D.T. Suzuki in America: Nuremberg Zen +^

[Chas.]

Toxic Zen Story #14: Nuremberg Zen: D.T. Suzuki, the Corruption of America, the Cherry Mine Disaster, and Former Speaker Hastert's Hegeler-Carus Hellhouse.

| ' ... After the 1893 Chicago Parliament of
| World Religions, one Paul Carus, a Chicago-based
| editor of the Open Court Press, invited some of
| the influential Japanese Buddhist delegates to a
| week-long discussion at the home of Carus's
| father-in-law, Edward Hegeler. Both deeply felt
| the spiritual crisis of the times. Both were
| trying to reform Christianity to bring it in line
| with current thought; in short, to make religion
| scientific. It occurred to them that Buddhism was
| already compatible with science, and could be
| used to nudge Christianity in the same direction.
| Toward this end, Carus wanted to support a
| Buddhist missionary movement to the United States
| from Asia. His thinking was to create something
| of a level playing field. Carus had witnessed the
| most ambitious missionary undertaking in modern
| history that send thousands of Protestant
| missionaries abroad to convert the people
| "sitting in darkness". He wished to conduct a
| Darwinian experiment of "survival of the
| fittest." His goal: to bring Buddhist
| missionaries to America where they could engage
| in healthy competition with their Christian
| counterparts in the East, and thus determine the
| "fittest" to survive. '

from "Buddhism and Science - Probing the Values of Faith and Reason", Dr. Martin J. Verhoeven (a fairly deluded account of Suzuki's real impact).

When Speaker Hastert lionized Carus in a $200,000 grant restoring his estate, he dug a deep, deep hole, and jumped in...

____ Background for Toxic Zen Stories ____________________

https://groups.google.com/group/alt.zen/msg/b4ad0ce368728934?hl=en

____ Introduction ________________________________________

We know the basic story of D.T. Suzuki, and the fact that he had one face showing towards Japan's Imperial Way Zen, and a different face showing towards the West. And that, for obvious reasons, never the twain would meet.

We know that he had a variety of collaborators, a flock of followers, and influenced many others:

Collaborators in the propagation of Shaku Soyen (D.T.'s Master)-D.T. Suzuki Zen:
Beatrice Lane (wife), Paul Carus, Edward Hegeler, Martin Heidegger, Frederic Spiegelberg, Father Thomas Merton, Alan Watts, Eric Fromm, Carl G. Jung, Richard de Martino, Karen Horney, and a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation to lecture extensively at Columbia University and other East Coast schools in the 1950's.

Followers of Shaku-Suzuki Zen:
John Cage, Jack Kerouac, Alan Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, and Philip Whalen.

Those strongly affected by the Shaku-Suzuki Zen Influence:
Aldous Huxley, Karl Jaspers, Arnold Toynbee, Gabriel Marcel, Herbert Read, and Lynn White Jr.

____ Toxic Zen Story ______________________________

D.T. Suzuki (1870-1966) and the LaSalle-Peru, Illinois period.

So, how and where did Zen and D.T. Suzuki come to America? And what accompanied that event? It started from a fortune in Zinc, and a rich man's urge to leave a legacy: (Ottawa DailyTimes - "National Grant Spurs Restoration")

. 'Zinc magnate Edward Hegeler commissioned W.W.
. Boyington, the architect of the famous Water Tower
. in Chicago, to design the Hegeler Carus Mansion.
. Completed in 1876, it features a mansard, or
. steeply sloped, roof and a tower crowned by a 30-
. foot cupola. A massive horseshoe staircase was
. designed to lead guests to the grand entrance of
. the home and to a wrap- around porch that graces
. three sides of the residence one story
. aboveground.'
.
. 'August Fiedler, a noted Chicago designer and
. furniture maker, created the mansion's elegant
. interior. His hand is visible in the extensive
. color stencil designs on walls and ceilings,
. intricate parquet flooring and finely sculpted
. wooden busts. '
.
. 'The mansion was built on a three- acre estate
. that once featured walking paths, a gazebo, a
. reflecting pond, flower gardens, a greenhouse,
. tennis courts, and even a railroad trolley car
. that provided endless entertainment for the
. children who lived there.'
.
. 'As well as being home to the Hegeler family,
. the mansion was also the birthplace of Open Court
. Publishing, which Edward Hegeler launched in 1887
. to foster discussion of philosophy, science and
. religion. Hegeler hired the German scholar Dr.
. Paul Carus as managing editor of Open Court. Carus
. married Hegeler's daughter Mary, and the two
. raised six children in the mansion. One of them,
. 100-year-old Alwin Carus, still lives in the
. mansion.'
.
. 'D.T. Suzuki, a young student of Buddhism,
. came to the United States in 1897 to translate
. Asian religious and philosophical classics for
. Open Court. He was an assistant editor for 11
. years, during which time he and Paul Carus worked
. together to bridge Eastern and Western
. philosophies. Suzuki, who became famous in the
. United States in the mid 1900s, is now revered as
. one of the world's great Buddhist scholars.'
___________________________________________________

That would be a brief encapsulation of history, but the framework for understanding the motives of the people that put their money down to support Suzuki, and to become the springboard for the infiltration of Zen thought into the virgin minds of Western thinkers, particularly in America, is a more complex history.

It involves a battle between the intellectuals and scientists of the time, and the Christians, who were engaged in a struggle to determine the direction of American society: where the fuel of the Industrial Revolution was going to drive the United States in the Twentieth Century.

In the heat of battle, sometimes we can seize upon a weapon which can bring down the house, if we are not capable of comprehending the unintended consequences of what we are doing.

There is some history on that from "Buddhism and Science - Probing the Values of Faith and Reason", Dr. Martin J. Verhoeven, Religion East and West, Issue 1, June 2001, pp. 77-97 (a fairly deluded account of Suzuki's real impact):

| 'After the 1893 Chicago Parliament of World
| Religions, one Paul Carus, a Chicago-based editor
| of the Open Court Press, invited some of the
| influential Japanese Buddhist delegates to a week-
| long discussion at the home of Carus's father-in-
| law, Edward Hegeler. Both deeply felt the
| spiritual crisis of the times. Both were trying to
| reform Christianity to bring it in line with
| current thought; in short, to make religion
| scientific. It occurred to them that Buddhism was
| already compatible with science, and could be used
| to nudge Christianity in the same direction.
| Toward this end, Carus wanted to support a
| Buddhist missionary movement to the United States
| from Asia. His thinking was to create something of
| a level playing field. Carus had witnessed the
| most ambitious missionary undertaking in modern
| history that send thousands of Protestant
| missionaries abroad to convert the people "sitting
| in darkness". He wished to conduct a Darwinian
| experiment of "survival of the fittest." His goal:
| to bring Buddhist missionaries to America where
| they could engage in healthy competition with
| their Christian counterparts in the East, and thus
| determine the "fittest" to survive. '
|.
| 'With the aid of his wealthy father- in-law
| who put up money, they sponsored a number of
| Eastern missionaries to the United States:
| Anagarika Dharmapala, from what was then Ceylon,
| now Sri Lanka; Swami Vivekananda, from India
| representing the Ramakrishna Vedanta movement; and
| Soyen Shaku, a Japanese Buddhist monk, and Shaku's
| young disciple D.T. Suzuki. During his stay in the
| United States in the late 1890s and early 1900s,
| Suzuki lived in the small town of LaSalle-Peru,
| Illinois. He was in his twenties then, and for
| about eleven years he worked closely with Paul
| Carus translating Buddhist texts into English and
| putting out inexpensive paperback editions of the
| Asian classics. '

So the very first purpose of the introduction of Eastern thought into the West, was as a means to the end of the victory of the Darwinists over the Biblical Christian forces that would later become the Christian Creationist movement. It is that initial purpose that determines so much of what happens in any enterprise. As Verhoeven continues:

| 'These early missionaries of Buddhism to the
| West, including Carus himself, all shared the same
| modern, reformist outlook. They translated
| Buddhism into a medium and a message compatible
| and resonant with the scientific and progressive
| spirit of the Age. They selected passages of text
| to favor that slant, and carefully presented the
| Buddhist teachings in such a way as to appeal to
| modern sensibilities - - empirical, rational, and
| liberal. Americans wanted religion to "make
| sense," to accord with conventional wisdom. Then,
| as now, our primary mode of making sense of things
| was positivist -- reliable knowledge based on
| natural phenomena as verified by empirical
| sciences. So firmly entrenched is the scientific
| outlook that it has for all practical purposes
| taken on a near- religious authority. Few, then or
| now, critically question our faith in science; we
| presume its validity and give it an almost
| unquestioned place as the arbiter of truth.'
|.
| 'Thus, the early missionaries of Buddhism to
| America purposely stripped Buddhism of any
| elements that might appear superstitious,
| mythological, even mystical. Dharmapala, Suzuki,
| and Vivekananda clearly ascertained that Americans
| measured truth in science, and science posed
| little theological threat to a Buddhist and Hindu
| worldview. After all, Buddhism had unique
| advantages for someone who rejected their faith
| (Christian) due to its authoritarianism and
| unscientific outlook: '
|.
| '1) Buddhism did not assert or depend upon the
| existence of a God'
|.
| '2) Buddhism was a superstition-free moral
| ideal; it conformed to the scientific view of an
| ordered universe ruled by law (Dharma) -- a system
| both moral and physical where everything seemed to
| work itself out inexorably over vast periods of
| time without divine intervention (karma)'

Clearly, this ignores the fact that this view of karma, and of a vast settling time for karma to work itself out, is simplistic and was discarded by the Buddha's highest teaching.

In the Lotus Sutra, cause and effect are simultaneous. There is no settling time. The perception by a deluded mortal of time-sequenced causality completely misses the big picture, and is one of the sources of that delusion.

This simultaneity of causality has been supported by scientific experiment in quantum physics. The direction of linear causality cannot be determined by a reproducible experiment to point forwards or backwards. Indeed, no experiment can show any observable difference between the "special qualities" of any one time and any other, and that includes the current moment.

A nice visual for this can be found in Paul Davie's article in the September 2002 Scientific American on time ... see the plot of the earth's orbit over time and his description of "block time". That block time is the "place" where all causes occur and all effects are felt. The two factors of "latent effect" and "inherent cause" of the ten factors, hold the entire past, present and future in their True Aspect.

As an example of what I mean, when I walk outside at night, and my cheek is warmed by a radio-frequency photon emitted just as the universe became clear after the big bang (3 degree black body radiation) at the beginning of the current kalpa, a molecule of my cheek and a free nucleus of the superheated plasma fifteen (or so) billion years ago synchronize together to have that interaction. My cheek observes that plasma, across fifteen billion years, and both the observer cell (heated) and the observed plasma (cooled) are fundamentally changed by that synchronization. Otherwise the interaction would never occur: my cheek and the early plasma are effectively exchanging information, and are aligned in such a way as to have that exchange occur, without the world being deterministic.

This can be no other way, according to the experiments which have been run over and over in Quantum Physics, looking for any conceivable hole in Uncertainty Theory.

Buddhism explains this as the Three Existences: the Past, Present and Future are one and inseparable.

But the Zen Buddhism of Suzuki, which is unclear and requires acausality to explain itself scientifically, is an utterly distorted view, and all of the evils that spring from that acausal view come from that initial misuse of the Buddha's teachings, the dharma, as a means in the power struggle between the academic/scientific establishment and the moral/religious establishment at the beginning of the Twentieth Century.

Zen can be used and abused, precisely because it has, and is, a distorted view of life. The Buddha's highest and most essential teaching cannot be misused, because that view of life is not in any way distinct from life itself.

Verhoeven continues listing Zen Buddhism's unique advantages as a weapon in Paul Carus' struggle:

| '3) Buddhism posited no belief in gods who
| could alter the workings of this natural law'
|.
| '4) Buddhism was a religion of self- help with
| all depending on the individual working out
| his/her own salvation'
|.
| '5) "Original" Buddhism was seen as the
| "Protestantism of Asia," and Buddha as another
| Luther who swept away the superstitions and
| rituals of an older, corrupted form and took
| religion back to its pure and simple origins'
|.
| '6) Buddhism presented an attractive personal
| founder who led life of great self- sacrifice;
| parallels were drawn between Jesus and Buddha as
| the inspiration of a personal figure exerted
| strong appeal to seekers who had given up on
| theology and metaphysics.'
|.
| 'Thus, Buddhism was packaged and presented in
| its most favorable light viz a viz the current
| spiritual crisis in the West; and, not
| surprisingly, Buddhism seemed immensely reasonable
| and appealing to Americans. Darwinism might be
| undermining Biblical Christianity, but it only
| enhanced Buddhism's standing. '
|.
| 'In fact, Darwin's theory of evolution, which
| struck the most severe blow to the Judeo-
| Christian edifice, was taken up as the leading
| banner for Buddhist propagation. With Darwin the
| concept of evolution became enshrined in the
| popular mind. Everything was evolutionary --
| species, races, nations, economies, religions, the
| universe -- from the micro to the macro. Social
| Darwinists even saw evolution operating behind the
| vicissitudes of free-market capitalism. As the
| constant interaction of stimulus and response in
| nature, evolution seemed to match nicely with the
| notion of karma -- the cyclical unfolding of
| events governed by the law of cause and effect. So
| Anagarika Dharmapala could announce in Chicago to
| his largely Judeo- Christian audience that "the
| theory of evolution was one of the ancient
| teachings of the Buddha." As it was in nature (at
| least in the new natural world of Darwin), so it
| was in the Buddhist universe. '

This was then, and is now, also balderdash. Evolution as put forth by Darwin in his pre-quantum physics time, has the same deluded view of causality, and time itself, as that which Suzuki Zen karma requires.

According to Buddhism, life evolves and history happens in certain ways not because the world follows determinism (is determined), nor because of the result of a random chain of events (is stochastic, non-deterministic).

According to Buddhism, life evolves and history happens precisely because of the Tathagata's single-minded determination. Acting through the five components of a single individual, the world of living beings and their environments surrounding that individual, throughout the three existences of past, present and future in all ten directions (called "ichinen sanzen" of T'ien Tai). With consistency throughout, from beginning to end (called "honmatsu kukyo to").

According to the Buddha's highest teaching (Lotus Sutra), You/I/We, in our absolute inter-connectedness, have come to the same decision that makes things the way they are, and in no other way. Our current Hell, at any, and at all moments, is the "Land of Tranquil Light" (Nichiren Daishonin), also known as the Buddha's Land.
________________________________________________

As Paul Carus and D.T. Suzuki's work at Open Court Publishing, located at the Hegeler Carus Mansion at LaSalle-Peru, Illinois was completed, a fiery disaster occurred very close nearby, to mark the event in history ...

From William Terry's Illinois Times review of Karen Tintori's book "Trapped",

. 'If history tells us anything about the world,
. it's that we needn't look far for our heroes -- or
. our villains. Sometimes it's simply the hour of
. day that distinguishes them.'

Indeed, the villains are always proximate in time and place, but never connected by a simplistic chain of cause and effect. Terry continues:

. 'In Karen Tintori's Trapped: The 1909 Cherry
. Mine Disaster, the afternoon of November 13, 1909,
. was the trial, literally by fire, of more than 480
. miners who worked for the St. Paul Mining Company
. in the newly established Bureau County community
. of Cherry, located 15 miles northwest of LaSalle-
. Peru. That more than half of the men died in the
. mine -- leaving more than 200 widows and at least
. 500 children fatherless -- suggests the scope of
. the tragedy, which is still considered the worst
. coal mine fire in the nation's history and its
. third worst mining disaster.'
.
. 'The name Chernobyl will be forever linked to
. a disaster, but Cherry no longer summons up
. pictures in the public's imagination. Unlike
. Chicago, which rebuilt after the disastrous fire
. of 1871, or San Francisco after the 1905
. earthquake, Cherry never had a past to glorify or
. a future to look forward to, though the rich coal
. deposits under its soil could easily have turned
. this ethnically diverse community into a prairie
. Athens rather than the ghost town it is today.'
.
. 'The Cherry miners were Lithuanian, Italian,
. French, Scottish, Belgian, German, Irish, Polish,
. Greek, Swedish, Russian, and American. The mine
. they worked in was the best -- and safest -- of
. its kind, equipped with electric lights in the
. main thoroughfares, excellent ventilation, and
. concrete, brick, and steel construction, a feature
. some claimed made it fireproof. And at the time,
. the Cherry mine had the largest main shaft in the
. country. Miners worked two of three rich veins of
. bituminous coal, the farthest of which was nearly
. 500 feet below the topsoil.'
.
. 'The shaft was set on fire by accident when
. several hay bales in the second vein got too close
. to a kerosene torch, ignited, and couldn't be
. extinguished. Small blazes were seldom cause for
. concern in the four-year-old Cherry mine, Tintori
. tells us, because they were easily -- and
. frequently -- put out. Indeed, two hours after the
. fateful fire started, miners working in the
. farthest vein had not been told about the fire,
. simply because management didn't believe the blaze
. couldn't be contained. By the time the inferno was
. beyond control, it had engulfed the doomed miners'
. only means of escape.'
.
. 'Underground, the Cherry mine's heroes emerged
. -- or failed to emerge. Some were lost trying to
. save themselves, others while looking after their
. buddies and brothers. Some brave souls dared to
. descend into hell to rescue the men and boys whose
. wives and sweethearts waited helplessly above
. ground, where the black smoke billowed ominously.
. Some came back whole; others burned beyond
. recognition.'
.
. 'Tintori isn't sparing in the details; the
. horror and stench of the fire are palpable, and
. the carnival-like atmosphere of the rescue
. operation is all too familiar. Tintori -- whose
. grandfather, John Tintori, survived the Cherry
. Mine disaster owing to a well-timed hangover --
. does an excellent job setting the stage for the
. drama, and delivers a narrative that is both
. riveting and heartbreaking. Here's a sample: '
.
. 'Men couldn't see the roofing overhead,
. they couldn't see the floor. They couldn't
. see their hands stretched out in front of
. them, frantically groping for a wall. They
. could feel their skin stretch taught over
. tissue swelling rapidly in the onslaught
. of heat. They were sweating and
. suffocating and lost, coughing and
. vomiting from panic and the smoke.'
.
. 'The thunder of fire, the bellow of mules,
. the loud staccato reports of heating
. cracking rock -- the din reverberated from
. every direction. It was diminished only by
. the most petrifying clamor of them all, a
. rising crescendo of hundreds of voices
. shouting, screaming, crying, and praying
. in a dozen different languages.'

As the families of the Cherry Mineworkers lived so close to the Hegeler Mansion, what do you think the chances are that many of the women worked in various roles for Hegeler, Carus and ultimately, for Suzuki's cause?
__________________________________________________________

Finally, as Verhoeven wraps up his deluded account:

| 'Suzuki later became the leading exponent of
| Zen in the West, when he returned in the 1950s on
| a Rockefeller grant to lecture extensively at East
| Coast colleges. He influenced writers and
| thinkers like Carl Jung, Karen Horney, Erich
| Fromm, Martin Heidegger, Thomas Merton, Alan
| Watts, and the "beat Buddhists" -- Jack Kerouac,
| Alan Ginsberg, and Gary Snyder. Suzuki died in
| 1966 in Tokyo. His influence in the West was
| profound -- making Zen an English word,
| translating Asian texts into English, stimulating
| a scholarly interest in the Orient among American
| intellectuals, and deepening American respect and
| enthusiasm for Buddhism. The historian Lynn White
| Jr. praised Suzuki as someone who broke through
| the "shell of the Occident" and made the West's
| thinking global. His introduction to the West came
| about through the hands of Paul Carus.'

The corruption of America by Shaku-Suzuki Zen would have many more ill effects, as we shall come to see ...
__________________________________________________________

This Major Zen Historical Event (MZHE) is being marked by a public monument, at great expense, thanks to the expenditure of what must (obviously) be an oversupply of tax dollars to the Republican Administration of the United States government.

According to the Ottawa Daily Times (same article previously quoted):
http://www.ottawadailytimes.com/news/story.php?storyid=596

. 'NATIONAL GRANT SPURS RESTORATION'
.
. 'A $200,000 matching grant from the National
. Park Service is helping to sustain restoration of
. the Hegeler Carus Mansion.'
.
. 'Awarded through the Save America's Treasures
. program, the grant recognizes the historic
. significance of the mansion and its educational
. importance as a house museum. Thanks to the
. efforts of U.S. Rep. Jerry Weller and House
. Speaker Dennis Hastert, who championed the mansion
. project, the foundation was selected from among
. 200 applicants seeking funding through the latest
. round of the grant program. It is the only
. Illinois recipient.'
.
. '"To have the mansion recognized by Congress
. as a significant historic resource and to receive
. a $200,000 federal grant toward its restoration is
. really a high honor for the Hegeler Carus
. Foundation and the LaSalle community," said Terri
. Switzer, executive director of the foundation.
. "This grant will help us resume the mansion
. restoration, which has been on hold due to lack of
. funds. It's a great start to a concerted fund-
. raising effort."'
.
. '"The mansion is a unique treasure that is so
. significant it is listed on the National Register
. of Historic Places,' said Weller.'
.
. '"It is a century-old masterpiece designed by
. a famous architect, and it is the birthplace of a
. publishing company that has had an impact the
. world over by fostering discussion of eastern and
. western philosophies. Part of the Illinois and
. Michigan Canal National Heritage Corridor, the
. mansion is a tourist destination as well.
. Restoring this state and national resource is an
. important goal."'

It makes you wonder if the Speaker and the Representative are trying for a new kind of "Hellhouse", like those that some Christian churches set up on Halloween, except with hot smoky walls, and with every participant wearing an antique miner's helmet, feeling their way down the tunnels, heading directly for the horrendous heat and flames keeping them from the exits and safety ...
__________________________________________________________

My personal view? My view is a tough-minded one, that's for sure.

Although good and evil come from the same source and do the Buddha's will, and the purpose of the corruption of America is ultimately to overcome that same evil, so it is a necessary evil for a bright future ... the view of faith in the Lotus Sutra ...

I know which side I'm on, and it's not the side of Zen and its incumbent evils.

I do not, in even the slightest way, want anyone in the past, present of future ever to perceive my words in any view to celebrate in the smallest way, anything ever done by D.T. Suzuki, or any influence he may have had, anywhere.

My suggestion to the U.S. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, and U.S. Representative Jerry Weller, is to spend my tax money on something else.

And to the National Park Service? The next time you want to set some preventative fires in the LaSalle-Peru area of Illinois?

RAIZE THE HEGELER CARUS MANSION UNTIL NOT ONE STICK IS LEFT, NOR ONE STONE STANDS UPON ANOTHER !!!
__________________________________________________________

Update as of Summer 2015 ...

. Dennis Hastert, who faces federal indictment, criticized
. 2006 raid of William Jefferson's office
. By Bruce Alpert, NOLA.com | Times-Picayune
.
. WASHINGTON – Nine years before he faced his own problems
. with federal prosecutors, Dennis Hastert expressed
. concern with what he considered prosecutorial overreach
. in the William Jefferson case.
.
. Hastert, an Illinois Republican, was House speaker when
. FBI agents raided Jefferson's Capitol Hill office in
. 2006. Hastert, who left Congress in 2007 and became a
. lobbyist, was indicted May 28 on federal charges of
. lying to the FBI and evading a law that require banks to
. report cash transactions over $10,000.
.
. Federal prosecutors say Hastert structured withdrawals
. to avoid reporting withdrawals he needed to compensate
. and keep silent an "Individual A" for past misconduct,
. reportedly sexual abuse against a male student when he
. was a high school teacher and wrestling coach in Illinois.
.
. Prosecutors say he had paid $1.7 million of the $3.5
. million he had promised Individual A. He pleaded not
. guilty to the charges and is free on bail. After the
. indictment, Hastert stepped down from his Washington
. lobbying firm.
.
. In 2006, after the FBI raided the office of then Rep.
. Jefferson, D-New Orleans, Hastert complained of
. government overreach and possible violation of the
. Constitution's separation of powers clause for the
. legislative, executive and judicial branches.
.
. "The actions of the Justice Department in seeking and
. executing this warrant raise important Constitutional
. issues that go well beyond the specifics of this case,"
. Hastert said at the time.
.
. "Insofar as I am aware, since the founding of our
. Republic 219 years ago, the Justice Department has never
. found it necessary to do what it did Saturday night,
. crossing this Separation of Powers line, in order to
. successfully prosecute corruption by Members of
. Congress," Hastert said. "Nothing I have learned in the
. last 48 hours leads me to believe that there was any
. necessity to change the precedent established over those
. 219 years."
.
. Hastert was far from the only congressional leader to
. question the raid. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi,
. D-Calif., also objected. But she also pressed and
. eventually persuaded the House Democratic caucus in 2006
. to remove Jefferson from his seat on the House Ways and
. Means Committee, which is responsible for legislating
. tax policy.
.
. In 2007, Jefferson, now 68, was indicted on
. 16-corruption charges, with the Justice Department
. alleging he agreed to influence leaders of Western
. African to promote business deals in return for bribes.
.
. In 2009, he was convicted on 11 of 16 charges, and
. sentenced to 13 years in prison, the longest ever for a
. member of Congress. One of the guilty counts was
. overruled in appeal, but his 13-year sentence went
. unchanged.
.
. Jefferson is due for release from the Oakdale Prison
. Camp on Aug. 30, 2023, when he'll be 76.

And this ...

. Allegations complicate bid to defend Dennis Hastert
. Lawyer perplexed by sexual rumors
.
. By Michael Tarm: Associated Press, July 15, 2015
.
. CHICAGO — Allegations of past sexual misconduct by former
. US speaker Dennis Hastert present a quandary for the
. defense in the hush-money case, an attorney told a
. federal judge Tuesday.
.
. During a status hearing in US District Court in Chicago,
. defense attorney Thomas C. Green blamed what he described
. as ''government leaks'' for speculation that swirled
. around the 73-year-old Republican since he was indicted
. in late May.
.
. "[It] is now an 800-pound gorilla in this case,'' Green
. said. ''It has been injected in this case wrongfully."
.
. The indictment accuses Hastert of agreeing to pay $3.5
. million to someone identified only as ''Individual A'' to
. hide past misconduct; the document offers no detail and
. does not say the misconduct was sexual in nature. But the
. Associated Press and other media outlets, citing
. anonymous sources, have reported the payments were
. intended to conceal claims of sexual misconduct decades
. ago.
.
. The indictment also suggests someone may have been
. extorting Hastert, but it doesn't elaborate.
.
. Hastert, who is free on bond, was not required to attend
. the hearing and wasn't present. He lives west of Chicago
. near Yorkville, where he coached high school wrestling
. and taught until 1981. He has pleaded not guilty to the
. two charges in the indictment — that he violated banking
. reporting rules and that he lied to the FBI.
.
. Green, a nationally prominent attorney based in
. Washington, D.C., also said at the hearing that he
. intends to file motions in coming weeks asking the court
. to dismiss the indictment.
.
. Neither defense lawyers nor prosecutors commented after
. the hearing.
.
. As he prepares for trial, Green told the judge, he's
. stumped about whether to ignore the allegations.
.
. "[Do I] wrestle with the gorilla? Do I not wrestle with
. the gorilla?" he said.
.
. It's unclear if specific allegations not in the
. indictment would have any relevance at a trial, during
. which prosecutors would likely focus narrowly on mundane
. aspects of US banking law. But the allegations could
. potentially be raised in testimony regarding motives.
.
. US District Judge Thomas M. Durkin has strictly barred
. attorneys or prosecutors from publicly discussing any
. evidence. He cautioned Green on Tuesday that if he raised
. any new issues in his motions to toss the charges, Durkin
. may be obliged to include those in his public ruling.
.
. "The public has a right to know how I reach a decision,"
. he said.
.
. Prosecutor Steven Block said in court that if a trial
. goes forward, he expects it would last two weeks. Durkin
. did not set a trial date. The next status hearing is Oct.
. 20.

Apparently, Dennis Hastert is now indefensible.

When Speaker Hastert lionized Carus in a $200,000 grant restoring his estate, he dug a deep, deep hole, and jumped in...

____ Epilog _______________________________________

The Buddha's highest teachings were the purpose of the Buddha's advent on this earth.

The Buddha did not appear on this earth to drain people's compassion with discussions of the emptiness and meaninglessness of life which is just a void.

The Buddha did not appear on this earth to teach people to live in such a narrow and momentary way, that there would be no context for self-examination and conscience.

The Buddha did not appear on this earth to possess people's minds with such illogic as to befuddle their ability to choose correctly between what is good and what is evil.

The Buddha did not appear on this earth to teach people how to commit atrocities and genocide, in the exploration of their "infinite possibilities", or "new states of being".

The Buddha did not appear on this earth to teach people how to maim and kill with their hands efficiently, quietly, loudly, with increased terror inflicted, or to maximize their subjugation to control the public sentiments for political ends.

These are all profoundly evil distortions of the Buddha's true teachings, which introduce infinities in the variables holding good and evil, removing all shades of gray in the propositional calculus of value.

Simply stated, the Buddha made his advent on this earth with the purpose of teaching the compassionate way of the bodhisattva, which is at the heart of the true entity of all phenomena, which is the eternal Buddha at one with the eternal Law. Which is how to navigate the sea of sufferings of birth, aging, sickness and death. He originally set out on his path, because of his observation of the sufferings of common people and wanting to understand the source of those sufferings (enlightened wisdom) and how to transform those sufferings into unshakable happiness (enlightened action).

When you embrace the void, your initial intent to bring enlightenment and understanding to your life doesn't matter ... the result is always the same: chaos and misery, and utter ruination and emptiness to you, your family, and your country.

But things don't have to be that way ...
___________________________________________________

Nichiren Daishonin writes (Encouragement to a Sick Person, WND p. 78):

. "During the Former and Middle Days of the Law, the
. five impurities began to appear, and in the Latter
. Day, they are rampant. They give rise to the great
. waves of a gale, which not only beat against the
. shore, but strike each other. The impurity of
. thought has been such that, as the Former and
. Middle Days of the Law gradually passed, people
. transmitted insignificant erroneous teachings
. while destroying the unfathomable correct
. teaching. It therefore appears that more people
. have fallen into the evil paths because of errors
. with respect to Buddhism than because of secular
. misdeeds."

Because Bodhidharma discarded the Buddha's highest teaching (the Lotus Sutra), and due to his lazy nature turned to shortcuts to enlightenment, he came to the distorted view that life is acausal and empty, that the true entity is the void.

This erroneous view really comes from a misunderstanding of the Sutra of Immeasurable Meanings, where the True Entity is described by negation (the only way it can be): "... neither square, nor round, neither short, nor long, ..."

The description of the True Entity is logically voidal, but the True Entity itself is not. Bodhidharma was simply confused, due to the slander of negligence (laziness), and false confidence. The truth of life is that at the heart of the True Entity is the compassion of a bodhisattva for others.

Non-substantiality does not mean empty. Life has value. Humans are respectworthy. There is a purpose to everything. And every cause has an effect, so we are responsible for our thoughts, words and deeds. Zen is acausal. Zen is the greatest poison, which compares to the even greater medicine of the Lotus Sutra.

Suffice it to say: the purpose of Zen in the world is to corrupt and undermine everything that is not based upon the truth and the true teaching. All religions, disciplines, institutions and organizations which are undermined by Zen will eventually fall after glaring revelation of their worst defects, sooner rather than later.

If there is some good in your family, locality, society and culture, or country that you would like to retain, then cease the Zen, and begin to apply the medicine of the Lotus Sutra to heal the Zen wound in your life.

"Zen is the work of devilish minds." - Nichiren

-Chas.

. a prescription for the poisoned ones:
.
. The only antidote for the toxic effects of Zen in your life ...
.
. be that from Zen meditation, or the variant forms: physical
. Zen in the martial arts, Qigong, Acupuncture, Falun Gong,
. Copenhagen Convention of Quantum Mechanics, EST,
. Landmark Education, Nazism, Bushido, the Jesuits,
. Al Qaeda, or merely from having the distorted view that life
. is acausal, and that the true entity of all phenomena
. is the void ...
.
. with the effects of the loss of loved ones, detachment,
. isolation or various forms of emptiness in your life ...
.
. is the Lotus Sutra: chant Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo
. at least 3 times, twice a day, for the rest of your life,
. in at least a whisper ...
.
. and if you can, chant abundantly in a resonant voice !!!
.
. The full 28 Chapters of the Lotus Sutra,
. Nichiren Daishonin's Gosho volumes I and II,
. the Record of the Orally Transmitted Teachings
. (Gosho Zenshu, including the Ongi Kuden) and the
. SGI Dictionary of Buddhism are located at:
.
http://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/
.
. To find an SGI Community Center:
.
http://www.sgi-usa.org/sgilocations/
__________________________________

Quoting from "The Entity of the Mystic Law", Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, p. 418 ...

The Complete and Final Teaching on Perfect Enlightenment Sutra declares, "The beginningless illusions and ignorance that beset all living beings are all produced by the perfectly enlightened mind of the Thus Come Ones."