narhwal90 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 26, 2022 4:59 am
Big events like this are how the big dharma machines operate; you have to get the butts onto cushions on a larger scale.
Corporate Buddhism is horrible. All the big scandals come from such entities.
Is it a surprise that the Lenz Foundation is sponsoring this? No. Fredrick Lenz was a huge fraud. The Lenz Foundation has about as much to do with Buddhism as Exxon has to do with combatting climate change.
Lenz’s grift was “American Buddhism.” His scheme was to get naive people to come to concerts by his Kitaro influenced new age band, Zazen, and call that meditation. He wrote stupid, orientalist adventure novels that make T. Lobsang Rampa look credible by comparison, such memorable titles as Surfing in the Himalayas, featuring, I kid you not, a fellow named Master Fwap, etc. The more intelligent people he sent to school to learn computer science, set them up with Wall Street jobs, and tithed them 10%. In this way he became wealthy very quickly through his software company filled with devotees. But it all had nothing to do with Buddhadharma.
After Lenz’s suicide/accidental death (it’s not clear which), one of his main students married one of Namkhai Drime Rinpoche’s daughters. Her sister married Mukpo and became queen of Shambhala. You can guess the rest.
The advisory board for the Lenz Foundation is telling:
Liz Lewinson, Chairperson
B. A. Smith, Co-Chairperson
Dr. Koshin Paley Ellison, MFA, LMSW, DMin, co-founder, the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care
Lisa Marshall, CEO, Rama Meditation Society
Acharya Fleet Maull, Prison Dharma Network
Jeffrey Richardson, Sr. Consulting Information Technology Architect, IBM
James Shaheen, Editor and Publisher – Tricycle: The Buddhist Review
Judith Simmer-Brown, Ph.D., Professor of Contemplative and Religious Studies, Naropa University
I wouldn’t participate in one of their conferences if you paid me. This isn’t about getting butts onto cushions, it’s about legitimizing one of the biggest grifters in the short history of Buddhism in the West.