Why did the richest, most influential, highest flying Zen center in America crash and burn in 1983? Novelist Michael Downing wondered the same thing, and after three years of interviewing members and poring over documents, his Shoes Outside the Door tells the story. Womanizing, BMW-driving Richard Baker was the abbot and visionary behind the rapid growth of the San Francisco Zen Center, but in many ways he was the antithesis of his teacher and predecessor, the inimitable and revered Shunryu Suzuki, who would choose the bruised apples out of compassion. After the early death of Suzuki, a blind and driven cult formed around Baker, seemingly filling the void until this "Dick Nixon of Zen" finally slept with his best friend's wife and brought his world crashing to the ground. Working with direct quotations from students and workers of the Center and its many enterprises, Downing delivers a page-turning exposé of a community that is as laudable as it is laughable. And as an outsider to both the community and Buddhism, he does it with wit and an even hand. --Brian Bruya


From Publishers Weekly
This intense investigation/indictment from novelist Downing (Breakfast with Scot, etc.) uncovers the alleged abuses of power of Richard Baker, former abbot of the nation's most influential Zen center. Downing devoted three years to exploring how and why Baker, the only Dharma heir of Shunryu Suzuki, the founder of San Francisco Zen Center (SFZC), was toppled from the abbacy of SFZC by popular demand in 1983. He interviewed more than 80 participants in Baker's rise and fall, not including the disgraced abbot himself, who sent Downing a letter explaining his position. Downing tells the story with a novelist's attention to character and detail, and what unfolds is a gripping account of how the bright and charismatic Baker helped Suzuki and Zen gain a foothold in the West; took over SFZC; expanded its activities dramatically (by, among other initiatives, creating the fabled Greens restaurant); grew increasingly alienated from his followers while surrounding himself with celebrities and physical luxury; and finally stumbled by having an affair with the wife of one of SFZC's main backers. The problem with the book, and it's a serious one, is that Downing takes sides; for example, he refutes point by point the text of Baker's letter to him. What might have been a grand account of the making of a tragedy, then, is instead a mitigated tale of villainy. Yet because the debacle at SFZC holds lessons for anyone who cares about how religious structures, perforce hierarchical, can and should operate within a democratic society, this book deserves a wide reading, and not only by the many Buddhists who will buy it lickety-split. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
The serene devotional activities normally associated with a Buddhist monastery are certainly placed on the back burner in this examination of the San Francisco Zen Center. Novelist Downing does a fine job of exploring the world of Richard Baker (a disciple of Japanese spiritual leader Suzukiroshi, who founded the center), Baker's extravagant lifestyle, the amazing array of business and personal dealings associated with the center, and the sex scandal that eventually transpired. Also impressive is the collection of stories featuring, among others, Edmund "Jerry" Brown, then-governor of California, who at one time lived at the Zen Center; Werner Erhardt, founder of est; and Gary Snyder, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet. Novelist Downing (Breakfast with Scot) journeys from the utopian origins of the center as the first Buddhist monastery ever established outside of Asia, through the success of the upscale Greens restaurant and the Tassahara Bread Bakery, to the explosion of shady business dealings, sexual exploitation of female workers, cultlike activities, and seemingly hypocritical use of Zen philosophies. Downing is not judgmental, instead presenting facts in a narrative style that flows quickly through 20 years of Zen Center enterprises and tumult. Many of those who sought tranquility at the center were successful, but at what degree of cynicism and at what price? Recommended for public libraries. Kay Meredith Dusheck, Univ. of Iowa, Iowa City Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
As soon as Downing, author of the novel Breakfast with Scot (1999), began work on his groundbreaking history of the San Francisco Zen Center, the first Buddhist monastery established outside of Asia, he realized that Richard Baker, the charismatic and controversial dharma heir of the center's Japanese Zen Buddhist founder, Suzuki-roshi, was the epicenter of a complex and mutable tale. Baker became abbot when Suzuki-roshi died in 1971, then fell spectacularly from grace a dozen years later after turning a modest venture into a thriving organization that owned valuable real estate and successful businesses such as the famous vegetarian restaurant Greens. Rather than imposing a rigid narrative structure, Downing wisely takes a Zen approach and weaves together diverse voices, including Baker's, to create a fascinating, multifaceted chronicle that reveals the monumental challenges the center faced in creating an American form of Zen Buddhism, the intensity of the participants (including high-profile figures such as poet Gary Snyder and former California governor Jerry Brown), and Baker's mercurialness. Is he a bold visionary or a womanizing megalomaniac who lived in luxury while his penniless followers worked like indentured servants? Downing's masterfully orchestrated inquiry is an invaluable portrait of the heart of the contradictory, still evolving, and unquestionably significant American Buddhist movement. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Shoes Outside the Door is a not only a fine history of the San Francisco Zen Center and Zen in the United States, it is a cautionary tale, valuable to anyone embarked on a spiritual practice." —San Jose Mercury News.

Eastern tradition collides with Western individualism in this provocative and compulsively readable investigation of Buddhism, American-style. A genuine spiritual movement becomes strangely entangled with elitist aesthetics, the culture of celebrity, multi-million-dollar investment portfolios, sex scandals, and an unsolved crime.

Told Rashomon-fashion by a singular mix of hippies, millionaires, intellectuals, and lost souls whose lives are almost unbelievably intertwined, Shoes Outside the Door is the first book to examine the inner workings of the profoundly influential San Francisco Zen Center. In exploring the history of the most important institution in American Buddhism, author Michael Downing provocatively captures the profound ambivalence of people who earnestly seek both inner peace and worldly satisfaction.

Author Biography: Michael Downing is the author of four novels, including Breakfast with Scot and Perfect Agreement, and a play, "The Last Shaker." He teaches creative writing at Tufts University and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

SYNOPSIS

Downing (creative writing, Tufts U.) is a novelist and playwright who tackled a history in this work, spending three years studying documents and interviewing some 80 people to chronicle the establishment of the first Buddhist monastery outside of Asia in the history of the world. Begun in 1959, the San Francisco Zen Center grew to be a multifaceted locus for the counterculture during the 1970s, engaging in numerous entrepreneurial enterprises (Tassajara Hot Springs resort, Green Gulch Farm, and Greens restaurant). Its decline occurred in the early 1980s because of a sex scandal. This history investigates the people and events connected with the Center's rise and fall and also discusses the basic tenets of Zen Buddhism—and why this form of spirituality attracted such a following in America.

Annotation © Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

FROM THE CRITICS

LA Times

He paints a complex picture of Westerners in a genuine struggle with Eastern concepts and traditions...This is a highly readable book.

Booklist

Downing wisely takes a Zen approach and weaves together diverse voices to create a fascinating, multifaceted chronicle...

NY Review of Books

Dramatic and thoughtful.... The literary result superficially resembles a Rashomon-like medley of incommensurate perspectives, but Downing is no relativist. His narrative line, though continually interrupted, is lucid and convincing, and he challenges his interviewees' occasional half-truths with sharp comments and rhetorical questions that bring buried factors into view.

Austin Chronicle

Downing unpacks Zen Center's story deftly, drawing the reader in with his comfortable, chatty prose and wry wit...The intrigue of the story will draw you near, but it is Downing's nuanced delivery of the facts that will make you stay, hungry for more.

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