Merged: Inside Japanese Zen Temples and Kakunen's Anju Wanderings

[Bion]

Sorry that I deleted Kakunen's message until I had a chance to confirm with him. Apparently, one of the temples where he sits (he can explain more) is experiencing something very common in Japanese Buddhism (not to mention in companies and families where there is a dispute on management): The former abbot (semi-retired but still influential) and the current abbot cannot agree on how the temple, named Tenryu-ji, is to be run. Apparently, the current abbot is very strict, the former abbot is even stricter, and (according to Kakunen), they are even "old school" on the slapping, hitting, hazing, verbal harassment and other "boot camp" approaches to training.

This kind of very violent (verbally, often physically violent) training is found not only in Zen, but in many corners of traditional Japanese "training camps" from Sumo to high school baseball(!), martial arts to even Japanese Kabuki schools! In Zen, of course, some "old school" folks believe in a monastic atmosphere to rival marine boot camp or the army, very aggressive if not downright abusive and sadistic when overdone.

Kakunen, correct me if am wrong. It has caused several monks there to run away.

I don't care for this style of training at all, but it is still common in Japan in some corners. Apparently, at Tenryu-ji, it is combined with some kind of civil war between the former abbot and the current abbot about the course of training and running of the temple. Kakunen has trained at quite a few monasteries, so this must be an extreme case for him to say this.

Frankly (and I think Kakunen will allow me to say this, as he often talks about it himself), Kakunen has been through a lot of violence in his own life, it has left him with PTSD, leaving him especially fragile and sensitive to any violent behavior, and this kind of conflict and aggressive training is especially hard on him for that reason. It is very sad to me.

Here is Kakunen's original message, and my translation below:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

まずは日本語で書きます。

これは東堂と住職の自業自得です。そして第一番手のリーダーも同じです。
彼らは私を置いて逃げました。アメリカ人の参禅者と私が最後に残りました。

彼らはあまりにハードな形だけの接心で、いつも怒り、競っています。

これが起きることは時間の問題でした。私はいつも標的になり、殴られ、理不尽に怒られました。

それで入院することが少なくとも４回はありました。私はもうここを出なくてはならない。

誰が正しい、何が正しい、聞き飽きました。

坐禅なのか、座禅なのかと聞かれ、坐禅が正しいと言われたとき、私は言いました。
Zazenですと。

彼らの場所に行くことになったのは、同じく城満寺の争いからでした。しかし今は彼は
謝りました。懺悔しました。そして今私をサポートします。

もう私は疲れました。しかしこれだけははっきりと言えます。悩んできてよかったと思います。

私は父の失踪により１億円以上の借金を背負ったとき、この歌がいつも私をサポートしてくれまし た。
もう２０年以上前の話です。

さあ、今から坐ります。

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Translation:

[Regarding the problem at Tenryuji temple:] This is a matter of "reap what you sew, getting your own just desserts] between the retired abbot and the [current] abbot. And the same is true for the first leader [senior monk under the abbot]. They left me and ran away. The American who came for Zen practice and I were the people last to remain.

They are always angry and competing, with always doing only too hard sesshins.

It was only a matter of time before this was bound to happen. I was always targeted, beaten, and subject to anger that was unreasonable. [JUNDO: Kakunen, they beat you???? Can you describe how and how much??? ]

So I was hospitalized at least four times. I also have to leave here and can't stay.

I'm tired of hearing arguments about who is right and what is right.

When I was asked if it was zazen [spelled one way with this first Kanji meaning to sit Zen 坐禅] or zazen written another way [also meaning to sit Zen 座禅], I answered that it is best just to say "zazen" [in English.]

I decided to go to their place [Tenryuji] because of the conflict I previously faced at Jomanji Temple. But now he apologizes. He repented. And now he supports me.

I'm tired already. But this is something that I wish to say clearly: I'm glad I was worried.

This song always supported me when I was in debt of over 100 million yen due to my father's disappearance. It's been over 20 years since then.

https://youtu.be/cZe2sVQugbk

Now I will sit.

It’s a shame and truly, for someone who’s already traumatized by violence, how can that be beneficial at all? I feel terribly for Kakunen and really do wish him some peace and a chance to practice the way he aspires to. He is dear to me!
Thanks Jundo for making the efforts to translate that for us!

(Sorry for the length)

[emoji1374] Sat Today

[Kakunen]

Hi good morning from Obama-city.Bukkoku-ji.

I am very thank you to accept Bukkoku-ji.

Head monk give time to take a rest.

As Jundo wrote,I am so sad.I always suffred at difficult situation.

Sometimes I can remember,but I can not remember.

I write again later at this situation.But I am safe at here,and I am off-line to Tenryu-ji.

Yesterday,my teacher,my Dharma brother(He is at Barcelona),Joman-ji Koya,head monk of
where I will do Hossen-shiki.All called me.I am very happy to hear their voice.

Please do not talk outside about name about Tenryu-ji.
I try to ask this situation about offical Soto sect,kind of sect.

（日本語にて追記）
これは私が聞いたことですが、なぜこのようになっているかという背景は、第二次世界大戦後
たくさんの孤児が生まれた。彼らは寺に預けられ、僧堂に向かった。教師は戦争を経験してお
り、また孤児は傷ついていたため、軍隊的アプローチを持って僧堂は運営されていた。それを
仏法と勘違いした人間、私は彼らを永平寺オタクと呼びますが、が今の状況を引き起こしている
それが私の意見です。日本にはまだたくさんの素晴らしい僧侶が９０歳から２０歳までいます。
そのことは私が身をもって体験してきたことです。それは忘れないでください。Jundoが訳し て
くれるか、または私が後程訳します。

Gassho
sat today
kakunen

[Jundo]

Kakunen further explains regarding "hard" Zen training types ...

[TRANSLATION] This is what I've heard, but the background to why this is happening is after World War II. Many orphans were born [because of parents' deaths during the war]. They were entrusted to the temple [for care as children] and then headed for the monastery [when older and becoming priests]. These teachers have experienced war, and as orphans were [emotionally] hurt, so came to run the monastery with a military approach.

People who misunderstand Buddhism in this way, I have come to call "Eiheiji fanatics" (referring to the Soto-shu head temple originally founded by Dogen"] and they are causing the current situation. That is my opinion. There are still many wonderful monks in Japan between the ages of 90 and 20. That is what I have experienced for myself. Please don't forget it.

[Kakunen]

Hi

I take video at Bukkoku-ji.

Head monk allowed me to take video in front of main hall.

https://youtu.be/U1lHGF-x-AM

Gassho
Sat today
Kakunen


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Jundo]

I have been thinking about Kakunen's story all day. Unfortunately, traditional Japanese "samurai" mentality can be quite brutal, aggressive and violent. Some Zen practitioners may be shocked to find that this is true even in many Zen Buddhist temples, especially those which seek to be "old school." As I said, it is found also in sumo training ...

https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/13553297

... other sports ...

https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2019/04/ca3f11036656-feature-japanese-sports-bodies-seek-to-stamp-out-bullying-by-coaches.html

... many places in Japanese society ...

https://japanintercultural.com/free-resources/articles/power-harassment-japanese-workplace-bullying/

... but also in some Buddhist monasteries. Muho, the German former Abbot of Antaiji, relates his experience training for a year in a Rinzai Zen monastery. If anything, Rinzai monasteries are known for such kind of approach more than Soto:

For any mistake, if your slippers are not straight by a millimetre, you get punched for that. Also, you can’t go to the toilet without permission. And if things are busy, or your senpai [senior in rank monk] is in a bad mood, he says no. Then you have to eat this ridiculous amount of stuff. These three bowls filled with rice and three bowls of soup. The lowest one in the hierarchy has to eat all the leftover rice, and the second lowest has to drink all the leftover soup. In the beginning, I had to eat all the rice, which was a lot. And in the summer, I drank all the soup. I was lucky it was that way round. If it’s the opposite, you have to eat all this rice in the heat and drink all this liquid when it’s cold.

When you have to eat all the left-overs, you have to go to the toilet quite frequently and sooner or later you’d get diarrhoea. Each time you have to ask your senpai for permission. If you’re not allowed to go to the toilet, you have no choice but to shit in your pants. But then it’s not, “oh please go take a shower and change your clothes!”. You have to somehow escape behind the hondo and dispose your pants and wash yourself at night in the pond. Ofuro [bath time] is only every two weeks. And ofuro for the monks at the bottom of the ladder means you have to wash the backs of your senpai. They enter the ofuro for 10 to 15 minutes, they finish, look at their watch and say, oh there’s no more time, get out. So you don’t even have your ofuro.

This means that when you go for takuhatsu, and it’s the rush hour, you enter a train and it’s normally like a sardine can. But because we were stinking so much, we would enter a train and have more than enough space to stand.

... We didn’t notice it any more. You’re always in this stink. I only have respect for the roshi meeting us during dokusan.

Then in zazen you are always sleeping because you’re so tired. Everything is so surreal that you pass out the minute the bell strikes. But there’s always one person patrolling with a stick. And when you sleep, you get hammered on. Usually, it’s four strikes in the summer, and eight in the winter. Half on each shoulder. People take pride in how many of these sticks they can break. In sesshin, it could be five or six sticks they break.

For the people that get beaten it means that after a while, the shoulders swell up and the skin breaks and you start to bleed. When you bleed, it means they don’t hit you on the shoulders anymore, they hit you in the belly. You sit facing the room and the guy is hitting you in the belly like he’s playing baseball.

At first, I thought this can’t be real. It was like some crazy movie. But after six months, I was still alive – surprised but happy to be alive. It was an experience that was completely new to me because I was always a melancholic depressive when I was young. I was like, why did my mother have me? How much less suffering would it have been if she had aborted me when I was born?

After six months at that place, I realised it is actually a miracle that I am still alive. Wow it is great; there’s the sun out there and I can breath. I have to ask my senpai each day if I can take a pee but, at the end of the day, I can even take a pee here. Isn’t that wonderful?

While I try to be tolerant of other cultural values different from my own, I find such training to be wrong, misdirected, more harmful than beneficial, ugly, not necessary, counter to Buddhist values.

It is especially unfortunate when someone like Kakunen, who is already suffering from PTSD and the like from the abusive childhood he describes runs into the buzz saw of that kind of environment.

Frankly, it makes me cry when people with an idealistic view say how thoroughly wonderful is monastic training. Monastic training is sometimes very wonderful, but traditional monastic training has many problems as well.

Gassho, Jundo

STLah

[Bion]

I have been thinking about Kakunen's story all day. Unfortunately, traditional Japanese "samurai" mentality can be quite brutal, aggressive and violent. Some Zen practitioners may be shocked to find that this is true even in many Zen Buddhist temples, especially those which seek to be "old school." As I said, it is found also in sumo training ...

https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/13553297

... other sports ...

https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2019/04/ca3f11036656-feature-japanese-sports-bodies-seek-to-stamp-out-bullying-by-coaches.html

... many places in Japanese society ...

https://japanintercultural.com/free-resources/articles/power-harassment-japanese-workplace-bullying/

... but also in some Buddhist monasteries. Muho, the German former Abbot of Antaiji, relates his experience training for a year in a Rinzai Zen monastery. If anything, Rinzai monasteries are known for such kind of approach more than Soto:



While I try to be tolerant of other cultural values different from my own, I find such training to be wrong, misdirected, more harmful than beneficial, ugly, not necessary, counter to Buddhist values.

It is especially unfortunate when someone like Kakunen, who is already suffering from PTSD and the like from the abusive childhood he describes runs into the buzz saw of that kind of environment.

Frankly, it makes me cry when people with an idealistic view say how thoroughly wonderful is monastic training. Monastic training is sometimes very wonderful, but traditional monastic training has many problems as well.

Gassho, Jundo

STLah

I try my best to stay away from judgments and criticism of things, but I do wonder what it is the training is for, if zazen already accomplishes what it sets to. I understand gentle pushes to recognize and drop the ego, and I can understand striving to free oneself from preferences and opinions. But, I fail to see how that particular “training” models the Middle Way or moderation as the Buddha taught it when it brings suffering and takes one to extremes.

[emoji1374] Sat Today

[Kakunen]

Thank you Jundo.

Now Janan is 5AM.We wake up at 5AM and start sit at 5:40AM

In Tenryu-ji normally wake up at 4AM and in Sesshin wake up at 2AM.

So hard.

I can remember days of my practice and past time of hard life.

I start practicing here at around 2015.?I am not sure.

After 10month Antai-ji.
8month Annon-ji.
7month Jouman-ji.
5month Tenryu-ji.
1month Zuio-ji monastary.
And go back to Tenryu-ji.
And start daily life with Sesshin for because of my teacher's advise.
I did Sesshin at Myotoku-ji,Tenryu-ji,Tentoku-ji,and so on.
I worked at farm,helping disabeled people,helping younghood who have mental problem.
And start practicing again at Tenryu-ji 10month.
And 10 month at Tosho-ji monastery.
2 month at Tenryu-ji.
And now I am at Bukkoku-ji.

With my disable things and my illness of my pulse,and trouble of my family.

I will start sitting.

Gassho
Sat
LAH
kakunen

[Kakunen]

I try my best to stay away from judgments and criticism of things, but I do wonder what it is the training is for, if zazen already accomplishes what it sets to. I understand gentle pushes to recognize and drop the ego, and I can understand striving to free oneself from preferences and opinions. But, I fail to see how that particular “training” models the Middle Way or moderation as the Buddha taught it when it brings suffering and takes one to extremes.

[emoji1374] Sat Today

ありがとうございます。

この経験はわたしに深く刻み込まれ、わたしが教師になった時、慈悲に満ちた行動を取れる。

出来ることは出来る出来ないことは出来ない。これは人により違う。だから中道も違う。

わたしはこれに耐えてきた。そして怒った時には謝った。

わたしには次の安居もある、法戦式もある。

この風景は日本には良くある。しかしわたしのように行脚し、深い体験した人は聞いたことはない。奥村老師く らいかな？分からない。

でも私は座る。慈悲に満ちて。

また英訳します。

合掌
廓然


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Bion]

ありがとうございます。

この経験はわたしに深く刻み込まれ、わたしが教師になった時、慈悲に満ちた行動を取れる。

出来ることは出来る出来ないことは出来ない。これは人により違う。だから中道も違う。

わたしはこれに耐えてきた。そして怒った時には謝った。

わたしには次の安居もある、法戦式もある。

この風景は日本には良くある。しかしわたしのように行脚し、深い体験した人は聞いたことはない。奥村老師く らいかな？分からない。

でも私は座る。慈悲に満ちて。

また英訳します。

合掌
廓然


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yes, middle way is different for everyone and absolutely, there are valuable lessons in this experience! I am just happy you get to rest and be a bit more at ease! I wish for you to enjoy your practice! [emoji3526]

[emoji1374] Sat Today

[Jundo]

I try my best to stay away from judgments and criticism of things, but I do wonder what it is the training is for, if zazen already accomplishes what it sets to. I understand gentle pushes to recognize and drop the ego, and I can understand striving to free oneself from preferences and opinions. But, I fail to see how that particular “training” models the Middle Way or moderation as the Buddha taught it when it brings suffering and takes one to extremes.

[emoji1374] Sat Today

It is really the philosophy of marine boot camp, to truly break down the self, and through the atmosphere of tension, fear, lack of sleep and poor diet (yes, many cults discover this as well) to truly break down the will and make a "team player." And, as many cults know, it so often works effectively to do just that (I even recently listened to a long podcast series on the nuns who join Mother Theresa's order, and they do much the same including some physical violence: https://www.salon.com/2021/05/19/the...nuns-who-left/ ). It makes soldiers willing to lay down their lives on the battlefield, it makes loyal followers of gurus, it can make dedicated Japanese company employees. In the macho samurai culture of old Japan, it was (and often still is) thought of as some kind of tearing down the ego in order to build an iron spirit.

It still exists in Japan although much less common. Even in Japanese elementary public schools before World War Two, such kinds of "teaching methods" were not uncommon. And, they still exist in some corners, and are still celebrated in Japan (such as in the report by a western anthropologist who taught in public schools in Japan just a few years ago):

I first encountered corporal punishment as an English teacher in rural Japan. I had been hired by the Japanese government to teach its children, and on one of my first days at my school I was appalled to see the physical education teacher slapping a thirteen-year old boy in the face. I did not understand much Japanese at the time, so I had no idea what the boy was being physically punished for. Yet I was perhaps most surprised by the fact that I did not flinch in the face of it. Looking back, I feel ashamed that I did not speak up and make my perspective known.

The practice of corporal punishment, which is known as taibatsu in Japan, can loosely be defined as the striking, beating, hitting or kicking of the body to discipline or punish, by a person in a position of authority relative to a person in a subordinate position. Taibatsu has been used in Japan for centuries, mostly by adult men to socialise growing boys into ‘proper ways’ of Japanese adult life. It was only first labelled as ‘taibatsu’ in the Meiji Period (1868–1912), when it was banned by Japan’s Education Minister to portray Japan as a civilized nation. However, the Japanese prohibition was from the very beginning rather vague – it entrusted teachers and principals with the ‘right to discipline’ (chōkaiken) but not the ‘right to use taibatsu’ (taibatsuken). This allowed teachers and principals some leeway to use the disciplinary tool if and when they saw fit. ...

By the 1930s and 1940s ... when Japan became increasingly militaristic, this debate went underground. That is because the practice of taibatsu was used as a way of socialising and disciplining Japanese soldiers and for securing their obedience to the Emperor, militarist leaders and the idea of the Japanese Empire as a whole. Young students were treated similarly in Japanese schools, because, after all, these students would someday become soldiers.

After the war ended ... Japan’s official education policy has been that corporal punishment has no place in Japanese schools. Still, while postwar Japanese students were no longer explicitly trained to defend the Japanese Empire, and the postwar Japanese school was supposed to be violence-free, the perceived value of violence to solve problems remained a vestige of war that lurked in the back of the minds of many Japanese school teachers. This was especially the case among teachers who taught physical education or coached sports, many of whom were themselves returning soldiers ...

... During the high economic growth period (kōdo keizai seichōki, 1955–1973), in which Japan rose from the ashes of war to become a global economic power, the Japanese education system was widely trusted to produce intelligent, obedient workers. Japanese workers were expected to toil diligently in order to make their companies – and by extension, the nation of Japan itself – profitable. Discipline deepened this close connection between the education system and the economy, teachers emphasized the importance of learning by rote memorisation and taibatsu was occasionally employed to ensure classrooms remained orderly enough for instruction to continue, uninhibited by unruly distraction. In Japanese schools, ‘managed education’ (kanri kyōiku), which emphasized rigid control and strict discipline of student behaviour, and did not seem grossly different from the militaristic discipline of the war, was the educational fad of the 1970s and into the 1980s. For many, taibatsu was seen as the means to make such ‘managed education’ work. ...

... As an anthropologist, I have long wondered how we should understand this complex, controversial phenomenon. First, is corporal punishment always an act of violence? This is a difficult question to answer, but I lean towards saying no, mostly because there are many examples of taibatsu that are ‘mild’, forewarned and undertaken systematically (in the sense that a child knows the rules and the potential punishments if those rules are broken). I also say this because surveys suggest that most Japanese who experience taibatsu as children come to appreciate it as adults. Moreover, it seems likely that most Japanese parents use taibatsu in the home, and the fact that most Japanese teachers and sports coaches are not punished when they are caught inflicting taibatsu also suggests that the nation as a whole does not by and large view the act as an act of violence ... I also began to wonder if corporal punishment relates to the idea of being noticed, and whether its use is a sort of sign of respect or inclusion in one’s group. This inclusion and associated sense of belonging is one of the most important things in Japanese social life, so could it be that even physical discipline is a form of inclusion into the group that is desired by many young Japanese? If so, that would explain why so many young Japanese who have experienced taibatsu come to approve of it, and why its existence mirrors the continued existence of bullying in Japanese schools. For years Japanese schools have been riddled with bullying incidents, many of which have led to suicides, but bullying remains a common practice nonetheless. ...

As Kondo (1990) among others has shown, the idea of a disciplined body goes hand in hand with a disciplined mind, and that both are seen as integral to the crafting of one’s self. We also know from [Rinzai Priest and Historian/Professor Victor] Hori that physical discipline is used in Zen monasteries to encourage enlightenment-seekers to focus their attention on meditation (Hori 1994) ... https://www.berghahnjournals.com/dow.../aia230106.xml

The Prof. Hori article which she mentions is this, and if you look on pages 36-37 here you will see Hori's defense of such tactics from his days in a Rinzai monastery:

https://www.google.co.jp/books/edition/Teaching_and_Learning_in_Japan/bcKMtgfrUEIC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA36&printsec=frontcover&bsq=explicit%20hierarchy

Gassho, J

STLah

[Onrin]

Much metta to you Kakunen.
本当に大変と思いますので、体を大事に下さい。

I've experienced some milder version of this old school sadistic mentality at a karate school in Japan, and my wife went through some as a new hire at a big Japanese corporation. It is really counterproductive I believe, and just drives people away. In the bigger picture I think this is a component of feudal mindsets that lead to why Japan is at the very bottom in gender equality and in surveys on personal and workplace happiness.
We need more Treeleaf approach in Japan, in my opinion.
Gassho,
Chris

[Shonin Risa Bear]

Metta. _()_

ds satlah

[Kakunen]

I write very important things down below.
This is my big desition.Please read first down below and after you can read this
thread.Please.From my Buddha and Dharma eyes.

Please Jundo translate this Japanese to English.And to Treeleafer please wait translate
by Jundo.Kind of google translate sometime make mistake.And also difficult to write,
so sensitive contents for me.


I can remember big violence at Shobo-ji monastary(kind of Soto-shu 3rd temple)

Sorry in Japanese news paper from internet.

https://livedoor.blogimg.jp/syakamuni511112-syakamuni511112/imgs/f/5/f51719b8.jpg

Also I was at Tosho-ji monastery monk who start practicing at same time.
He died by suicide,after he leave from monastery to his home.
This is kind of difficult to know truth.Cause of death is coming from violence at monastery or
his personal problem.But I always help him,because he always said to me,he want to die.
But I watch lots of case he suffered disregard and gossip by lots of monks.I talked to head
monk again and again,advice to him.He is very dangerous situation,and if he will go back to
home,maybe he will do suicide.Cause of death is not clear.

This is fact.I was so shock to hear about his death,when we sat at Rohatsu Sesshin.
And in this time,I will do Shuso.This role is his role.Because of his death,head monk select
me to do Shuso.

私はとても傷ついた。彼の自殺、僧堂のいじめ。そして彼の代わりに首座をやることを命令された 。
責任者はこれは私にしかできないと言った。責任者が私だけが彼を助けていたことを知っている。
だから責任者は私は彼のできる賢明な判断をしたと思っている。彼は僧堂にくる以前から危険な状 態
であり、私も責任者もできる限りのことをしたと思っている。私は正法寺で起きたことをしらない が、
少なくとも我々の対応はできる限りの最善であったと思っている。しかしながら私は一つの十字架 を
を背負ったと感じている。それはもちろん責任者が私しかできないことだと判断したのだと、確信 して
いる。他にもっと私よりも経験のある雲水はいたにも関わらす。

このように私の人生は、このようなものである。Bad monk Kakunenが壁に当たりながらも、成長
していることを日本にもいる賢明な禅僧も証明してくれている。日本にも賢明な禅僧がいて、命と
必死に向き合いながらも修行している方がいることを忘れないでください。

私はわたしの実体験を通して、これを学んでいる。だからこそ私には良い僧侶になる義務がある。

そのために今はここで賢明な責任者としっかり話し、ゆっくりと休んでいる。今日は朝少しの経行
をして今は休んでいます。

そしてこのことは絶対に口外しないでください。もしこれが口外された場合、私の曹洞宗
の僧侶としての資格が停止する可能性もありますし、私が安居した僧堂が閉じる可能性が
あります。それは物事はどんどん歪曲して伝わる可能性があるからです。


Gassho
Sat today
LAH
kakunen

[Bion]

I write very important things down below.
This is my big desition.Please read first down below and after you can read this
thread.Please.From my Buddha and Dharma eyes.

Please Jundo translate this Japanese to English.And to Treeleafer please wait translate
by Jundo.Kind of google translate sometime make mistake.And also difficult to write,
so sensitive contents for me.


I can remember big violence at Shobo-ji monastary(kind of Soto-shu 3rd temple)

Sorry in Japanese news paper from internet.

https://livedoor.blogimg.jp/syakamuni511112-syakamuni511112/imgs/f/5/f51719b8.jpg

Also I was at Tosho-ji monastery monk who start practicing at same time.
He died by suicide,after he leave from monastery to his home.
This is kind of difficult to know truth.Cause of death is coming from violence at monastery or
his personal problem.But I always help him,because he always said to me,he want to die.
But I watch lots of case he suffered disregard and gossip by lots of monks.I talked to head
monk again and again,advice to him.He is very dangerous situation,and if he will go back to
home,maybe he will do suicide.Cause of death is not clear.

This is fact.I was so shock to hear about his death,when we sat at Rohatsu Sesshin.
And in this time,I will do Shuso.This role is his role.Because of his death,head monk select
me to do Shuso.

私はとても傷ついた。彼の自殺、僧堂のいじめ。そして彼の代わりに首座をやることを命令された 。
責任者はこれは私にしかできないと言った。責任者が私だけが彼を助けていたことを知っている。
だから責任者は私は彼のできる賢明な判断をしたと思っている。彼は僧堂にくる以前から危険な状 態
であり、私も責任者もできる限りのことをしたと思っている。私は正法寺で起きたことをしらない が、
少なくとも我々の対応はできる限りの最善であったと思っている。しかしながら私は一つの十字架 を
を背負ったと感じている。それはもちろん責任者が私しかできないことだと判断したのだと、確信 して
いる。他にもっと私よりも経験のある雲水はいたにも関わらす。

このように私の人生は、このようなものである。Bad monk Kakunenが壁に当たりながらも、成長
していることを日本にもいる賢明な禅僧も証明してくれている。日本にも賢明な禅僧がいて、命と
必死に向き合いながらも修行している方がいることを忘れないでください。

私はわたしの実体験を通して、これを学んでいる。だからこそ私には良い僧侶になる義務がある。

そのために今はここで賢明な責任者としっかり話し、ゆっくりと休んでいる。今日は朝少しの経行
をして今は休んでいます。

そしてこのことは絶対に口外しないでください。もしこれが口外された場合、私の曹洞宗
の僧侶としての資格が停止する可能性もありますし、私が安居した僧堂が閉じる可能性が
あります。それは物事はどんどん歪曲して伝わる可能性があるからです。


Gassho
Sat today
LAH
kakunen

That is just a terrible thing. It pains me so much to hear about your friend! Such a delicate matter and so difficult to approach!


[emoji1374] Sat Today

[Kakunen]

It is really the philosophy of marine boot camp, to truly break down the self, and through the atmosphere of tension, fear, lack of sleep and poor diet (yes, many cults discover this as well) to truly break down the will and make a "team player." And, as many cults know, it so often works effectively to do just that (I even recently listened to a long podcast series on the nuns who join Mother Theresa's order, and they do much the same including some physical violence: https://www.salon.com/2021/05/19/the...nuns-who-left/ ). It makes soldiers willing to lay down their lives on the battlefield, it makes loyal followers of gurus, it can make dedicated Japanese company employees. In the macho samurai culture of old Japan, it was (and often still is) thought of as some kind of tearing down the ego in order to build an iron spirit.

It still exists in Japan although much less common. Even in Japanese elementary public schools before World War Two, such kinds of "teaching methods" were not uncommon. And, they still exist in some corners, and are still celebrated in Japan (such as in the report by a western anthropologist who taught in public schools in Japan just a few years ago):



The Prof. Hori article which she mentions is this, and if you look on pages 36-37 here you will see Hori's defense of such tactics from his days in a Rinzai monastery:

https://www.google.co.jp/books/edition/Teaching_and_Learning_in_Japan/bcKMtgfrUEIC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA36&printsec=frontcover&bsq=explicit%20hierarchy

Gassho, J

STLah

I read this artcle today.Now in Japan lots of case like this.

If you are sensitive about violence.please do not watch video.

https://news.yahoo.co.jp/pickup/6424473

We need to touch compassion.
hope to keep peace.

Gassho
Sat today
LAH
Kakunen