The Zen of Sphincter Control
The Washington Post reports:
Mercedez Marquez, a woman President Obama has appointed to a prominent federal housing position, is being mocked by conservative bloggers for paying a Zen buddhist [sic] priest thousands of dollars from her post at the Los Angeles Housing Department.
Ms. Marquez was quoted by the Los Angeles Times in 2007 supporting paying Norma Wong $18,819 for ‘management training that includes teaching breathing with sphincter control, learning “how to stand” and playing with wooden sticks.”
Um, someone who did a few years of Zen training with a truly fine teacher, I don’t know what the heck Marquez and Wong (who is apparently an instructor at the Institute of Zen Studies) are talking about here.
Anyone?
And a note to The Media: if you report on this in a way that reduces “Zen” to anything like “sphincter control” and “playing with wooden sticks,” YOU’RE NOT DOING YOUR JOB.
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April 21st, 2009 at 11:56 am
oh c’mon. you dont know about the Zen of clenching?
April 21st, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Hmmm. Well, I don’t know about Zen, but someone I’ve studied with, Reggie Ray, teaches a modern “body work” based on traditional Tibetan yoga that involves breathing through the perineum (or, the, ahem, “taint”). Reggie talks about it in a lot of his recordings, and he might be able to tell you more about the history of this practice and others.