Zen Teacher Brad Warner wrote a blog post about Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, titled "Thich Nhat Hanh Is Wrong." Then in a more recent post, he noted that readers complained of his disrespect to Thich Nhat Hanh.
There are two issues here. One, was he really disrespectful to TNH, or Thay, as his students call him? And two, what was in that Thay was wrong about?
As to the first issue, I respect Thay enormously, but he's still a human being who is capable of being wrong about things. It's not healthy to put someone on such a high pedestal that they may not be so much as fact-checked. I suspect Thay would agree with that.
Now, on to what Sensei Warner thought was wrong --
It was a tweet -- "When you contemplate the big, full sunrise, the more mindful & concentrated you are, the more the beauty of the sunrise is revealed to you."
Probably Thay doesn't write his own tweets, but let's go on -- what's wrong with the statement? I've had moments, particularly during sesshin, in which everything seems overwhelmingly beautiful. And the everything could be anything -- a flower, a bug, an old pot. It doesn't have to be something as glorious as a sunrise.
But I think Warner Sensei has a point when he says "Sounds to me like mindfulness would get in the way of the sunrise." Mindfulness is an important aspect of Buddhist practice, but don't objectify it. Don't make it into a big something that you aren't doing right. Don't expect magic to happen when you do get it right. Those "beauty" moments come when they come, but usually not until your expectations are worn out.
Mindfulness is becoming something of a fetish in some parts of the spirituality industry, seems to me. You can find lots of magazine articles about mindfulness being the key to happiness, for example. I question whether mindfulness unsupported by shamatha meditation would have the desired effect, however.
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