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The dirty little secret of Asian Buddhism

by Mark Vetanen

From: "Mark Vetanen" <mark@vetanen.com>

To: "'Jeffrey Brooks'" <jhanananda@yahoo.com>

Subject: RE: Don't let them talk you down! Dharma_Teacher

Date: Sun, 25 Apr 2004 07:41:56 -0700

Jeff,

I should tell you that you uncovered the dirty little secret of Asian Buddhism. You will be treated like the boy who said "the emperor has no clothes on.", for even speaking of this.

I started to speak out about the sexism, xenophobic attitudes of the Asians men and the "smoke & mirrors" taught as authentic enlightenment. To that ends I got ran out of the Zen centers on a rail.

Once a person gets past the *wonderment* and the *fantasy thinking* that they bring to Buddhism and that is installed in to them by the Asian religious factions they then are ready to discuss that they have to build a path that they own and that they walk themselves.

I have seen to many western boys dress up in Japanese robes, fake an Japanese accent when they talk English and try to fool everyone that they are the enlightened teacher. I don't see it any different than a young boy who dressed up in his fathers clothes wanting to be a man. Such people who think they can jump to the end of the path without walking it from the very beginning are in serious deep delusions.

The average stay for a westerner in a Zen Center is about 2.5 years.  The Zen center I joined in 88 only has 2 remaining members that was there when I was there. The rest moved on, they saw it for what it was and make their own path. Most who ordain as a monk only stay in the Asian Zen centers for 7 years before they move on.

In 93 I walked away from the Zen Monastic Center in California because I vowed that nobody will ever chain me up again. Nobody will put a cage around me and beat me down. I also will never subvert my spiritual growth for political power or organizational power. But I will tell you that when I walked away the two abbots there praised me as I walked up the road with everything I owned from Tassajara and never looked back.

You see, it takes the determination to walk the path yourself. Once you choose this others will say "Why do you do that?" "You can sit with us, listen to this teacher and he/she will tell you everything you need to know". They see us as foolish and themselves as lucky. They see us as arrogant and themselves as compassionate. But we see them as yet chained to their own desires, lust and greed because they want the sweet elixir of immortality (enlightenment) but won't walk the path themselves.

It is beyond difficult to awaken them. It like the Matrix where many who are in it will fight you to remain in it. You become their enemy for just speaking the truth.

Yet unlike the move matrix we are not in some cyber world where our real bodies are in battery like machines. The metaphor is that our minds are in an artificial construct we call society and our true self is that what is free from the bonds, chains and limitations we place on ourselves in the name of society, getting along and political correctness. When one pushes beyond what society expects and desires there is initial discouragement. As one Zen teacher said "the world will try to kill you, stop you and make you behave. You only have to choose to keep your will or to give it up."

And that is the secret of the ones who win their freedom, for they harness their will power and reshape the world in their own minds. This sets them free as well as gives them power over the world that once held them captive. In Dark Zen we call this freedom *Birth* and it is at that point we welcome those who win freedom on our ship called *orisis* (the place of meditation).

Is it lonely? Not by a long shot. World wide we find each other, those that make it out of the *matrix* and we become shipmates. It is true that every now and then one comes that we pull up a bit premature and the forces of their own mind bring them back to the long sleep they know, but it is no harm for in their next lives they will remember being pulled up and out and seek to be free.

I can only encourage you to remain steadfast and to not be tempted to succumb to Maras army that will want to pull you back to the dreamworld.

In the Great Dharma,

Mark Vetanen

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