Jonathan Crowley, Episode #5
Coming Soon…
“Once you become an assistant teacher or a center manager, you're immediately involved with enforcing and upholding a lot of rules and regulations, that allow for the functioning the operation of the [meditation] courses and [meditation] center to happen,” says Jonathan Crowley. “Because of the exclusive nature of the practice, a lot of that comes down to enforcing notions of, ‘What is going to pollute or contaminate one's practice?’ … With that directive or assumption in mind, there was a purity to maintain, at the exclusion of any other considerations.”
In this, the 5th of the podcast’s ongoing discussions with Jonathan—an Assistant Teacher in the lineage of S.N. Goenka before leaving the tradition in 2021—he expands on why his relationship with the Organization deteriorated. For a fuller context, we invite you to listen to his thought-provoking, past interviews: In Part One, he shares how he became a devotee of the technique; in Part Two, he explores his growing dedication to the tradition and his work around social justice; in Part Three, he describes his experience being an Assistant Teacher and his developing struggles with the Organization’s messaging; and in Part Four, he discusses his extended time in Burma with his wife, Carolyn.
Jonathan starts off describing the local and national teacher meetings he attended. To his surprise and chargin, meditation practice was hardly ever discussed; instead, the teachers mainly functioned as a bureaucratic body to fine tune rules and procedures. This became increasingly discordant for Jonathan—he wondered why meditation teachers would so rarely discuss meditation when they had all intentionally gathered together. Even more concerning was the implicit understanding that talk about one’s practice was actually undesirable. “It was assumed that everyone knew exactly how to work, that there was nothing new to learn, and so to vocalize any kind of difficulty with the practice, or challenge, or even a success—even some kind of breakthrough or insight or something in a more deeply personal way—was not supported,” he says. “That speaks to a culture where there wasn't a lot of questioning, and oddly enough, there wasn't a lot of inspiration about the Dhamma, in terms of conversations or group discussions. Certainly, we rarely spoke about aspects of the Dhamma at [teacher] meetings.”
To Jonathan, this reticence seemed motivated by a vague sense of anxiety about what others might think, and it became a major concern for him, one that contributed to his eventual decision to leave the tradition entirely. In essence, he felt that the price of belonging carried with it an unspoken understanding: to not ask too many questions, or think critically, about the technique or the history of the lineage. In fact, early on, when he was first getting his feet on the ground as an Assistant Teacher, he wondered if he wasn’t somehow betraying the tradition by having questions,Over time, this manifested in the realization that he was suppressing whole parts of himself when he stepped onto Center land, which only further exacerbated his sense of internal strain.
To illustrate this dynamic, Jonathan describes how he once worked with several other students to put together a presentation for Senior Teachers on the topic of improving its outreach to marginalized communities. The teachers were very dismissive of the whole thing, and Jonathan became aware that even just raising the issue was seen as unwelcome. In fact, he vividly remembers that some Senior Teachers intimated that the presentation was a sign that Jonathan and his peers maybe did not have sufficient inner development as meditators. “Just hearing myself speak now, I know that some Achariyas [Senior Vipassana Teachers] will say, ‘Well, Jonathan’s obviously negative now, right?’” he recalls. “That dissonance between having those really profound experiences on my retreat, which changed my life and continue to change my life … and an Organization and tradition where your sense of belonging is dependent on not being able to openly question things, or if there were things that didn't make sense, that you couldn't question that … I found that increasingly disturbing.” However, disentangling himself from that unhealthy dynamic was not easy; the deep, psychological commitment he had forged over decades, coupled with his dedication to sitting and serving within the tradition, kept him from understanding the tension between his allegiance to the Organization and the suppression of critical thinking and questioning. This inner conflict persisted, resulting in a stressful state of constant vigilance where he felt compelled to compartmentalize and hide parts of himself.
Jonathan then reflects on a pivotal moment in his thinking. An Achariya initiated a conversation among teachers about the concept “nonsectarian,” a term that Goenka frequently used when describing his practice. This prompted Jonathan to start considering the various ways that “sect” can be defined, if they can be applied to the Organization, and if so, how. And as he learned more, he indeed began to wonder, “Are there pieces of being involved here that are reflective of cult behavior?” This led to reading more about the nature of cults (or “thought reform,” as it is known in the field). In this framework, the primary communication styles within a group can be viewed on a continuum, ranging from the open, free exchange of ideas at one end to the coercive manipulation of members at the other, with a number of named stages demarcating movement along the line. In examining the Goenka tradition through that lens, Jonathan had to conclude that it seems to fit a stage called “indoctrination” (on the “manipulative” side of the line), which is characterized by communication that is authoritative and one-way.
Jonathan is quick to point out that the most common themes associated with cults—coercive, abusive, and manipulative behaviors; along with financial pressures and sexual misconduct—do not at all characterize the Goenka Organization. “The Goenka tradition is squeaky clean [in these regards],” he affirms. “Goenka was very clear about establishing norms and guidelines around protecting issues of financial abuse or sexual scandal.” But there were, however, other issues that Jonathan had long overlooked or suppressed, and only later began to accept for what they were. “I saw a kind of emotional bypass that goes on, the lack of being able to question, a one-way kind of exchange with leadership, and even with exploring the practice itself,” he says. “And just the dynamics around not allowing open questioning, and the insularity of the tradition compared to other peer groups. I mean, Goenka’s tradition is well-known for just not participating in open forums, or [Buddhist] conferences!”
Elaborating on this suppressive culture, Jonathan turns to a perhaps unlikely source: Goenka’s own, recorded, evening discourses, which are played on every course. Goenka tells a number of anecdotes throughout; in one story, he playfully describes a sick person who receives a prescription from a doctor. But instead of getting the prescription filled and taking the medicine, he places the prescription on a shrine, chanting it as a mantra. He then goes to his doctor and asks him to explain why that particular prescription was suggested. The doctor explains his thinking, and then the man uses it as a talking point to argue with others as to why his doctor is superior to theirs. But he still hasn’t taken the medicine. Finally, he gets the prescription filled and at long last takes the medicine. This story is meant as an allegory about the differences between blind religious observance and philosophical debate on the one hand, neither of which “cure the disease;” and the actual meditation practice, or “taking the medicine.” For students of this tradition, that “medicine” means adhering to the exact meditation technique as Goenka prescribes. “That notion of, ‘My doctor is the best doctor, and all your doctors are useless,’ is, in fact, a kind of ethos of the Goenka tradition,” Jonathan says. “That becomes the ‘take home message,’ really. Of course, you can couch it, but you might say it's a Trojan Horse, because you don't say that right up front. You're hoping to attract your friends and colleagues and family to sit courses, and hope that they start to see this notion that this practice is the best practice, and all the other practices are useless or indirect. But [this view] just doesn't hold up when when you go through the Pali canon.”
While some meditation students acknowledge that aspects of gurudom may have crept hold of parts of the Organization, Jonathan’s experience has been that they pass it off as an unfortunate development that is diametrically opposed to what Goenka promoted. But Jonathan feels differently, seeing Goenka as not an innocent bystander in this; his frequent exhortations to students that “you are your own master” notwithstanding. Jonathan points to the unsettling fact that, for whatever reason, Goenka misrepresented information while presenting the wider mythologized narrative, which then served to further “branded” the tradition (and himself as well within it).
Jonathan refers again to Goenka’s own words to illustrate this. In one of the 10-day discourses, Goenka says, “We are not here to condemn other techniques” … yet then goes on to quite openly mock the Mahasi method. Similarly, in one of the 20-day course discourses, he makes fun of the Sun Lun method. In both cases, he very much distorts what they actually taught. Jonathan notes how those oral discourses were composed in the 1980s when vipassana was still little known in the West, and Myanmar was still a very closed-off country, with few knowing much about the myriad ways that Dhamma is practiced there—in other words, there was little possibility for fact-checking.
Jonathan describes how Goenka further burnished the Organization brand by placing himself squarely as the main actor in a mythologized version of how vipassana meditation was allegedly reintroduced to India, the land of its origin, after 2,500 years … except, for one thing, Anagakira Munindra had already been teaching vipassana in India for several years before Goenka arrived.
So for Jonathan, all this points to Goenka deliberately crafting a powerful, inspiring message to attract and retain students, who were more liable to believe his words after developing a kind trust in him as a powerful Dhamma teacher, born of their transformative experiences on meditation courses (and, of course, the extreme difficulty of fact-checking anything he was saying). And so it was no surprise to Jonathan that a strong sense of gurudom would form within the Goenka meditator community. And circling back to an earlier topic, it is this very mythology that helps close off inquiry and questioning; after all, what is there to investigate or wonder about if the doctor is manifestly the best and gives the only right prescription, all set in a very inspiring (if manipulated) narrative?
However, the reality is that nowadays, because of the internet and Myanmar’s opening (at least until the coup), it has become easier to investigate the claims of Goenka’s mythology. And then in terms of the actual technique, Jonathan learned though his study of the suttas that Goenka’s teaching is not nearly the entirety of the Buddha’s teaching; moreover, he now feels that Goenka’s explanations of the teaching are not always in alignment with them.
This leads Jonathan to reflect on the artificial dichotomy the tradition sets up between direct experience and critical thinking. Goenka students are encouraged to give primacy to their practice of this singular technique, while, as Jonathan described above, critical inquiry is devalued and even frowned upon as being harmful to its development. For students, this creates a kind of harmful closed loop in which the only way to resolve concerns about the practice … is simply to have faith and practice more. Or as Jonathan puts it, “There is an anti-intellectualism in the tradition.” Interestingly, this does not preclude great intellectuals becoming involved in the tradition (such as the well-known Israeli philosopher, Yuval Harari), but Jonathan points out that, for whatever reason, they seem to wall off that part of their mind when considering the tradition and the practice, and fall back on blind faith.
Simply put, Jonathan came to see that a student predisposed to engage in critical questioning would signal a lack of faith in the teacher and technique. He adds that Goenka often emphasized faith (or “saddha”) as essential on the Path, but Jonathan believes that it can sometimes go too far. “There can also be excessive faith,” he says. “Faith needs to be in balance with the other factors of mindfulness, such as effort, and wisdom. If it's out of balance, then your practice is actually going to suffer! So, balance is really important with faith… It’s sad for me, it's really sad.”
In his experience, Jonathan has seen that a large number of old students find that their practice has “plateaued,” which he directly attributes to this suppression of critical thinking and questioning. They speak of hesitating to approach a teacher to address this, because “they felt that they were just going to get a rote or parroted response,” and perhaps even judged for a perceived lack of inner development. Data that has been collected about students continuing in the lineage also paints a picture of some level of dissatisfaction with the practice, or the Organization, or both: a relatively small percentage of first-time meditators ever go on to take a second course, and there is even a sharper decrease in meditators who continue in the tradition beyond just a couple of courses (some Senior Teachers interpret this to mean that those who don’t continue are just lacking in spiritual potential).
This has prompted discussions within the Organization about a fundamental dichotomy: is the tradition’s main goal to spread the seeds of Dhamma widely, or is it to develop students who are seeking the final goal of liberation? These two possibilities point in very different directions, and essentially, this it is a classic argument about quality vs quantity. To Jonathan, it is clear that the Organization veers towards quantity, even though achieving enlightenment is the obvious goal of the Buddha’s teaching, and it is also what Goenka, himself, talks about consistently in 10-day courses. “And yet,” says Jonathan, “I didn't see the supports there for students who had been sitting and serving for many, many years, [even] decades, who had been very involved in the organization, extremely surrendered, grateful to the whole practice; they weren't really being supported.” (Acharya Barry Lapping spoke to this same issue in a recent podcast, saying that he feels the Organization should embrace both objectives equally, and that in his view, it was doing so adequately.)
As an example of what he sees as the tradition’s emphasis on “quantity,” Jonathan bemoans the fact that the number of courses one has completed remains an important “currency” within the Organization, one which seems to be prioritized over the wisdom gained or personal development achieved. And there are still other indicators that quantity plays an outsized role: he notes that because of the growing numbers of new meditators, old students who have completed just one 30-day course are often considered qualified “enough” to be assistant teachers, in order to meet the demand. Jonathan describes this growth as turning Centers into “meditation factories,” which further feeds the cycle of teachers’ meetings being reduced to mainly bureaucratic rule-making. This numbers game is also reflected in the requirement that students sit two hours daily; again, Jonathan notes that time spent on the cushion is seen as a more important marker than any mental cultivation that takes place.
All this ultimately led Jonathan to make the difficult decision to leave the tradition. “It's such a mixed [feeling],” he acknowledges. “I really owe where I am at right now in my life to this tradition. I'm established in the Dhamma because of Goenkaji and this tradition! And yet, at some point, it began not to serve me anymore. And that became problematic, because I was just so invested, there was so much of myself that [went into] belonging.... And yet, I had to admit that only part of myself could show up. Those are the things that I began to grapple with, and eventually did lead to my departure.”
He was prepared for the grim reception that awaited his decision, after having witnessed past meditators leave the tradition over the years. The usual response came in some expression of pity, like, “Oh, [too bad for them], they left the Path, they left the pure Dhamma!” He knew it would be no different for him. And he also knew he would have deeply conflicted feelings in deciding to divorce himself from a group that he had poured so much of himself into. “When you're involved as much as I was, you can't really leave the Organization with dignity,” he says sadly.
What did surprise and even sadden him, however, was that teacher peers he had worked with for 30 years, and sat many retreats with, never contacted him or even asked why he was leaving! This will be the topic of our sixth and final episode with Jonathan.