Early in my study of Buddhism, one of my greatest fears was that of being taken in by some bad teacher. I reasoned that since I didn't have any real background in what authentic Buddhism ought to be, nor was I Enlightened, I could easily end up following someone really crappy without knowing it. Since I trusted my first teacher, I used to always try to find out who he liked and stick with them. When he said something nice about Krishnamurti, I went out and bought tons of books by Krishnamurti. When he said Paul Reps was a dork, I threw out my copy of Zen Flesh, Zen Bones (OK, actually I sold it back to a used bookstore).

That was dumb. Though I still like Krishnamurti a lot and I can see why he didn't like Reps, it wasn't really necessary to try to adopt his tastes. The fact is, unless you're seriously retarded you'll only be taken in by crappy teachings if you really want to be. It was hard for me to believe that, and I've known several students of Nishijima who adamantly refuse to read books or attend lectures by anyone else because of the same fear I had. So I thought I'd try and write up some of the warning signs of Bad Buddhism.

MONEY: This is not the most important topic. But I'm putting it first since most of the people who wrote me focused on it. It is not necessarily a bad thing when money changes hands in the course of Buddhist teaching. I am writing a book on Zen and when it gets published I'll get paid royalties (I hope). When I hold lectures or retreats everyone (including me) pays a fee to cover the expenses. Most teachers charge money for such activities. For some of them this is an important source of income. Personally, I have more trust in someone who charges a specific fee than one who offers his services for "free" with the suggestion that the participants really ought to donate. Some extraordinarily good teachers like Krishnamurti and Shunryu Suzuki made their living from teaching. Everyone, including Buddhist teachers, has to make money somehow. What you should do is take a hard look at what your donation is paying for. Ask yourself if you want to pay for that. I buy most of my CDs from a certain small shop in Tokyo because I like the people who run it and I want their business to do well. Look out for anyone who promises you some nebulous reward for your donation. Does the teacher suggest that your donation will increase your good karma and lead to your receiving more money in the future? A teacher who plays to your greed is not to be trusted. Joshu Sasaki, a Rinzai Zen teacher, talking about bad Buddhist teachers who want your money said, "Instead of giving it to them you ought to give it to me!" Or as Johnny Rotten said about the Sex Pistols reunion, "It's not a rip-off if you tell people it's a rip-off." If you are honest with yourself, you won't get taken in by someone who's not honest with you. If you send money to me I will use it to buy punk rock CDs, guitars and old dinosaur books (write me for the address).

DON'T GET TAKEN IN BY THE WHOLE ATMOSPHERE OF THE THING: This is the most important factor. Come to everything as if you have no previous experience. I was talking to a friend of mine at work about that Tibetan teacher I saw last week. This friend of mine has no background at all in Zen, though she's always willing to listen to my rants. When I told her the guy had said, "I can bring you to full awakening in five years," her reply was brilliant. "What's that supposed to mean?" she asked. If anyone listening to that guy last Saturday had been able to ask such a direct question, the guy would've been dead in the water. Guaranteed. Though I knew his comment was nonsense, I was too tainted by decades of Buddhist nonsense to come up with a question like that. The guy had created a demand for "full awakening" just the way McDonald's creates a demand for Big Macs. Everyone wanted this thing he had and now he was prepared to sell it. No one thought to ask why we ought to want such a thing or indeed just what exactly it was he had us all wanting.

WATCH OUT FOR ANYONE WHO'S TOO CHARMING: Real Buddhist teachers are very direct, very honest. They don't care whether you like them or even whether you respect them or not. They might be likable or funny. But they won't be trying to win you over. A fake will try hard to win your affection and respect. Charm doesn't always equate with being personable either. An attitude that's too controlling is another way to be charming. People want authority figures. Teachers who play into that role ought to be avoided. That being said, though, groups need leaders, and the difference between leadership and authority is often very subtle. Just stay alert.

PROMISES, PROMISES: Anyone who promises you enlightenment or full awakening is not to be trusted. No one can bring you to awakening. You have to do that yourself. If someone tells you otherwise he's lying. Promises of speedy enlightenment are especially obnoxious. Don't fall for them. Anyone who suggests you need to do something, or to have something which only he can provide is a fraud.

CREDENTIALS: The biggest mistake I made when setting up this page was to try and establish my credentials. An early version of the top page said "I am a Zen Master." I wanted this to be an ironic contrast to the photo of me in the Alien Benzen costume as well as a way of tearing down people's concepts of Zen Masters as some kind of spiritual superbeings. I thought I ought to be up front about my lineage because I have very ambivalent feelings about the whole thing. I almost refused to accept Dharma Transmission because of those feelings (see this article for more). Truly awful Buddhist teachers have no problem with this and will list all kinds of credentials and claim all sorts of famous people have recognized them as "Enlightened Beings." The Enlightened Beings Club is a scam. It's like saying you were recognized as a Super Model by Cindy Crawford and Naomi Campbell. What's a Super Model apart from people like Naomi and Cindy? A big part of establishing one's self as part of the Enlightened Beings Club is to recognize other Enlightened Beings who in turn can support your claim to be an Enlightened Being.

DUMBASS TITLES: Guys who get off on being called "His Holiness" or "Roshi" or any other goofy sounding title are suspect. It's not necessary for a teacher to say, "Call me Bill," every time someone starts to refer to them with some honorific title. Lots of people like calling their teachers by some kind of title and lots of good teachers allow this. But teachers who create an atmosphere where folks are expected to call them by some title should be looked upon with some suspicion. It's a yellow flag rather than a red one. There are good teachers who feel that if students have some sense of them as an authority those students will pay more attention and maybe eventually break through the whole authority B.S. Just be careful here.

BE PATIENT WITH YOURSELF: Bad teachers always look for potential suckers -- sorry -- students who are want Enlightenment right now with minimum effort. It won't happen. Buddha himself worked at it for years as did every single one of the great Buddhist teachers. If you're impatient, you're more likely to get taken for a ride.

PARADOXES: Buddhism is full of paradoxes. That's its nature. But bad teachers often abuse this. It's sometimes hard to tell real paradoxical Buddhism from just plain old nonsense. But don't worry a whole lot about this one. Teachers who are bad enough to resort to spouting non-sequiturs and calling it Buddhism are usually pretty cartoon-y in other ways. (Oops. That kinda describes me, doesn't it?)

ECLECTICISM: This is another yellow flag. Most of the really bad fake Buddhist teachers I have seen like to tout the fact that they have very eclectic backgrounds. They're always "well versed in numerous spiritual traditions including..." followed by a long list of anything and everything from Sufi-ism and Rosacrucianism, to psychotherapy and advanced Ping Pong. Though it would appear logical to think a good teacher would be one who has gathered the best of a variety of different traditions, this does not seem to be the case. What usually happens is that these guys have a superficial knowledge of a variety of traditions from which they have extracted those portions of the teachings that suit them personally. They bounce around from temple to temple never really getting to know any of them very well. In a single human lifetime it is simply not possible to delve deeply into numerous traditions each of which takes decades to fully comprehend. You're better off with someone who is well versed in a single tradition. Extensive traveling is another yellow flag (this is coming from an Ohioan who lives in Japan, mind you). It impresses people, but it's not at all necessary to go to some distant land to understand Buddhism. Extensive adventuring tends to make people dull, unable to appreciate the beauty of their ordinary surroundings.

At a certain point anyone who studies Buddhism sincerely enough will come to the realization that everyone and everything in the Universe is nothing but himself. This realization has one very nasty side effect. A person who truly understands it, not just intellectually but right down to his bone marrow, can begin to think, "Heck, everyone in the world is me, so if I rip somebody off, I'm really only ripping off myself, so what's it matter?" One of the reasons Dogen and other teachers do not place a very high value on so called "Awakening Experiences" is because it is entirely possible to have an authentic awakening experience (or several of them) and emerge as an even bigger butthole than you were before. I have no doubt that the dude I saw in Tokyo last week was an "awakened being." But that alone was not enough to make his teachings worthwhile.