Mansplaining Away Rape Culture: Waylon Lewis' "Strange" Partial Defense of Yoga Guru Bikram Choudhury

Waylon Lewis of the popular spiritual webzine Elephant Journal has a history of ... ahem ... troubling behavior. In 2011, I wrote a post about racism on EJ, which Waylon sought to defend as humor. The same post and comments section goes into other problematic editorial choices, as well as pointing out how criticism tended to receive a combination of snarky and inflammatory responses from Waylon. That was 4 years ago, and for the most part, I haven't given Elephant Journal any attention. However, that post routinely falls in my top 5 weekly reads list, and new comments have come long after the original issue had died down.

This morning, my attention was drawn to a new controversy. For some odd reason, Waylon has chosen to make a video pleading with us to maintain an "innocent until proven guilty" attitude when it comes to the sexual assault and rape case against Mr. Hot Yoga Empire Dude. Aka Bikram Choudhury.

Of all the people in the yoga world, Bikram is probably the last person in need of such "support." He's amongst the uber wealthy in this country. He's taken the privatization of ancient spiritual wisdom and practices to new heights. And, most importantly, there's an endless string of lawsuits and allegations against him going back well over a decade in some cases. Sure, it's technically true that Bikram is in a court of law innocent until proven guilty. However, throwing your weight behind someone with Bikram's track record is a dangerous proposition. Especially if you're another privileged male. The slide from well intentioned supporter to upholding the good ole boys club and patriarchal oppression is swift and almost inevitable.

But this video wasn't just a call to not indict Bikram prematurely. It was a powerhouse load of horseshit commentary on the nature of sexual assault and rape, as well as the supposed responsibilities of victims experiencing threaten, or potentially threatening conditions. Here are several rebuttal comments from women, as reported in the Wonkette article I cited above, that offer some insight into what I mean:

“Hey Waylon, I think it is a mistake to combine rape culture education awareness together with the Bikram case….I think you make a mistake to pit a feminist approach against a men’s group approach.”

“Placing the responsibility for preventing rape on women, and placing blame on women for not saying no, however gently, has been around for decades. It hasn’t prevented rape.”

“I fear that the way you approach these issues and this topic is confirming the reasons why women do not come forward….I hope that you can listen to this feedback, watch this video yourself, and start to have more awareness of yourself and these issues.”

“I just found it to be a regurgitation of society’s lack of understanding of the depth and breadth of this issue.”

“The way that you have attacked commenters who have had the courage to speak to the confusing and upsetting tone of this video is disturbing to me.”

“The video is a mass of contradictions and confused thinking about rape/sexual assault. Consensual sex is not sexual assault….Weirdly, despite your entire video lamenting acts of sexual assault, you appear not to know the difference.”

As a survivor of a sexual assault via a visiting male professor during my undergraduate days, I find so much of Waylon's take on these issues painfully ignorant and highly damaging. He's since apologized for producing an "offensive" video, but really, offensiveness is the least of my concerns. If Waylon were just some random yoga blogger dude offering such tropes as go report your concerns to the police and they'll take care of it and "just say no" I'd probably just shake my head and perhaps leave a brief comment with some educational links attached to it. However, for better or worse, Waylon runs a magazine with a fairly large following and has become a public figure of some standing in the American yoga and Buddhist communities. Which frankly is a big problem.

I'm guessing that this post will be dismissed by some in spiritual circles as being "personal," coming from "wrong speech," or lacking compassion. In my opinion, though, staying silent on such issues when you have to opportunity and ability to say something corrective is lacking compassion. Furthermore, as a man who is bone tired of the numerous ways in which patriarchy and colonialism have oppressed, damaged, and destroyed people of all genders, I feel that it's long past time for men to see it as normal to call out the bullshit of other men, and work towards creating a more liberated society for all.

So, Waylon and any other man tempted to defend his take on rape and sexual assault: YOU DON'T HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT! Please, go educate yourselves. You can find some eyeopening statistics and other information here to start with. I can tell you that I didn't say a word to anyone about my assault for a year and a half. I lived with feelings of guilt, shame and confusion that no one sans other survivors really can fully understand. Men are even less likely than women to report such incidents than women, but overall reporting rates are really low, and attitudes like your own only help to guarantee a continuation of that.

Furthermore, don't - in response to what I just wrote - offer "sorries" to me or other survivors for what we went through. Sorry does nothing to put an end to rape culture and the patriarchy that spawned it. Instead, do your homework and start asking what you can do to change the culture.

And whatever you do, stop putting out videos defending notorious male yoga gurus. Just stop. Bikram is more than well equipped to defend himself as it is. So much that even in the face of piles of damaging evidence, he might go free when the odds are he shouldn't.

The Navy Yard Shooter and America's "Permanent" State of Violence

The awareness of how fragile our lives are should prompt more compassion, and more willingness to actively pursue the kinds of changes that might bring about a much more peaceful society. So often, though, these incidents quickly devolve into heated, ugly debates about motives or gun control. They are also rife with frenzied attempts to attach or detach numerous labels, as well as a desire to create as much separation from the perpetrators as possible. We seem prone to hurried burials. Wanting to put into the ground not only the bodies of the dead, but also every other aspect of disturbance itself. Instead of lingering with questions, we rush to fixed answers. Instead of living with open grief, and letting it disturb business as usual, we do whatever we can to push through it, or stuff it, and move on. Buddhists do this. Christians do this. Humans do this. It’s something we are wont to do.

And yet, there’s something about living in an empire nation that makes it that much more the case. Quick burials are our specialty. The business of profits and power won’t be blocked by such things. We’ll just bury the dead, offer some tidy narrative about the killers, and privately attend to the grief stricken families. It’s all very predictable.

You can read the rest of the post here.

The Absolute and Relative of Zen Scandals

I was going to stay out of the discussion about all things Zen sex scandal, but then I left a short comment on this post, which essentially supported a major point in a minor way from a recent piece by Zen teacher Brad Warner. Here's the comment I made:

Brad isn't completely off in my view. I don't think it's wise to create 100% prohibitions around this kind of thing. Because every case is different, and not every student that has sex with a teacher is a victim. There is a heavy puritanism that appears whenever American Buddhist scandals break out, something that in my opinion came from our Christian brothers historically. And so, I tend to reject absolute statements about sexuality in general, and sex with teachers in particular.

At the same time, the percentage of "ok" cases is probably very low. Most of the time, I agree that the power imbalance is enough to make such relationships problematic at best. Brad's attitude seems like the reactive opposite pole to the one I spoke of above. He's advocating for the 5% or less of cases where a prohibition isn't needed, while throwing out all the intelligent guidelines and restrictions that support maintaining uprightness. Most of the time teachers just shouldn't go there. That's a given, but I don't think it's as simple as teachers should never go there. If that were so, our precepts would simply be commandments in the Judeo-Christian sense.

And here is response I received from farmer monk, who writes the "Go Cloud, Run Water" blog:

I'm not supporting witch hunting, but if you're referring to prude nature, I prefer puritanism to patriarchy.

When Brad says in his blog:

"Joshu Sasaki has done a great service to American Buddhism. I won’t go so far as to speculate that he did it intentionally. He’s probably just an old horn dog. But whether he meant for this to happen or not, he did a great thing. He helped kill off the image of the Enlightened Master as something beyond human. He did so by leaving a legacy not just of sexual misconduct but of deep, profound insight. I like Sasaki better now than I ever did, even while I wish there had been a better way to do this. Ultimately this scandal just might help save Buddhism in America by transforming it from a cartoon stereotype into something real."

It reeks of entitlement; there are blind spots a mile wide. Like, when the hell did Brad do any American zen practice? He's never done one monastic practice period in America. Guest student stays do not qualify.His polarized response doesn't warrant an analysis. If the 95% of relationships are excusable because the the perpetrator is just a "horn dog," I disagree. This kind of bro-talk makes me sick and is testament to one's own patriarchal entitlement, even if they're not aware of how they sound.

Puritanical witch hunts resulted from superstition and paranoia; Brad Warner brags in his book that he fucked a zen student more times than Richard Baker ever did; this is what he wrote, published, and stands by.

What are the precepts in light of that? That if you're self aware, you can do what you want? His story might still make a good NY times article; The NY times didn't write this story, Brad enacted it and wrote it himself, wearing the Buddha's robe.

So do we stay open and groovy and subject 95% to abuse or do we hold lineage holders accountable and possibly stunt the 5% of these positive relationships?

I was about to leave the following in a comment over there, and then saw it's length and thought it would be better as a blog post. And perhaps useful to some readers out there.

First off, in his post, farmer monk makes an important distinction between teachers and students that Brad seems to be pretty dismissive of these days. Specifically, pointing to the power vested in such a position, and how that power calls for respect and care. What I see in Brad's focus of we are all basically the same is the absolute side of the equation. And in farmer monks rebuttal to that the relative side. They're both needed, and we can't find the truth without considering both.

Overall, I don't care much for Brad's comments on sex scandals. His current post references what happened at my sangha, and dismisses it as simply an "affair." That was only the end point. The last in a series of actions and approaches to sangha and the teachings that fostered an atmosphere built on patriarchy, authoritarianism, and favoritism. As such, I'm not given to minimizing nor trivializing the kind of damage that often comes from these situations. But I do think there's a shadow side and a streak of troubling puritanism in the numerous American responses to these scandals that must also be addressed as well.

"Like, when the hell did Brad do any American zen practice? He's never done one monastic practice period in America. Guest student stays do not qualify."

This is a grave error. Equating Zen practice with monasticism essentially condemns all of us outside the monastery. Including a fair percentage of American Zen teachers, who rarely if ever spend time in monastic settings. I recently listed to a dharma talk by Duncan Williams during which, he spoke about the incomplete history of Soto Zen that we have. We know a fair amount about the early days, Dogen and his immediate disciples. And we know a lot about the 20th century teachers and communities. But very little is said about the period between 1400-1850. In the 1700s, for example, there were either 1700 or 17000 (I can't remember which number) active Soto Zen temples in Japan. And of those, the majority did not focus on monastic training, or even place a heavy emphasis on zazen. You might see that as corrupted dharma, but I see is as diversity of practice. Certainly, some of it was probably of the "wedding and funeral" variety that's seen today in many Japanese temples. But I'm guessing that the rest was variations of what lay sanghas in America are exploring today.

Frankly, lay and monastic folks need to do a better job of respecting each other. And stop assuming superiority or inferiority. Brad's done plenty of practice. That's not the issue. Zen is filled with stories of "junior" students trumping "senior" students in all sorts of settings. Amount of practice and location of said practice doesn't = level of enlightenment or awareness.

I can disagree with 95% of what Brad says about this stuff, and yet still see that he's offering something worth considering. Specifically, that the precepts are more subtle that yes/no or right/wrong.

How can we hold that, and also hold those who abuse power or aid abuse of power accountable? Because if it's just about saying Brad's bad, or Sasaki's bad, and they must be punished - we really aren't much different from fundamentalist Christians.

*Painting by Rothko

Man Up - Zen Style

Spoken word artist Guante has it right. The phrase "man up" sucks. Big time. It's riddled with sexist connotations, homophobic notions, and is generally damaging - in my view - to anyone who doesn't conform to gendered norms. In fact, I'd argue it's really all about conforming. All about creating a hostile environment for male-identified people.

“Man Up” assaults our self esteem by suggesting that competence and perseverance are uniquely masculine traits. That women—not to mention any man who doesn’t eat steak, drive a pickup truck, have lots of sex with women and otherwise conform to gender norms absolutely—are nothing more than, background characters and props in a movie where the strong, stoic, REAL man is the hero. More than anything, though, it suggests that to be yourself—whether you, wear skinny jeans, listen to Lady Gaga, rock a little eyeliner, drink some other brand of light beer, or write poetry—will cost you.

So, what does this have to do with spiritual practice? Well, in my opinion, everything. Buddha taught about the perils of attachment. And of the numerous attachments, gender is high on the list.

It's no accident that monks and nuns of Buddha's order shaved their heads, wore patchwork robes, and abstained from sex. Among other things, this was an attempt to help cut through attachments to both one's biological body form, and also the socially constructed narratives around gender.

At the same time, it's impossible to ignore how difficult it was for the men of the Buddhist sangha throughout the centuries to break from their attachments to patriarchy. Even as they taught the perils of attachment, they themselves demonstrated a deep attachment to gendered narratives about wisdom and enlightenment.

In the minds of many Buddhist men historically, and even some still today, enlightenment was a man's domain. And any man who wanted it better "man up" in his practice. The obsession with marathon meditation retreats and hardcore, "balls busting" koan studies you see in some convert Zen communities reminds me a lot of this ancient mud.

On the one hand, "man up" is a pop culture phrase that probably is rarely heard in Buddhist circles. On the other hand, we do not live in a vacuum.

Growing up in sexist societies only increases the potential level of attachment to gender a person can have. Not only do you have the biological sex components to work with, but all the warped stories about what a woman is supposed to do, or what a man is supposed to do. Notice there is no room for a healthy gender spectrum here. Little wiggle room to explore and be flexible about identity. This is starting to change, but for every step towards more openness, there seems to be two going back.

If you take anything from this post, please consider this: gender is an important realm of practice. The path to awakening ultimately will take you through your beliefs about being a man, a woman, or gender non-conforming. Certainly, many never examine it at all. Being a "man" or a "woman" is simply a given. Others choose to ignore or bury such concerns, afraid of what they might find.

Don't be like that. Leave no stone you are aware of unturned.