[Buddha-l] Zen War Guilt/Zen and the Sword

[Franz Metcalf]

Stephen et al.,

Nice quote from Downing's book. This issue of the potential negative 
effects of meditation ("in some ways it cauterizes the personality and 
seals it off, encapsulates it") has (at last) been getting some 
attention in psychological studies of Buddhist practice. Meditators can 
and do use meditation and other aspects of Buddhist practice as 
defenses against psychological insight and movement. Chapters in the 
following two books explore this:

Molino, Anthony. ed. 1999. _The Couch and the Tree: Dialogues between 
Psychoanalysis and Buddhism_. San Francisco: North Point. (Michael 
Eigen's chapter is particularly creepy.)

Safran, Jeremy D., ed. 2003. _Psychoanalysis and Buddhism: An Unfolding 
Dialogue_. Boston: Wisdom.

Dan Capper's book, _Guru Devotion and the American Buddhist Experience_ 
(2002, New York: Edward Mellon Press), contains nuanced examinations of 
American practitioners' experience of both the negative and the 
positive power of meditation (though in the Tibetan tradition, not the 
Zen one).

Robert Sharf concluded an article (can't now remember which one; 
doesn't seem to have been "Whose Zen?" or "Sanbokyodan Zen") with a 
critique of contemporary Western Zen practice as fundamentally 
narcissistic: that we are so fascinated with "exotic" Zen practice 
precisely because it *appears* to come from the "mystic East," but is, 
in fact, a hybrid concoction heavily indebted to Western romanticism, 
psychologizing, etc. We are in love with our own reflection--but then, 
who isn't? (We don't need Said to teach us this, do we?)

There are some pretty hard hitting articles on Zen in the "Critical 
Zen" section of thezensite.com:

http://www.thezensite.com/zenessays.html

Two of the Sharf articles I mentioned (and on which Loy draws heavily 
in the paper Stephen kindly sent us the url for) are there. Finally, if 
you'd like to read something on Zen written by a man who has worked 
hard to wave goodbye to Narcissus, check out three papers on Western 
Zen by Stuart Lachs, an esteemed buddha-l denizen, online at:

http://terebess.hu/english/lachs.html

Trying to avert my eyes,

Franz Metcalf