From: Francisco Garcia Scherer casual conversation can not be recorded, and, latter, analysed by other (authorized) Zen Center members.>>
I have been to a Zen Center like the one you are helping to run. There was this lawyer and his Insurance Agent friend who set up about four Zen Centers in this area, and they all failed. Those two guys had to be the biggest stiffs that I ever met, and they thought that if you went to their "Zen Center" you somehow became a member of their little kingdom. They took themselves so seriously that I used to go just to see how disappointed they would be when nobody showed up. Each time that these guys would open a Zen Center, the first couple of weeks they got about ten people, and by the 4th week they would have about five people. I always used to stop going around the 4th week. Then a few months later I would drive by and the location where the Zen Center had been would have a FOR RENT sign on the door or a window. I remember the third or fourth time they opened a Zen Center, it was the Insurance Agent "Master" by himself. The lawyer guy was no longer his friend. The Insurance Master had bought a set of about five or six really fancy ceremonial gongs of different sizes. He literally bristled with anger when a lady playfully banged one of the gongs before the "ceremony" began, while we were all sitting around waiting for all the other people that never showed up. The Insurance Agent "sensei" gave that lady a five minute lecture about "who" could hit the gongs in the Japanese Zen Temples, and how "he" was the only one who had that authority, because "he" was the sensei, and the rest of us were just visitors and/or prospective students, and visitors don't touch the gongs, etc. I thought the poor lady was going to cry! Finally he gave up waiting on more folks, and we did about twenty minutes of zazen and then 45 minutes of him playing the gongs while we chanted in Japanese from a pamphlet that he gave us. This guy was banging on those gongs like it was some kind of rock concert, and I got a major headache. I did not go back, and sure enough the Zen Center was out of business a couple of months later. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> What would our lives be like without music, dance, and theater? Donate or volunteer in the arts today at Network for Good! http://us.click.yahoo.com/WwRTUD/SOnJAA/i1hLAA/S27xlB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Noble Eightfold Path: Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration, Right Livelihood Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZenForum/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
