Our Zen Bullshit Detector

 

Some years ago, I attended a talk given by a Western Zen teacher. He was an affable guy, both entertaining and insightful. One of the more profound things I remember him saying is that “zazen has its own built-in bullshit detector.” It was a comment that instantly resonated with me. In other words, the process of seated meditation is a purifying one—like sitting in a crucible with the impurity of delusory thought boiling away. 

What I found ironic, however, is that later in his talk he told the following story of an event that occurred during his monastic training: He’d received word that his mother was ailing and might die, so he asked his teacher during a private interview whether he could and should go visit her. As the story goes, prior to giving his permission the teacher proceeded to “channel” the ailing mother somehow, imitating the demeanor and mannerisms of a sick and depleted old woman. It was as if he were checking in on her condition from afar. At least, that’s how I understood the story.

 

Bullshit Detector

There are some interesting power dynamics evident here. First and foremost, those who have never studied formally with a teacher in one of the religious traditions of the East will likely not understand why a grown man would have to ask permission to visit his ailing mother. The fact is, though, that some teachers of Eastern traditions foster this sort of guru dependency. They also have the means to enforce it. For instance, if a student in the Zen tradition is working towards dharma transmission—full authority to teach and start their own practice center—they pretty much have to do what their teacher says. To do otherwise jeopardizes their student-teacher relationship and perhaps years of invested training. That could derail their future as a teacher in their own right. 

Before I delve further into the power dynamics of this situation, let me just state that the teacher COULD have actually had the power to channel the student’s ailing mother, or at least he BELIEVED that he did. The student, for his part, might have truly BELIEVED that his teacher did have such power, and he might have STILL believed it as he was retelling the story. However, that is not what my bullshit detector is telling me! 

It could also be the case that the teacher in the story wanted his then-student to believe he had the ability to channel the student’s ailing mother even if he didn’t. If we can convince someone of our having special powers, we have power over them. And, as I have already noted in this series, the nature of power is insidious. We can become attached to our power over others.

Likewise, that student, now a teacher himself, may have actually wanted us to believe his teacher had such ability. We love to regale others with stories about our proximity to people of power, don’t we? What about that time we ran into a celebrity? And how about that photo of us with a person in power? With respect to students of Eastern traditions, we love to namedrop the famous teachers we’ve studied with. In the pecking order of proximate power, the student of a famous teacher has more power than a student of an unknown teacher—regardless of the wisdom they might have conveyed! And, of course, the student of a teacher with special powers has more power than a student of one with only “garden variety” power!

Do I belabor an entertaining little story told during an otherwise quite ordinary and straightforward Zen talk? Perhaps. And yet that teacher who supposedly channeled someone’s ailing mother would, within just a few years, become widely known outside of his own monastic community for sexually abusing perhaps hundreds of his students under the guise of teaching them “nonattachment.” Could Joshu Sasaki have been both a channeler and a sexual abuser? What does your bullshit detector tell you?

Power, Practice, and Peace logo

This post is in the Power, Practice, and Peace series.

Find a running list of all posts in this series by clicking here.

    

Images

Soviet-era ammeter courtesy of Retired Electrician via:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:M907_Soviet_DC_microampermeter,_160x140mm,_1978_production_01.jpg, edited by the author for humorous effect.

 

Copyright 2020 and 2025 by Mark Robert Frank