Ignoble Silence

Lots of people go to court; they pay millions of dollars so they don’t have to make an apology.
~ Ken McLeod, Guru Deity Protector, 2004

It’s been almost two months since the publication of My Story. 

Reactions to this blog have been mainly of two kinds.  Those from people affiliated with Unfettered Mind and Ken McLeod: his Board of Directors, students, fans and other supporters, and those from people having no affiliation with Unfettered Mind and Ken McLeod (or me).  

The responses of the unaffiliated have included critical and multi-faceted reflections by some well-known Buddhist bloggers.  Myoan Grace Schireson wrote Those Misbehaving Monks on Sweeping Zen, Justin Whitaker wrote two separate analyses for Patheos.  Seth Segall, editor of the Existential Buddhist, wrote an essay in response to Ken’s lawsuit threat against Adam Tebbe.

The public response from those affiliated with Ken McLeod and Unfettered Mind has been, for the most part, silence while, privately, Ken and his Board of Directors have responded to me and others with lies, denial, threats and lawsuits.

The day of my last blog entry, Unfettered Mind Board member Robert Conrad wrote an email to me in which he called me “evil” and “destructive” for publishing my story.  Then Mr. Conrad crafted the legal threat that was sent by him on behalf of Ken to Adam Tebbe, editor of Sweeping Zen, for publishing the article written by Ms. Schireson's whom Conrad also threatened to sue.  He did this presumably as a preemptive strike to discourage further public discussion.  That didn’t work.

Those affiliated with Ken McLeod or Unfettered Mind have mostly been defensive, dismissive and hostile in response to this blog and my allegations.  The exception to this rule was George Draffan who, despite his 20-year affiliation with Ken and his organization, publicly criticized Ken’s recalcitrance “to acknowledge the facts, to apologize for mistakes, and to transform the difficulty into something positive and worthy.”

The refusal to acknowledge wrongdoing and apologize is indeed surprising coming from a Buddhist teacher who recognizes “the power of remorse or regret” and  who knows that it “involves two or three things. One is acknowledgment: I did this.” (Ken McLeod, Then and Now, class 23, 2008)

The inability to admit fault or wrongdoing is a basic narcissistic defense.  It serves to strengthen one’s identity in response to criticism and/or stress.  But when this defense is fortified to the extent that persons (or their affiliations) no longer tolerate outside criticism or public scrutiny, it starts to strangle the very identity it was intended to protect. 

In his email written to me the day I published my last blog post, besides calling me names, Robert Conrad said that he was “greatly disappointed” in me.  How bizarre, I thought, that he should use that expression and feel that way.  I and the other grievant have been stonewalled for almost two years by a teacher and his followers who, having once offered “a path outside established institutions,” have now become a club “for members only”.  The path as groupthink?  That, Mr. Conrad, is disappointing.

S.L. Bloom, founder of the Sanctuary model for nonviolent organizations, writes that “the ability of a group to solicit and listen to the dissenting minority is the only real defense against groupthink”.  The problem may be that Ken McLeod has got too comfortable using silence as a means of disengaging from conflict.  He would have to be willing to break the silence for any dialogue to be possible.  Not easy to do when, as Kipling Williams notes, “there is something so addictive about the act of maintaining silence and pretending someone does not exist that it becomes very difficult for sources to break with its use.” (Ostracism: The Power of Silence)

Not easy but not impossible, and I remain hopeful that a man with the intelligence, sensitivity and understanding of Ken McLeod has the ability to see the way from here.