As with the last bit of flatulence in some once-bright balloon, so it seems the air has finally come out of the suit and countersuit between Eido Tai Shimano and Zen Studies Society. On Dec. 31, 2015, Shimano filed a discontinuance of the multi-million-dollar dust-up between himself and the entity -- ZSS -- he helped to build and subsequently abused through financial and sexual adventures. The particulars of the settlement are not stipulated outside saying each side will pay its own court costs. ZSS is on board with the discontinuance.
How hot the particulars of this case once burned. How dim the embers now. Those wishing to peruse the particulars of Shimano's arrogant abuse of various Zen Buddhist students in his care can attempt to follow the Yellow Brick Road laid out in the Shimano Archive. Otherwise, it may be enough to know that a legend-in-his-own-mind Zen teacher was caught out and called to account.
Years and years and years of it all. Pain and confusion and longing and learning and endless other tendrils mark the scandal that, by linear reckoning, began in the early 1960's. It is not as if the tears were not wet. The sex scandals were just the inviting tip of the iceberg. Posturing and posing and gouging and soothing and this morning....
Well, this morning, it's chilly and the sky is blue.
No one remembers the past except in superficial and self-serving ways.
When Shunryu Suzuki discovered that american householders wanted to practice like monks, he asserted that americans would, by need and eventuality, create a zen different from what was practiced in Japan. It seems that Shimano discovered one of those differences.
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