Zazen by any other name - Cult tactics and spiritual enlightenment

The lineages are often full of misinformation, and as John McRae says, the lineages are wrong as they are strong. That means that they create a narrative about Zen that is highly fictionalized, and have their own apologist as well. Ultimately, they resort to censorship, if not Ritex communication to squelch any voice that counters what they claim to be true. Many have asked if these lineages are cults, and the only answer is that you have to look the values they adhere to and the tactics they employ. Stephen Hassan, a cult researcher, has developed the BITE model that is now adopted by many of the world's courts to determine if a group is operating as a dangerous cult and may be liable for damages they create. Hassan and other researchers have realized that not all cults are dangerous, and where the majority of cults, that being a group that has a fictionalized narrative they follow, tend to be benign and give purpose, place, and community to people who otherwise may be lost in the mainstream of society. Most of the Western Zen organizations fall into the category of benign cultist, though there have been individuals and particular groups that cross the line to become full-blown dangerous cults. Typically, the telling sign is how they deal with those who do not buy into the fictionalized narrative they hold as truths and those who become apostates. In my own view, it is fine for a group to openly state what they believe and simply inform those who visit that they are not interested in debate or argument over their beliefs. In short, the individual simply decides if they will stay or move on without reprisals. Now, when it comes to the practice of Zazen, this is a highly touchy issue. Many of the lineages claim that Zazen is a practice that comes from the legendary Buddha himself through Makapasha in the Twirling Flower Story. This, however, is fan fiction used by the apologist in which the story can actually mean quite anything or nothing at all, though the belief of the Zazen as Buddhahood is laid at the feet of the 12th century Japanese Tendai monk Dogen, in whom the Japanese Soto Shu, the ruling priest class of Japan, view as a savior for the Japanese people in that he goes to China and returns with true Buddhism. This is a narrative developed in tumultuous times in Japan, in a time when Jesuits were spreading Christianity, creating a fracture not only in the Japanese spirit but in the imperial politics as well. Thus, the Dogen narrative developed, became embellished, and enshrined as gospel truth by the ruling priest class. Today, the term Dogenism is used to describe Westerners who believe that Dogen is the savior and that the practice of Zazen is Buddhahood itself, spiritual enlightenment, or being Buddha, as they say. The counter-argument is that there is nothing in the Chinese Chan from which Zen is claimed to derive from, or even from master ruling, that Dogen claims to have visited in China to gain the mind seal, which does not teach this type of meditation. And this is often where we see the fracturing of a group becoming a full-blown dangerous cult, in that the view of Zazen as the only means to Buddhahood is used as a bludgeon over new and current disciples to get them to not think and not question the dogma of the lineage. The practice of Zazen outside of a cultist environment can be examined to be a formalized ritual art of silent sitting, or a type of exercise of waiting. In comparison to other groups who used such methods, like the Stoics, the practice of Zazen is seen for what it is. Now we are getting into the heart of Buddhahood, in that the Buddhist disciple reaches deep inside themselves to pull up suffering, and that is defined as the enlightenment of wants and desires. Thus, to know thyself becomes the Buddhist motto as the vehicle towards enlightenment, another bludgeon that is often used by cults that only view Zazen as a means to achieve inner peace. So the question then becomes, does Zazen have anything to do with Zen?