bad." Do not judge true or false. Give up the operations of mind, intellect, and consciousness. Stop measuring with thoughts, ideas, and views. Not thinking— This is the essential art of zazen. Revere the one who has gone beyond learning and is free from effort.
It seemed to me all very confusing still.
Huh?
"I trust my gut!" the master said.
Uff da!
In her message Nananda responded also to statements that Eleanor had made in her own email. Eleanor had clearly expressed, Nananda said, the need for us to judge neither others nor ourselves but rather by sitting zazen to understand why judgment is an issue for us at all.
I had been judged by the master.
Had I not?
I had been judged, too, by Eleanor, more than once, it seemed to me, though, about any of this entire matter, of me personally Eleanor had never inquired.
Disinvited by the master to the meeting of the board, my presence a discomfort deemed unwelcome at my own impeachment, I had been judged to be in violation of the ethical precepts.
1 Dishonesty
2 Cowardice
3 Gossip
4 Triangulation
5 Malice
Guilty—
Out.
Heartmind Temple.
Out.
"Only by going beyond judgment can realization occur," wrote Nananda.
Yes.
Whom had I judged?
How?
When?
I wondered.
Before her sexual relationship with the master, Nananda explained, she had practiced first with Katagiri, then Reijo, Lokai, and teachers at the San Francisco Zen Center. As Nananda practiced with the master their dual relationship had become, Nananda said, "untenable." The master had called in Noen Ryder, a Zen teacher who counseled them to end their romance. People come to Zen practice for a variety of reasons, Nananda explained, but many are struggling with their lives and they are in no condition to enter into a sexual relationship with their religion teacher. Zen has about it a quality of deep healing, Nananda believed, if a student is given room to just sit. For the way the master had corrected his mistake Nananda was grateful.
"I trust him," Nananda said. "I trust his understanding."
Nananda explained.
Of all the Soto Zen Buddhist teachers Nananda had known, his understanding was second to none.
Effort—
Trust—
Nananda trusted the master to address issues in others, to address issues in her, and to address issues in himself. Nananda trusted his compassion for all of us. Nananda trusted that the master would "stumble downstairs and put his butt on his cushion." Nananda trusted that having taken "all that he is" the master would then go out into the buddha hall and bow to the buddha.
"Did you want something else?" Nananda inquired.
Did I—
Did I—
I felt both grateful and relieved that Nananda had not, like the master, to me imputed malice.
Her openness and honesty I thought inspired.
By the passionate disclosures of Eleanor, also, I had been first startled and then on reflection pleased.
Both the master and Nananda had suggested that the permissive liberal social mores of the time together with the confusion and hurt both felt in their own personal lives were significant factors in the complex matrix of causes and conditions from which had arisen the mistake the master had made; and Nananda and the master congratulated one other and themselves for their hardwon insight and transformation. In fact once they had been apprised of their error and understood it then by their own account both had behaved almost like heroes.
Zen protestants and reformers!
Good.
But my own confusion, hurt, and mistake received no such consideration.
If indeed "mistake" is what it was.
No.
I had been summarily dismissed.
Expelled.
There was in Nananda's account the telltale sign of parentalism and condescension toward students, even students in their sixties like me, that had occasionally caused me to feel uneasy at Heartmind. In the tradition of Zen the master is alternately the stern, nagging, scolding, and punishing parent and the loving, kind, wise, and understanding parent; and students are treated as if they are small children sometimes disobedient, obtuse, and lazy and at other times innocent, ignorant, and vulnerable. Twice in her email Nananda summarized what she called the "number one lesson" the master and she had learned from their intimacy and Nananda and the master, Nananda explained, had become tireless advocates of this principle.
"Don't touch the cubs!"
"Don't touch the cubs!"
By this Nananda meant, I believe, that the Zen master should not engage in sex with the Zen students.
Uh—
Not fuck them.
But "cubs"—
No.
I read and reread her email in my effort to understand what had happened, and how, and why, in my miscommunication with my teacher. I struggled to make sense of the strange and complicated tangle of precept, vow, practice, reputation, sex, renunciation, secrecy, confession, curiosity, inquisition, revelation, triangulation, mistrust, fear, expulsion, impeachment, excommunication, recrimination, reflection, and commentary.
I felt by far the most appreciation and gratitude for the simple acknowledgment with which Nananda concluded the fourth of her list of six lessons learned. Many months later I felt relieved and just plain glad to record it.
"Secrecy is not helpful."
Amen.
Jane wrote again.
Jane had thought about it all and had concluded that it was just not any of our business and that its revelation would do no real harm to the master's reputation. Even a priest, Jane believed, deserved privacy. Jane said again that she had enjoyed practicing with me at Heartmind and that she would miss me.
Jane had told the master what I had told her.
No problem.
"I thought that he should know," Jane explained.
Fine.
I had felt that way about a lot of people.
Whitman:
Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breeding,
No sentimentalist,
No stander above men and women or apart from them,
No more modest than immodest.
Unscrew the locks from the doors!
Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!
Whoever degrades another degrades me,
And whatever is done or said returns at last to me.
I did not know why the master had revealed to me the history of him and Nananda, I replied, nor did I understand why the master had revealed this history to Eleanor. I did not know why the master told me first that I was free to do with this knowledge whatever I wanted; nor did I understand why the master later changed his mind and forbade my ever telling others of the history he now once more termed confidential. I did not understand why the master had asked me to speak in private with Eleanor about his sexual relationship with Nananda. I did not understand why the master said now that it had never been a secret. It had all been to me very confusing, I explained, and until the master terminated our relationship I had kept him informed in my journal of my confusion and of my communication with others every step of the way. When the master ultimately terminated our relationship and expelled me from Heartmind, I had not known what to do. Friends speculated, wrongly, and asked questions, I told Jane, and I managed the best I could.
"Dumped by my teacher," I explained, "it seemed hardly right that for the rest of my life I was forbidden to tell my friends why."
Nananda:
"Secrecy is not helpful."
Out.
In his message to me Ivan had called the email formulations that the master and Nananda had shared with the sangha—to end the conflict, Ivan believed—"generous." Though I could appreciate the openness and honesty of their disclosures, I told Ivan, I could not agree that either the account of the matter by the master or the reflection upon it by Eleanor had been generous.
"Both blamed me!" I exclaimed.
Nananda and the master, and Eleanor, too, it seemed, had attributed the "mistake" to their "confusion," I reminded Ivan, and because of their "confusion" they believed that the mistake and the secrecy both were understandable and forgivable, a judgment with which I had always concurred. But it was difficult for me, I said, given the context in which I had received the revelations, to imagine anybody more confused than I had been, an assessment of my heartmind that the master himself had made and shared with me more than once; yet what the master and Eleanor called my malicious gossip, an indictment to which I pled innocent, appeared neither understandable nor forgivable to my two accusers. Most disappointing of all, I told Ivan, was not just my teacher's imputation of malice to me but his public insinuation that "for quite some time" I had engaged in malicious gossip about my friends at Heartmind.
"My reaction to such an insinuation and imputation," I told Ivan, "is revulsion."
Whew!
I had made myself mad.
Hormones.
Disappointment and hurt remained with me for three weeks.
I let go.
I let go.
I let go.
The only person I had ever questioned at the temple was the master and, when I had, I had added always how much I had learned from him. By my third year, however, some kind of climax had begun to feel inevitable. The more the master had told me, the more questions it had evoked. I had not been able to refrain from returning again and again to the questions about his temperament that had led Daly and Ryan to the exit. This year, my fifth, Rohatsu sesshin had begun at 4:50 a.m. on Friday, December 1, and ended at 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, December 7. For many months I had planned to attend. Now I thought little about it. I was just too busy. Family, job, my practice at home, my exercise kinhin, and my work on my book filled all my empty spaces. Uncertain still of just what I had done wrong, before long I had forgiven myself, I had forgiven the master, I had forgiven everybody.
Life moved on.
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