UNITED STATES
The Buddhist Channel
The Buddhist Channel, July 22, 2012
Zen Studies Society’s controversial land deal with Nature Conservancy
New York, USA — This week, Gallup, Inc., a US, research-based performance-management consulting company issued a report entitled “U.S. Confidence in Organized Religion at Low Point.” It appears that confidence in “Organized Religion” in America has been is steady decline since the early 1970’s.
While the Gallup report deals primarily with “Christian” denominations, Catholic and Protestant, there is ample evidence that even relatively new, and somewhat obscure, organized religious traditions in America are also being questioned by adherents.
In America, everybody’s got to pay the rent, and the Zen Studies Society , a Zen Buddhist organization based in New York, with its two multi-million dollar centers, is no different. Upkeep is required if the two centers — Dai BosatsuZen monastery set on a 1,400-acre tract in the town of Hardenburgh, N.Y., and New York Zendo Sho Bo Ji, a converted carriage house on East 67th Street in Manhattan — are to survive.
But the Zen Studies Society has been feeling the crunch of late not just because of hard economic times but also because of a variety of scandals centering on the former abbot, Eido Tai Shimano – a man who, over a period of 46 years, stands credibly accused of a variety of depredations, including lying, character assassination, sexual misconduct and financial improprieties.
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