Warning and suspension

E-Sangha, a controversial Buddhist forum that began in 2003 which was taken down by a hacker over a year ago, might be dead but its spirit still lives on by another name.  

Lucky me, I recently found another budding E-Sangha clone with virtually the same picayune over-moderation (there are nine global moderators) not to mention the usual assortment over-sensitive dorky supporters who will report any statement to the global moderators not couched in a dozen qualifiers and apologies.   

The name of the new E-Sangha clone is "Zen Forum International" which, ironically, was founded by some of the victims of E-Sangha’s draconian TOS policies.  Apparently, the only thing these victims learned from their bad experience with E-Sangha is that they are incapable of learning anything from experience.  Now moderators, they’ve become what they once despised most.  .

Almost like E-Sangha, ZFI mainly goes after three types of contributors:  those who don’t buy the dogma that Buddha outright denied the self; those who hold that Buddhism teaches mystical transcendence; and those who don’t kowtow to Dogen’s incomprehensible interpretation of Buddhism.  

Yesterday I was formally suspended from ZFI on some trumped-up charge.  The moderator said that I didn’t back up my claim that Dogen’s shiho document was a medieval forgery—which in fact I did back up!  (By the way, my name on ZFI is “Songhill.”)  Here is what I posted to back up my claim about Dogen which was posted on the topic of, “Dharma Transmission, Lineage, Integrity of Teachers” which, by the way, has since disappeared! 

Despite the claim in Eihei koroku no. 1.48 that Dogen returned from China “empty-handed” (kûshu genkyo), the “Shari sôdenki” indicates that he returned with the relics of Myozen, which were given away to a lay female disciple before Dogen’s arrival in Kyoto (DZZ III, p. 34 and DZZ VI, pp. 216–18). However, as William Bodiford has pointed out to me, the shisho document supposedly given to Dogen by Ju-ching and now designated a national treasure by the Japanese government most certainly is a medieval forgery (Steven Heine, Japanese Journal of Religious studies 30.102 [Spring 2003]). (Bold is mine.)

In addition to the fact that ZFI seems to have very little respect for scholarly works, they really don’t have any respect for the Sutras, either, or the Shastras or the commentarial literature.  Who decides what the Buddha said or did not say is left up to two Zen clowns masters who believe they have the final word on what the Buddha taught even though both of them are dunces when it comes to the Buddhist canon.  

A final thought, everyday I publish this blog I thank the gods for it.  The development of the Internet blog helped, in my case, to take Buddhism out of the hands of the censors and the control freaks.  With this blog I don’t have to put up with Buddhist bullies who are working as hard as they can to de-transcendentalize Buddhism. 

 

Comments

[Zenhg]

I sometimes ask myself what sort of an agenda are these people pushing? I know that sounds paranoid on my part but it is starting to sound like the argument against intelligent design. What is to be gained from the approach being force fed to the masses? The mind is lulled, open to suggestion, thus placed under unseen and unknown control. Mystical transcendence is a danger to those seeking such control. So it must be reworked into a type of spiritual hypnosis promoting conformity and majority views with a two~party division so there is still a fair amount of discorde.

[Bodhiratna]

Hope they will go down like E-Sangha! It is a Buddhist meritorious achievement for that Russian who knocked esangha out of the air :).

It is naturally (and usually) a matter of time before the little Russian friend will be there... again, LOL

[BladeOfGrass]

By the way, I too was suspended and then banned from ZFI for trying my best to present another view than the one that is being dominated by Nonin, and his sheep. What ZFI started out as has become a institutional Soto zen forum

[BladeOfGrass]

Yep, ZFI Has become like its' own enemy, and daily getting worse. Here are some posts that back up what you experienced there.

These are in responses to....which is itself is a good read...

http://enlightenmentward.wordpress.com/2010/11/05/western-buddhist-teachers-activists-in-everybody-elses-backyard/

NellaLou
2010/11/06 06:04

and

anonymous
2010/11/06 10:42

[Jundo Cohen]

PS - By the way, Dogen may be "incomprehensible" to you, but his incomprehensibility makes perfect sense to many of us clowns. :-)