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<\/a><\/p>\nRather than traditional power with its hierarchical, vertical orientation, the second form of power, modern power<\/b>, is community-based and horizontal \u2013 but that\u2019s good, right? <\/p>\n
Well, it is certainly a hard-won development and movement from the feudal form of authoritarianism, but modern power comes with a couple major negatives when applied to Zen that can eat away at the teacher-student relationship and the organization as well. <\/p>\n
First, group decision making is usually not very creative. Instead, the tendency is to settle with the safest route that everybody can agree on. Or the power of the crowd takes over and we\u2019re all very stupid \u2026 history is full of those examples. If I recall my Psych 101 at the University of Minnesota in 1975, studies on group effectiveness support what I\u2019m saying here. <\/span><\/p>\n So if you\u2019re looking for creativity and wisdom in a teacher-student relationship, when a community hijacks the organization, just move on. If you stay, I fear that you will waste your life.<\/p>\n When modern power is the way people predominantly relate, the sangha, instead of the teacher, \u201ccontrols\u201d the Zen group. Want to change the type of candle on the altar, bring it to committee. Want to be a more welcoming group, bring it to committee. Want to buy a building, bring it to committee. <\/p>\n A few years ago I read the long-range planning document from one large Zen group. They had 60 residents and 65 active committees. The average resident served on more than three committees (or something like that). <\/p>\n Obviously it can be a big pain in the butt, a misdirection of energy from zazen, work, and study (the three traditional activities of a Soto priest). This use of time pisses away the focus of the burning Way Seeking Mind. Too much talk dissipates energy. The atmosphere just gets \u201cicky\u201d and the teacher-student relationship cannot thrive.<\/p>\n \u201cOh, its all practice,\u201d you might say. Well, yeah that\u2019s what the crowd wants you to believe, but if you simply lower the sacred to the level of the mundane, you might as well stay home and watch \u201cThe Office\u201d and call that zazen. The mundane has to be raised to the level of the sacred or it isn\u2019t practice-enlightenment and without some real zafu-breaking zazen, the current \u201ceverything is beautiful talk\u201d is just talk. <\/p>\n Note: The higher\/lower thing is whacked in this metaphor but I\u2019ll leave it for now. There\u2019s a chapter in Keep Me in Your Heart Awhile<\/i> that deals with this too\u2026.<\/p>\n Another Note: If you think I\u2019m advocating for a return to feudalism, read the previous post. <\/p>\n The second point is harder to make in any way that I think you\u2019ll want to read. But here goes\u2026.<\/p>\n Modern power uses quite a pernicious tool to establish social control, \u201ca system of normalizing judgments exercised by people in the evaluation of their own and each others\u2019 lives.\u201d Modern power instills in people \u201cthe aspiration to achieve a grant of normative worth\u201d from<\/u><\/b> group belonging through conformity with social judgments. Once \u201cinside\u201d the inner circle, the group member gets to be more active in articulating and policing conformity. People with special knowledge about normative judgment systems (psychologists, for example) are given special power in the group.<\/p>\n Group pressure is applied for the \u201cdeviant\u201d person (sometimes the most brilliant, innovative, etc.) to agree with the meaning of their experience ascribed by the group-think theory. <\/span>People actively participate within the fashioning of their own and each others\u2019 lives according to the constructed norms of contemporary liberal, psychologically-correct culture. The community recruits people into the surveillance and the policing \u2013 it is called \u201cgossip\u201d or \u201cprecept practice\u201d or \u201cthird-party talk\u201d (you know, the really interesting stuff) and can reinforce \u201cgroup think.\u201d<\/p>\n The late 19th<\/sup> and 20th<\/sup> Centuries ushered in the age of over-arching and sophisticated theories that explain human behavior and provide a norm and a criterion for pathology from Marx, Freud, Jung, etc., through Stephen Covey and lots of other best-selling authors. The list is long and we seem very hungry for some over-arching theory to explain groundlessness away so \u2026 we can get back to \u201cThe Office\u201d \u2026?<\/p>\n