The American Taliban: Green Dragon Zen +^

[Disbasing Zen Stories]

Toxic Zen Story #1A: Green Dragon Zen: The American Taliban, John Walker Lindh, Cancer Rates and Zen-Parenting in Marin.

. ' "What's your name?" Spann asked. There was no
. response. "Hey," he said, snapping his fingers twice in
. front of Walker's dirt-caked face. "Who brought you
. here? Wake up! Who brought you here? How did you get
. here? Hello?" '

The answer to how he got there is Zen Parenting ... but it is difficult to understand and explain the truth, while you are still in the grip of the Void ...

____ Background for Toxic Zen Stories _____________________

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

____ Introduction ________________________________________

Dogen (1200-1253): The founder of the Japanese Soto school of Zen.
Dogen would quote the Lotus Sutra, but did not consider it any differently from other sutras of the Buddha, this in spite of the Buddha's own admonition to consider it higher than the previous (Sutra of Immeasurable Meanings and before) and following sutras (Nirvana Sutra and later). Hence, only provisional truth and partial enlightenment could be had from it by him. The kind of enlightenment that leads to compassionless domination of others ... as mere, empty extensions of one's own Solipsistic body.

Dogen was popular with the government, because his teachings removed the compassion from Samurai and Daimyo, rendering them fierce and merciless warriors, who would shun no tactic to win, no matter how vile.
___________________________________________________

Briefly, John Walker Lindh ended his childhood in and around a Zen Center in Marin County, California, where his mother has been, for much of his young life, an adherent. Therefore, she is directly connected by Master-Disciple chain to Dogen and Bodhidharma.

To be specific, the Green Dragon Temple at Green Gulch Farm in Sausalito was started by Shunryu Suzuki-roshi of the Green Dragon Society of Soto Zen. Most of Northern California Zen is essentially Green Dragon.

So, responding to his circumstances, he sheds his Marin personna, goes to Afghanistan to train as a terrorist with those bent on America's (his mother's home) destruction with Al Qaeda, whose parents Abdullah Azzam and Bin Laden came from the Islamic Jihad, which along with HAMAS was a descendent of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was connected to the Nazi Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin El Husseini, who was part of Himmler's SS, who all worshipped Hitler, who wrote Mein Kampf in prison, while the former corporal received weekly visits from his mentor, General Karl Haushofer, who as a military attache to Japan studied Zen and was directly connected by Master-Disciple chain to Bodhidharma.

To be specific, Karl Haushofer was a member of the Green Dragon Society of Soto Zen.

Hitler adopted the Buddhist suwastika (the symbol of positive rotation) and reversed it into the direction of evil, to drive home the point. (He also liked Tibetan Buddhism, which is Tantric and hence focused on occultism, and magical rituals mixed with Mahayana Buddhism.)

Marin County has the highest population, per capita, of believers in the various forms of Zen of any locale in the United States. Since the children of Marin are raised on Zen, it is like "mother's milk" to them, but from a poisoned breast. Thus, Marin County has the highest breast cancer rate in the nation. The medical community has tied this to alcohol consumption by women. But, why do you think they drink so much?

____ Toxic Zen Story ______________________________

From the article "The Taliban Next Door - At 16, John Walker was a quiet California kid. At 20, he was a Taliban warrior. How did he get from Marin County to Mazar-i-Sharif? ", written by Josh Tyrangiel, Sunday, Dec. 09, 2001:

. ' "What's your name?" Spann asked. There was no
. response. "Hey," he said, snapping his fingers twice in
. front of Walker's dirt-caked face. "Who brought you
. here? Wake up! Who brought you here? How did you get
. here? Hello?" '

The answer to how he got there is Zen Parenting ... but it is difficult to understand and explain the truth, while you are still in the grip of the Void ...

. 'Walker didn't answer. In a bit of CIA showmanship,
. Spann and his partner, known only as Dave, held a
. conversation within obvious hearing distance of Walker.
. "I explained to him what the deal is," Spann told Dave.
. Dave played the bad cop: "He needs to decide if he
. wants to live or die. If he wants to die, he's just
. going to die here. He can die here if he wants. He can
. f*****g die here. Or he's going to be f*****g spending
. the rest of his f*****g short life in prison. It's his
. decision, man. We can only help the guys who want to
. talk to us." But Walker still wouldn't talk.'
.
. 'A few hours later, Spann became the first American
. casualty in Afghanistan, when dozens of surrendered
. Taliban soldiers overwhelmed their guards and staged a
. revolt. During the uprising, John Walker escaped,
. delaying the world's discovery of an American Taliban,
. but only temporarily. After a week spent starving in a
. basement deep below the prison, Walker and 85 comrades
. were flushed out when their dungeon was flooded with
. ice-cold water. Spann was gone, but his questions for
. John Walker remained: Who brought you here? How did you
. get here?'
.
. 'Walker's childhood neighbors said the things neighbors
. always say in these situations. "They were an average
. American family," and John "was a sweet, quiet boy." It
. happens to be true. John Walker Lindh was a middle
. child named after John Lennon and Chief Justice John
. Marshall. He spent his first 10 years in Silver Spring,
. Md., in the happy, unremarkable manner that most
. parents wish for their children. "We were loud, normal
. kids," says Andrew Cleverdon, a boyhood friend of
. Walker's. "We played football and basketball, rode our
. bikes." John's father, attorney Frank Lindh, took the
. bus to his job at the Department of Justice. Marilyn
. Walker was a stay-at-home mom who kept her maiden name.
. They played with their three kids, went to Mass at St.
. Bernadette's Catholic Church and held a "Kentucky Derby
. Day" every May.'
.
. 'In 1991 the family moved to San Anselmo, Calif., in
. opulent, socially liberal Marin County. John was gentle
. and shy. He played the flute, had close relationships
. rather than a big circle of friends, and told people
. that he wanted to help the poor when he grew up. After
. a semester at a local high school, John transferred to
. Tamiscal High, an alternative school with 100 students
. and a self-directed, individualized course of study. As
. a freshman and sophomore, Walker studied world arts and
. culture, including Islam and the Middle East. Marilyn
. Walker had left Catholicism and become a [Zen]
. Buddhist; John was intrigued by religion too. "She
. opened all those doors for her kids," says Bill Jones,
. a family friend, "instead of dragging her kids into
. Catholicism like she'd been dragged into it." '
.
. 'Apparently it was The Autobiography of Malcolm X that
. inspired Walker to convert to Islam. He talked with his
. parents about his plans. Frank Lindh, now a lawyer with
. Pacific Gas & Electric, was accepting. Marilyn Walker
. had reservations. "She was concerned," says Marilyn's
. friend Stephanie Hendricks. "You have a 16-year- old
. kid who gets involved in any kind of religion in a
. passionate way, and you're going to want to know more
. about it, right?" '
.
. 'John did not have a driver's license and was still in
. high school, so attending prayer services five times a
. day was out of the question. On Friday nights, though,
. he would change out of his Western clothes and attend
. services at the Islamic Center of Mill Valley. Abdullah
. Nana usually drove him there. Nana, now 23, recalls
. that when he first saw Walker, he stood out
. immediately, not simply because he was a white man in a
. mostly Indian congregation but also because he was "on
. his own," meaning already devoted to Islam and without
. a referral from another Muslim. The two teenagers
. struck up a friendship and frequently spent the 20
. minutes between Walker's house and the mosque in rapt
. discussion of the Koran.'
.
. 'In 1998 Walker passed a proficiency exam and graduated
. early from Tamiscal High. He asked that the name on his
. diploma be changed to Sulayman Al-Lindh. He never
. picked up the certificate. Soon he told Nana that he
. had found an Arabic- language school in San'a, Yemen,
. on the Internet. "The language spoken in Yemen is
. closer to the holy language of the Koran and the
. sayings of the Prophet," explains Nana. Walker also
. felt it would be easier to practice Islam in a Muslim
. country. In December 1998 he left for the Middle East.
. '
.
. 'From the ages of 16 to 18, John Walker had transformed
. himself from a quiet, smooth-cheeked American teenager
. to a devout, bearded Muslim studying in Yemen. That he
. could grow the requisite beard was something of a
. miracle. Were his parents really onboard with all this?
. With the new name? The move to Yemen? Frank Lindh says
. yes. "He was always intellectually coherent, and he had
. a wonderful sense of humor," Lindh told reporters. "And
. none of that changed when he converted to Islam. I
. never had any major misgivings." '
.
. 'When Walker returned to California around Christmas
. 1999, he found his parents had separated. He saw Nana
. and told him that Yemen hadn't met his expectations.
. "They weren't as orthodox as he thought-- they weren't
. as strict on Islam as he thought," says Nana. But to
. Abdul Wadood, a 20-year-old Muslim friend who also met
. Walker at the Mill Valley mosque, John sounded
. fulfilled. Through his e-mail communications, he told
. Wadood he felt "free" because he didn't have any
. material possessions. Wadood says his friend never
. experienced culture shock because he was so "open-
. minded." But Walker may have also been a bit too
. trusting. He just "let anybody in," says Wadood.'
.
. 'When the U.S.S. Cole was bombed in October 2000, Walker
. was back in Yemen. In an e-mail exchange with his son,
. Frank Lindh said he felt terrible for the victims and
. their families. John's reply suggested that the attack
. may have been justified because the Cole was docked in
. an Islamic country. Lindh dismissed the exchange as a
. "father/son debate, much like my dad and I used to have
. over [the] Vietnam war." A month after the Cole
. bombing, Walker left Yemen for Bannu, a village in
. Pakistan's northwest, to attend an Islamic school, or
. madrasah. Pakistan's madrasahs specialize in teaching
. students to memorize the Koran. They are also reputed
. to provide thousands of soldiers for the Taliban.'
.
. 'John Walker's last contact with his family was in May
. 2001. He told his mother he was leaving Bannu and
. "moving somewhere cooler for the summer." He asked his
. father for money, and Frank Lindh sent him $1,200. It
. wasn't long before Marilyn Walker wondered just where
. her son had gone. In early summer, she contacted John's
. madrasah. According to the Marin Independent Journal, a
. teacher there wrote her back on July 27, saying John,
. whom he called Sulayman Faris, arrived at the school on
. Nov. 30, 2000, and "impressed [everyone] with his
. character" during his stay. On May 15 he was apparently
. turned over to the care of the missionary who had
. originally brought him to the school. No one knew where
. John was.'
.
. 'Sept. 11 came and went, and still John's parents heard
. nothing. Finally, on Dec. 1, Marilyn Walker and Frank
. Lindh saw their son on television. As the footage
. played, Marilyn Walker burst into tears. John was
. filthy and had a bullet wound in his leg. In a husky
. voice and accented English, John told CNN where he had
. been the past six months. "I was a student in Pakistan,
. studying Islam, and came into contact with many people
. connected with the Taliban," he said. "The people in
. general have a great love for the Taliban. So I started
. to read some of the literature of the scholars, the
. history of Kabul. My heart became attached to that."
. John said he had been sent to an Arabic-speaking al-
. Qaeda camp, where he learned to shoot a Kalashnikov. He
. saw Osama bin Laden several times. He answered the call
. to jihad and fought in Kashmir and Kunduz. Then he
. became a prisoner of war.'
___________________________________________________

From the article "Marin County breast cancer clues - Length of residence not significant, alcohol main risk factor in UCSF study", written by Ulysses Torassa, Chronicle Health Writer, Tuesday, May 6, 2003:

. 'The biggest difference between Marin County women with
. breast cancer and their neighbors without the disease
. is the amount of alcohol they consume - - with the
. heaviest drinkers raising their risk almost fourfold,
. researchers report. '
.
. 'In the first study comparing a group of women in Marin
. County with breast cancer to a control group,
. researchers at UCSF found that the length of time spent
. living in that county had no bearing on their
. likelihood of developing the disease. That suggests
. that a mysterious toxin in the air, water or soil in
. Marin County is not a likely cause for the area's high
. breast cancer rate, according to Margaret Wrensch,
. professor of epidemiology at UCSF and lead author of
. the study posted online last week in the journal Breast
. Cancer Research. '
.
. ' "It takes attention off a Marin-specific exposure,"
. she said. '
.
. 'Concern over Marin County's high breast cancer rate
. prompted the study, which was co- authored by members
. of Marin Breast Cancer Watch, an advocacy group that is
. pressing for more research into why so many of the
. county's women are diagnosed with the disease. At 199
. cases per year per 100,000 white, non-Hispanic women,
. Marin's breast cancer rate is among the highest in the
. nation. (Scientists use that figure as a comparison
. because breast cancer rates vary by ethnicity, and
. Marin County is overwhelmingly white.) The rate for the
. Bay Area is 155, and it is 144 for the United States as
. a whole. '
.
. 'The study was based on interviews with 285 women with
. breast cancer identified through a registry of cases at
. the Northern California Cancer Center. They were
. matched with 286 other breast cancer-free Marin County
. women of the same age, identified from random telephone
. calls. '
.
. 'The study looked at a wide variety of factors,
. including history of breast- feeding, body mass index,
. cigarette smoking, number of mammograms -- even having
. been raised with organized religion. '
.
. 'Wrensch and her co-authors were surprised to find that
. the most well-known risk factors for breast cancer --
. family history of the disease, late childbearing and
. hormone replacement therapy use -- did not differ much
. between the women in the two groups. Wrensch said
. that's probably because those risk factors are so
. common among women in Marin County that it would be
. hard to pick up differences in their sample. '
.
. 'Other factors that were associated with higher breast
. cancer risk by the study included later menopause, not
. using birth control pills, four or more mammograms from
. 1990 to 1994, beginning to drink after the age of 21,
. being a heavy smoker, and being raised in organized
. religion. '
.
. 'But by far the biggest difference seen was in alcohol
. consumption, with women who had at least two drinks a
. day being diagnosed with breast cancer at more than
. twice the rate of those who drank less. At three drinks
. a day, the risk rose almost fourfold. '
.
. 'Past studies have also shown an association between
. alcohol use and breast cancer, although not as strongly
. as in the latest research. A separate study conducted
. by the Marin County Health Department also found that
. alcohol consumption was higher in Marin than in other
. parts of California and the United States. '
.
. ' "This builds on existing literature on the importance
. of alcohol, and it really points to a need for us to
. begin to pay attention to alcohol as a risk factor for
. breast cancer," Wrensch said. '
.
. 'But she also cautioned that alcohol can also have
. beneficial effects, particularly for the heart, which
. makes it tricky to decide what to recommend to women
. about the study's findings. '
.
. 'Janice Barlow, executive director of Marin Breast
. Cancer Watch, said the study suggests to her that more
. attention needs to be paid to the link between alcohol
. consumption and breast cancer. '
.
. ' "That is one risk factor that we can modify," Barlow
. said. '
.
. 'She is also not convinced that toxins in the
. environment aren't playing a role in breast cancer. She
. said more studies are needed to get to the bottom of
. that question. '
.
. 'But in general, Barlow said the study just shows how
. complex the disease is. '
.
. ' "It's not just one disease -- there are many different
. kinds of breast cancer, and there are many different
. factors that initiate or promote it," she said. '
.
. 'The full study is available online at:
. http://www.breast-cancer-research.com/home. Click on
. "Open Access." '

____ 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 in the shape of a Green Dragon, in that moment you create an emptiness in your future. Each time you embrace the void again, that emptiness grows. But it doesn't have to be ...
___________________________________________________

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/
__________________________________

LS Chap. 16 .....

All harbor thoughts of yearning
and in their minds thirst to gaze at me.
When living beings have become truly faithful,
honest and upright, gentle in intent,
single-mindedly desiring to see the Buddha
not hesitating even if it costs them their lives,
then I and the assembly of monks
appear together on Holy Eagle Peak.
At that time I tell the living beings
that I am always here, never entering extinction,
but that because of the power of an expedient means
at times I appear to be extinct, at other times not,
and that if there are living beings in other lands
who are reverent and sincere in their wish to believe,
then among them too
I will preach the unsurpassed Law.