Rabbi Gafni Update

I'm reposting this with some additions. Two years ago I posted on Rabbi Mordechai Gafni (that is, Marc Gafni) and the drama surrounding him, being accused of sexual abuse. Perhaps one of these days allegations made against him will be finally clarified. Quote from "Trial by Internet":

Sexual harassment laws have given women much-needed legal protection and gone a long way to support civil treatment of women everywhere. But when a woman tells the story of a sexual encounter and claims harassment, the man—guilty or innocent—will likely be in deep trouble if he does not have physical proof to the contrary. The woman doesn’t even have to seek legal redress—the complaint alone can sometimes be enough to get a professor or executive reprimanded or even fired. To complicate matters for the man, in Israel, unlike anywhere else, sexual harassment is a criminal offense....

Worse than a weird dream, it was now a nightmare. He had no way of refuting the complaints. By this time, the story had been leaked to the Jewish press. Though many people in his community felt that Gafni was being railroaded, hysteria prevailed. Without consulting Rabbi Gafni, without cross-questioning the complainants or checking into their motives, a chain reaction was set in motion which resulted in the dissolution of Gafni’s movement. Several newspapers published sensational articles chronicling Gafni’s “downfall.” One reported (falsely) that he had been accused of rape. Another (again, falsely) claimed that he had made promises to marry five women. Within a few days, Gafni’s teaching work and the organization to which he had dedicated his life had been discredited and destroyed....

Sally Kempton, a former journalist, leading spiritual teacher and second wave feminist was asked what good might come from this story. She responded, “Marc has gone through a deep evolution. He will be an even deeper, better teacher in the second half of his life than he was in the first. The question is, can the people involved move from victimhood to power and responsibility? If they can, then Marc, the women, and all the shadowy players behind the scenes, will offer us great hope for healing in our world.”

The third act of this drama has yet to be written. Can this spiritual teacher come back from the dead? The answer is most likely “yes,” due to Gafni’s unflagging persistence. Did the obloquy and ignominy of the last two years break his spirit? No, though it has left some scars. Yet, throughout the whole of this nightmare, in circumstances that could easily, and forgivably, break the spirit of nearly any other person, Gafni has managed to hold onto his chronic optimism and genuine love for humanity.

The article in question is found in July 2008 issue of Catalyst magazine (also, pdf file here from page 20 to 25). Particularly interesting is also the sidebar by Jeff Bell entitled "On the 'net: Lies Live Forever".

Gafni's website has an informative section "Controversy" with a particular listing of Professional Evaluations, letters of support by Sally Kempton, Gabriel Cousens, John Kesler, Paul Goodberg, Rabbis Gershon Winkler and Abram Davis, Ciny Lou Golin, Joseph Berke, and even polygraph tests. If you have an opinion on the "Gafni scandal", read through all those letters for a perspective on what could become an exemplar of web-based defamation, with it's amalgam of "victim chic" rhetoric and guru-busting professional defaming and a precious pinch of trash journalism.

Elsewhere on the web, the attacks on him don't seem to subside. Is not this supposed to be resolved at courts by legal authorities? I suspect this case has a political-religious background. Also, the more "impartial" and "balanced" accounts by various bloggers give credibility to the more extreme attacks by providing links and search-machine ratings. While in cases such as these one cannot be impartial, one should take the side of truth and justice.

If what "Gafni supporters" claim is to be trusted - and they are out on a limb with their affirmative candor, their vulnerable credibility at stake - what then should we think of those who started and maintained this lynching campaign, based as it undoubtedly is on distortion and projection?

NYTimes on Michael Roach

The article at N Y Times begins:

"Ten years ago, Michael Roach and Christie McNally, Buddhist teachers with a growing following in the United States and abroad, took vows never to separate, night or day.

By “never part,” they did not mean only their hearts or spirits. They meant their bodies as well. And they gave themselves a range of about 15 feet.

If they cannot be seated near each other on a plane, they do not get on. When she uses an airport restroom, he stands outside the door. And when they are here at home in their yurt in the Arizona desert, which has neither running water nor electricity, and he is inspired by an idea in the middle of the night, she rises from their bed and follows him to their office 100 yards down the road, so he can work.

Their partnership, they say, is celibate. It is, as they describe it, a high level of Buddhist practice that involves confronting their own imperfections and thereby learning to better serve the world."

And so it goes on with pictures and even an audio slideshow. Now, the story might have been charming if it wasn't a bit of a problem for the Tibetan sangha West and East, involving even the office of the Dalai Lama. The woman mentioned in the article is not the only woman involved (link on four dakinis), while Roach insists on still being a Gelugpa monk, and Robert Thurman won't talk to him.

I don't think a traditional framework ("mind your vinaya") can or should be applied in this case. Geshe Roach, on the other hand, should probably change clothes but he seems to be stuck in the same sort of rhetoric as his critics, "Good karma does this, bad karma does that," while looking for a perfect definition of "good" is their favorite pastime. A painful contest in dull orthodoxy, and some medieval politics.

Fast Deep Sexy

A nice interview with David Deida by Vijay Rana, concerning his book "Instant Enlightenment: Fast, Deep, and Sexy". Quote:

"Anyone who’s too uptight or rigid about their spirituality probably wouldn't even open the book because they'll likely think it's a schlock book or glib and superficial. But, you know, enlightenment is instant in a certain way, as an always accessible yet often brief state rather than as a more or less permanent stage, to use Ken Wilber's language. In general, significant spiritual stages often require decades, some might even say lifetimes, to mature into stability. But as a 'peek', as a profound relaxation in love and truth, that moment of kensho - or whatever you want to call the overwhelming insight or relaxation in love, of 'aha' - that's always instant in the ever-present moment, and then it has to be practiced to become stable. You might need a well-designed set of practices to engage year after year, as well as relationships with friends and teachers and everything else that goes with true maturity blooming throughout a lifetime. I titled this book Instant Enlightenment because, on the one hand, the state of enlightenment as opposed to the stage of enlightenment is instant, but also as a kind of tongue-in-cheek, humorous, tipping of my hat to today’s microwave, plug and play, or short-attention-span cultural style."

See the whole post.

Myth of Porn

"The ubiquity of sexual images does not free eros but dilutes it. Other cultures know this. I am not advocating a return to the days of hiding female sexuality, but I am noting that the power and charge of sex are maintained when there is some sacredness to it, when it is not on tap all the time. In many more traditional cultures, it is not prudery that leads them to discourage men from looking at pornography. It is, rather, because these cultures understand male sexuality and what it takes to keep men and women turned on to one another over time—to help men, in particular, to, as the Old Testament puts it, “rejoice with the wife of thy youth; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times.” These cultures urge men not to look at porn because they know that a powerful erotic bond between parents is a key element of a strong family.

And feminists have misunderstood many of these prohibitions."

A bit of a generalization, as "traditional cultures" refers not only to behaviours, but also to value systems, and those can be all over the board from extremely narrow-minded to genuinely generous to all involved, often also depending on class or caste. But the basic implication is true enough. Certainly, they way back is not the way ahead. Pre-porn is not post-porn. Anyway, nice article by Naomi Wolf at the NY mag, link here.

Romance beyond ego

Andrew Cohen writes on an important topic of intimate relationship in the context of enlightenment and consciousness evolution. And makes many good points. Link