Sex & Spiritual bypassing

     "It is not too much to say that Joko Beck transformed the nature of Zen in America. At a time when a focus on kensho experiences and becoming enlightened after the manner in which we imagined our Japanese masters led to a dismissive attitude to problems that were 'merely' psychological, Joko restored a sense of emotional reality to a scene increasingly plagued by scandal and misconduct by our allegedly enlightened role models. She had the courage to say that her own teacher’s training had done little to curb his own alcoholism or deal with his character problems. Furthermore, his wasn’t merely an unfortunate exception but that it pointed to a deeply ingrained tendency to enshrine emotional bypassing into the very heart of traditional Zen training. She put dealing with anger, anxiety, pride and the self centered sexual exploitation of students into the center of what we must deal with in practice."     Barry Magid

http://sweepingzen.com/2011/06/15/charlotte-joko-beck-dies-at-94-american-zen-pioneer/

     "Sex can make a fool of anyone and often does.
     How we deal with desire is a pretty good indication of where we are on the path, but that we (can be) tripped up by it is nothing that should surprise any of us."
http://www.tricycle.com/blog/sex-sangha-apparently-we-still-havent-had-enough

Photo: Pugru   www.dpreview.com