Abuse of Power

“Abuse can take different forms: financial, psychological, physical, sexual. Recent headlines have revealed that spiritual communities, including Buddhist ones, are particularly vulnerable to sexual abuse by male authority figures. At the same time, all over North America, targets of sexual abuse and institutional betrayal are speaking out with newfound energy, their words and experiences echoing over instant media to resonate with millions of others. More and more people are calling out habitual oppressions, exorcising self-blame, and inspiring others to wake up, saying, “No more! I am worthy of decency and respect.” Like never before, institutions such as colleges, military forces, workplaces, and spiritual organizations are hastening to move forward from patterns of denial. Typical of the new messaging, the White House recently launched a campaign that sets a new normal for group responsibility, making it uncomfortable for us to stand idly by while friends and fellows abuse. We are casting off centuries of myths that normalized abuses or at best treated them as an insurmountable problem. Communities are genuinely asking, what can we do differently?

Ordinary worldly knowledge is valuable here. Research shows that when secrecy, minimizing, and rationalizations about abuse are overcome, healing and safety begin. Much progress has been made in recognizing the cultural causes and conditions that give rise to abuses of power and of persons, especially those based on sex, race, class, sexual orientation, disability, and ethnicity. The World Health Organization, for example, lists the lionizing of a violent and dominating masculinity, female subordination, and racism as a potent recipe for abuse. Examining which groups are included and which are excluded in teaching, governance, and wealth can also tell us where to expect challenges. Are we willing to look at our Buddhist communities for these sorts of well-known habitual patterns and imbalances and then to dissolve them?

A new way forward will also require daring. If we really think about our future, sanghas must not just be collections of individual meditators but also healthy communities that promote inclusion and provide a good ground for the dharma to flourish. We cannot afford to ignore the value of all our relations. It is said that dharma and the bonds of dharma communities can only be destroyed from the inside. Abuse, then, is not just a personal “incident”; it is also a great threat to the continuity of wisdom traditions. Communities must find confidence to act, shifting toward greater respect and empowerment for women, minorities, youth, and others frequently targeted for abuse. In a community that listens and trusts these voices, would-be abusers cannot operate.
How would this kind of community feel? What would happen differently if someone were abusive? How much more potential would be realized by its children? —Pam Rubin

Buddhadharma: You are familiar with communities that have been shaken by teacher misconduct. That initial period when the abuse of power is exposed—what does it feel like, personally and within a community?

Shinge Chayat: Trauma, in a word—there’s the realization that a person you trusted and admired has disappointed you and brought everything into question. If a teacher is no longer trustworthy, everything is up for examination. We tend to elevate teachers to a noble height and refuse to see their human failings until they have manifested in very difficult and dangerous ways. So even though it feels terrible, becoming disillusioned can help us break through delusion and bring clarity to what’s going on. Unfortunately, what’s going on is often veiled in secrecy; practitioners may feel or sense something happening in a community but the culture discourages questioning. So when misconduct is finally revealed, it’s an enormous shock.

Buddhadharma: Shinge, looking back on the conflict that arose in your community, The Zen Studies Society, what were some of the conditions that gave rise to ethical misconduct and how it was handled?

Shinge Chayat: There’s so much to the answer, but I could distill it to one word: secrecy. When secrets are well hidden, well kept, people become complicit without realizing it. No one is really sure what’s going on, and no one is allowed to question things—especially in an Asian patriarchal structure that discourages transparency. Unethical behavior that may be accepted in another culture—not necessarily approved of, but tacitly ignored—is not okay in ours. Our framework of Western psychology has us more predisposed to look at issues directly and not allow the same old patterns. We want to see what’s really going on, and when that investigative spirit runs up against an old guard saying don’t question authority, even more divisiveness can be created. That’s been a big issue for us at The Zen Studies Society. We’ve had to learn how to question authority, and we’ve had to see all the aspects, whether cultural or personal, that led to the structure of a secret society and the elevation of one human being to a god-like status, which created a situation where no one felt safe to ask questions.

Buddhadharma: Shinge, do you feel there is anything that could have been done while Eido Roshi was still head of the community that could have changed the whole course of events?

Shinge Chayat: We couldn’t do anything until he was no longer holding all the power. People tried many times. In the seventies, many of us left because there was no way to make any change happen. When I came back in the nineties, it seemed changes had occurred for the better. But really, he still had all the power. When all the power in a community is in one person’s hands and that person is supported unconditionally by others, including board members and senior students, there’s no way you can say, “Hey! This is wrong. We have to make some changes here.” It can’t happen. Prior boards had tried their best.

In 2010, when the revelation of a new relationship came to light, one of the first things we did was ask Eido Roshi to step down as a member of the board. He was the head of the board as well as abbot. With both secular and spiritual dimensions held by the same person, there was no balance of power. The board basically rubber-stamped whatever Eido Roshi said. So the first thing we had to do was ask him to submit a letter of resignation. That happened very quickly, within three weeks after that revelation of the affair. Then we worked with the Faith Trust Institute and asked them to help us get through the next stages, which included not just dealing with the problems that had accrued over decades but also looking at how to avert problems like that in the future.

Buddhadharma: You’ve all talked about the shock people experience when it’s revealed that their trusted teacher has been involved in ethical misconduct or abuse. After the shock subsides, how can a community start to rebuild?

Shinge Chayat: The process of healing, of regaining trust after decades during which power was abused and trust was lost, is a very long one. It may take years for people to feel they have finally come to a place where they are healed. The immediate situation may be taken care of, but you have to constantly work on the process. You can’t just have one sangha meeting or some kind of guidance from professionals in the field and then say, “Okay, we’ve got it!”

The Faith Trust Institute made five recommendations, which we followed: Eido Roshi had to end his tenure as abbot; he needed to make a full public apology acknowledging his misconduct and regret for harm done; those students who wanted to continue studying with him had to do it on their own, not under the auspices of The Zen Studies Society; we had to conduct a formal financial audit; and we needed to consult with colleagues who had gone through similar misconduct issues.

After those things happened, we began working with a wonderful group of professionals called An Olive Branch. They led a mediation session with Eido Roshi and the board of directors. We also held several sangha meetings at which An Olive Branch was present and had a sangha weekend that was probably the most important thing for us. We invited everyone to come and spend the entire weekend going through a very difficult but important facilitated discussion. There were so many raw emotions, and so many incidents were brought to light that we hadn’t been aware of. We created a timeline that filled an entire wall. People came up and posted comments, asked further questions, and shared what they knew. It was all out there, which was really key—we went from an organization plagued by secrecy and authoritarianism to one that is transparent and hewing to ethical guidelines. We spent two full years with An Olive Branch working on developing best practices for a board that could represent the sangha and help make sure that such transgressions never happened again.

As a result of this process, I feel that sangha members are speaking with clarity and ethical consideration for one another and that we’ve returned to fulfilling our task, which is living our bodhisattva vow, manifesting our insight.

Buddhadharma: Given that healing from traumatic events is such a long-term process, perhaps we can’t ever talk about them as being completely in the past. But in the time that has elapsed, how have these events and their aftermath affected the culture of your communities? Have the internal dynamics changed?

Shinge Chayat: Initially, the events affected us in a negative way. We were attacked on all sides; people who were really concerned about the women who were harmed felt that we weren’t acting quickly enough to make things right. We were cautious in ways that felt necessary. It takes time to do something from a place of right action; you can’t just have knee-jerk reactivity. But some people were so angry that they left and will never come back. A number of sangha members decided to follow Eido Roshi. They felt that his greatness as a teacher superseded his flaws. They believed what he had to offer as a teacher was far beyond what anyone else could give them, so they wanted to stay with him. That division initially left us understaffed at the monastery and at the New York temple as well. Egyoku Roshi of the Zen Center of Los Angeles, who has been a tremendous source of advice and support, said, “Those who need to go should go; don’t worry about it. New people will come.” And sure enough, after three and a half years, we have a cohesive community. More and more people are feeling the faith in what we’re doing and are drawn to the vigor of the practice. It’s been an exhausting time, but now there’s a great sense of optimism.

Buddhadharma: Is the structure of your sangha less hierarchical now that Eido Roshi has left?

Shinge Chayat: My leadership style is very different from Eido Roshi’s, just as his was very different from his teacher’s, Soen Nakagawa Roshi. The feeling about a teacher’s role is going to change depending on those different ways of being. My style is much more relational. I check in with people; I don’t make decisions autonomously. People feel that they are gaining a sense of responsibility, that they’re contributing to the way decisions are made.

Buddhadharma: I think it’s also important to point out that the degree to which people heal or don’t heal largely depends on the skillfulness or unskillfulness of the community in relating to the abuse that has occurred.

Shinge Chayat: There’s a wonderful koan that really points to that. Someone is asked if an enlightened person is subject to causation, and he says no, because enlightenment means complete liberation, so how can you be subject to the law of causation? He gets turned into a fox for five hundred lifetimes for that. Eventually, in the guise of a human, he approaches a new teacher, who says to him, “An enlightened person does not ignore causation.”

I think many people have this idea that if the teacher is enlightened, how could he be acting unethically? The reality is that we all have karmic baggage; we’re all human. It’s important for us to work on ourselves as teachers. If someone feels somehow entitled not to have to deal with these things, not to have to take responsibility for his or her actions, then there is an incorrect belief that somehow deep wisdom is enough—it’s not enough if we ignore causation."

~ Lion's Roar Staff