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A Little about Genpo, Zen Teachers and Sex

A Little about Genpo, Zen Teachers and Sex

Last updated on: February 11, 2011 at 5:05 pm by Dosho Port

A Little about Genpo, Zen Teachers and Sex 2011-02-11T17:05:00-06:00 Dosho Port

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Big Mind Genpo is disrobing after admitting to having sex with a woman other than his wife and then having sex with a couple others too, going beyond cheating, I guess. Genpo had previous issues having sex with students but I’d thought (hoped) he’d put that behind him.

The main thing seems to be that he’s stepping back from teaching Soto Zen, ordinations and precept ceremonies specifically, but continuing with his Big Mind activities. Sweeping Zen has a number of links and posts about this if you’re interested.

I don’t really know Genpo, although I had a beer or two (or more … memory fails) with him in Kyoto many years ago and remember having a good time and liking the guy.

I want to wish Genpo, his family, and his many students well through all of this.

I don’t know much about what he did specifically, like who was involved and where his behavior landed on the power-over continuum or the compulsive-sex continuum for that matter, so don’t have much else to say about the particulars. I offer you no condemnations or diagnoses.

In the cyberwhirl there’s lots of talk, including a good dose of projections and assumptions. Some are gloating about Genpo’s apparent downfall, condemning Big Mind, etc.

Now I’m not a fan of Big Mind and think that it simply uses a powerful psychological technique to induce boon experiences (characterized by bliss, clarity, and nonconceptuality) and then mislabels them as Big Mind or Buddha Mind.

That’s silly and a disservice to awakening.

At the same time, I doubt that it’s evil. Big Mind has introduced a lot of people to the buddhadharma and helped people work with the various aspects of the self (although it might be better to do this with a trained psychotherapist in a protected setting).

True, it seems to be directed at the upper-middle way with high fees, fund raising with special access to the teacher and teaching ($50,000 special retreats), and is basically pretty ambitious.

On days like today, though, one thing that strikes me is how American Zen has attracted a self-righteous lot quick to pounce on someone when they’re down and bragging about how right they were about it all to begin with. Looks like sanctimonious self-righteousness.

There used to be a precept discouraging that kind of thing called taking up the way of not elevating the self while belittling others but there seems to be fine print to the effect “…unless you do something I have a problem with.”

But whoops – there I go joining the elevating-the-self crowd!

Back down to earth I wonder, where’s the loving kindness?

The bigger picture is of more interest to me. Sex scandals continue to rock dharma communities so it seems like it might be good to do something about it. Having more rules doesn’t seem to help much – pushes the behavior underground. Punishing offenders doesn’t seem to help much – others will pop up (we haven’t even gotten to the upcoming batch of young teachers and their likely affairs).

One Facebook post suggested that we work to de-idealize Zen and Zen teachers. That’s a good idea. American Zen really needs to move into this century and abandon traditional power relationships and move to the more complex, nuanced, and subtle post-modern power.

The Facebook post also suggested that if we had a national certification program for Zen teachers like we do for psychotherapists, maybe that would help reduce the number of Zen teachers who have sex with students. That might be a good idea but would it reduce the number of Zen teachers who have “sex in the forbidden zone?”

Wondering about that, I punched “therapist client sex” into Google and found the study I link below (see abstract below too). In this study, 12% of male and 3% of female therapists self-report sexual intimacies, probably pretty much on par with Zen teachers.

Psychotherapy isn’t Zen, of course, but it does include two people sitting face-to-face, alone in a small room, working with different but very intimate aspects of this life. I certainly understand how two people can set aside their roles, get intoxicated with love and indulge in some self-protective deception.

Maybe it could be a loving relationship (3% in the study married). In any case, it seems to happen a lot in all walks of human life.

Repeatedly having sex with students, or even once using power to exploit someone in a vulnerable place for sexual gratification, is another matter (I’m not saying that’s what Genpo did – I don’t know).

For both extremes, though, another thing that I think would help is more transparency – yes, kinda obvious but sometimes the simple solution is most effective. One way to achieve more transparency is to have multiple teachers working with a community and students having dokusan with more than one teacher – yes, like at Boundless Way.

Unfortunately, this is sometimes difficult to pull off. Finding even one qualified teacher can be challenging. Teachers don’t always work and play together all that well.

A poorish second choice would be for teachers to have supervision/consultation groups and meet with that group frequently (via Skype would suffice) – like twice a month, at least – presenting what issues they’re having working with students. I’ve been doing that for the last year and find it very helpful.

Students could also be asked more often to work with other teachers, even if that means traveling to distant centers. Our ancestors, after all, walked hundreds of miles from one teacher to another.

Those are my thoughts for now. Yours are welcome here too.

Prior Therapist-Patient Sexual Involvement Among Patients Seen by Psychologists

Kenneth S. Pope
Valerie A. Vetter

ABSTRACT: A national survey of 1,320 psychologists found that half the respondents reported assessing or treating at least one patient who had been sexually intimate with a prior therapist; a total of 958 sexual intimacy cases were reported. Most cases involved female patients; most involved intimacies prior to termination; and most involved harm to the patient. Harm occurred in at least 80% of the instances in which therapists engaged in sex with a patient after termination. Respondents reported that in about 4% of the 1,000 cases in which the issue of sexual intimacies arose, the allegations were false.

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