|
Compassion Betrayed: Spiritual Abuse
in an American Zen Center
Katherine V. Masis, M.A.
Abstract
This paper describes spiritual abuse in an American Zen center. Drawing on the
author’s fifteen-year experience at this center and one of its international
affiliates, elements of religious conversion, authoritarianism and thought
reform are highlighted. Difficulties emerging from Western Zen students’ prior
vulnerabilities, transference relationships, and idealization of Zen teachers
are discussed. The rhetoric of the Zen institution’s legitimation of authority
is portrayed as a significant reinforcer of the above. Finally, education about
the Zen institution is proposed as a tool for preventing excesses at American
Zen centers.
Full text available through
ICSA E-Library.
|
