the tibetan book of living and dying torrent

The institution that grew up around Zen functions to a large extent-as do most institutions-to promote and protect itself, empower its leaders and enable that power to function. Looking through both the lens of academic history and the lens of the sociology of religion and institutions demonstrates how Zen developed over time, responding to historical settings and necessities. He became interested in the scholarly view as a way to explain the disparity he witnessed between how the Zen institution claimed its leaders (Zen masters/roshi) behaved and what he saw first hand. In the early 1990’s, Lachs was introduced to an academic view of the history of Zen that contrasted with the history promulgated by the Zen institution. He is convinced that critical thinking is Buddhist and Buddhism is critical thinking. 1940) is an independent scholar and long-time Ch’an/Zen practitioner. The dark side to imputing attainment to people who do not really have it has resulted in the steady stream of abuse cases in Zen Buddhist communities, sometimes around extravagant garnering of wealth, but almost always involving sexual abuse. 3 Yet at the same time Zen practice, which can have great benefits, depends on the student’s unquestioning confidence and trust in the teacher. This idea of an unbroken lineage of enlightened teachers is a well-constructed myth.

2 The teacher in the Zen tradition is certified as enlightened by his or her enlightened teacher, in an unbroken lineage reaching back to the historical Buddha. In Zen Buddhism, the “enlightened teacher” has enormous control over the student. Importantly, it is the institutions-that is, the leading authorities representing these traditions-who present these leaders as enlightened beings, and this is also how they have presented themselves to a believing public. Recently both Zen and Tibetan Buddhist groups in the West have been rocked by scandals involving prominent, well established teachers with titles such as Zen master, Roshi, Rinpoche, Lama, Sakyong, and so on-who are understood by their followers and even by non-followers, to be enlightened beings. This is true for the surviving branches of Buddhism: Theravada, Zen or Chan, and Vajrayana or Tibetan Buddhism. Clicking the blue thumbnail at the end of the listed footnotes takes you back to where it was inserted into the text.īuddhism in the 21st century is fairly well established, both in the United States of America and in Europe. This long-read makes use of numeric footnotes that open on hover and take you to the footnote at the bottom of the page on click.

The tibetan book of living and dying torrent