Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 5, No. 6, 2006, Page 66
their [sic] family unit? Is that what the Divine Being had in mind? Weren‘t we instilled with
independent thought for a reason?‖ (p. 214)
Indeed we were, and it is as a thoughtful and insightful woman that Brenda Lee has penned
this memoir that celebrates the triumph of her successful flight to freedom and compels us
to celebrate with her.
Mary Kochan
The Great Failure: A Bartender, A Monk, and My Unlikely Path to Truth
Natalie Goldberg, Harper San Francisco, 2004. ISBN: 0060733993 (hardcover),
$23.95 ($15.57 Amazon.com).208 pages
Idealization of spiritual teachers can be so strong that news of their ethical misconduct is
just as shocking after their death as it is while they are alive. In her latest book, The Great
Failure: A Bartender, a Monk, and My Unlikely Path to Truth (Harper San Francisco, 2004),
Natalie Goldberg poignantly reveals her dismay and disappointment at finding out, several
years after his death, that Katagiri Roshi, her Zen teacher, had slept with some of his
female students. Similarly, Goldberg shares her dismay at finding out after his death about
her father‘s extramarital affair.
Clients, patients, students, or employees might view their psychotherapists, doctors, school
teachers, college professors, and supervisors at work as parental figures from the past.
These current relationships may evoke in the clients, patients, students, or employees
yearnings and expectations that might or might not be met. ―I needed to be reflected in
another,‖ Goldberg admits. (p. 101) This is what Freud called transference. The
relationships between spiritual teachers and their students are fraught with potential for
sticky transferences that can become difficult for those involved to work through—especially
since these dynamics are rarely, if at all, acknowledged or commented on in the spiritual
teacher-student relationship. As Goldberg notes, ―Unknowingly, Roshi became my mother,
my father, my Zen master.‖ (p. 102, emphasis added)
Spiritual teachers represent not only parental figures for their students in a very real
sense, they represent, for want of a better term, the Divine. For example, Zen students
may believe that their Zen teachers are deeply enlightened individuals. With their many
years of meditation and training, and the authority vested in them by virtue of ceremonies
that sanction the transmission of the Buddha‘s teachings, they become infallible spiritual
heroes. ―I had made him [Katagiri Roshi] perfect,‖ Goldberg confesses. ―I was driven to get
what I had longed for in my family.‖ (p. 101) ―He spoke to me evenly, honestly. My hunger
was satiated—the ignored little girl still inside me and the adult seeker—both were
nourished.‖ (p. 118)
As Goldberg looks back on her six years as Katagiri Roshi‘s student, she identifies moments
when her idealization was weakened:
I had a glimmer then of the chasm between the Zen master and the lonely,
insecure man. That moment was an opportunity to hold contradictory parts
of him, to understand life doesn‘t work in a neat package the way I wanted it
to. I could have come closer to his humanity—and mine. But I wasn‘t ready
or willing. I had a need for him only to be great, to hold my projections. In
freezing him on a pedestal I had only contributed to his isolation. (p. 115)
As a former Zen student of fifteen years, I recall how I, too, needed my former teacher of
eleven years to ―be great.‖ Would I have idealized her less if my own personal needs had
been less, or if I had acquired enough perspective of how the Zen institution contributed to
mythmaking through the centuries? Goldberg was fortunate to have that glimmer. Was she
an unusually perceptive student, or did her Zen teacher allow himself to be revealed in
their [sic] family unit? Is that what the Divine Being had in mind? Weren‘t we instilled with
independent thought for a reason?‖ (p. 214)
Indeed we were, and it is as a thoughtful and insightful woman that Brenda Lee has penned
this memoir that celebrates the triumph of her successful flight to freedom and compels us
to celebrate with her.
Mary Kochan
The Great Failure: A Bartender, A Monk, and My Unlikely Path to Truth
Natalie Goldberg, Harper San Francisco, 2004. ISBN: 0060733993 (hardcover),
$23.95 ($15.57 Amazon.com).208 pages
Idealization of spiritual teachers can be so strong that news of their ethical misconduct is
just as shocking after their death as it is while they are alive. In her latest book, The Great
Failure: A Bartender, a Monk, and My Unlikely Path to Truth (Harper San Francisco, 2004),
Natalie Goldberg poignantly reveals her dismay and disappointment at finding out, several
years after his death, that Katagiri Roshi, her Zen teacher, had slept with some of his
female students. Similarly, Goldberg shares her dismay at finding out after his death about
her father‘s extramarital affair.
Clients, patients, students, or employees might view their psychotherapists, doctors, school
teachers, college professors, and supervisors at work as parental figures from the past.
These current relationships may evoke in the clients, patients, students, or employees
yearnings and expectations that might or might not be met. ―I needed to be reflected in
another,‖ Goldberg admits. (p. 101) This is what Freud called transference. The
relationships between spiritual teachers and their students are fraught with potential for
sticky transferences that can become difficult for those involved to work through—especially
since these dynamics are rarely, if at all, acknowledged or commented on in the spiritual
teacher-student relationship. As Goldberg notes, ―Unknowingly, Roshi became my mother,
my father, my Zen master.‖ (p. 102, emphasis added)
Spiritual teachers represent not only parental figures for their students in a very real
sense, they represent, for want of a better term, the Divine. For example, Zen students
may believe that their Zen teachers are deeply enlightened individuals. With their many
years of meditation and training, and the authority vested in them by virtue of ceremonies
that sanction the transmission of the Buddha‘s teachings, they become infallible spiritual
heroes. ―I had made him [Katagiri Roshi] perfect,‖ Goldberg confesses. ―I was driven to get
what I had longed for in my family.‖ (p. 101) ―He spoke to me evenly, honestly. My hunger
was satiated—the ignored little girl still inside me and the adult seeker—both were
nourished.‖ (p. 118)
As Goldberg looks back on her six years as Katagiri Roshi‘s student, she identifies moments
when her idealization was weakened:
I had a glimmer then of the chasm between the Zen master and the lonely,
insecure man. That moment was an opportunity to hold contradictory parts
of him, to understand life doesn‘t work in a neat package the way I wanted it
to. I could have come closer to his humanity—and mine. But I wasn‘t ready
or willing. I had a need for him only to be great, to hold my projections. In
freezing him on a pedestal I had only contributed to his isolation. (p. 115)
As a former Zen student of fifteen years, I recall how I, too, needed my former teacher of
eleven years to ―be great.‖ Would I have idealized her less if my own personal needs had
been less, or if I had acquired enough perspective of how the Zen institution contributed to
mythmaking through the centuries? Goldberg was fortunate to have that glimmer. Was she
an unusually perceptive student, or did her Zen teacher allow himself to be revealed in
