Christian Oaks used to write for BuddhaJones before "the big wake-up," as he calls it. I caught up with him to ask if he'd be interested in blogging here now. Below is our e-mail exchange, edited.

Here are some of Christian's old "flashback" articles:
- Fractured Koans
- Los Angeles Crime Blotter
- Various Schools of Nichiren Buddhism, Represented as Menu Items
- Are you a pacifist? Take this quiz.

BB: What do you mean by the big wake-up?

CO: I mean I woke up. I realized that I was deeply involved with a sangha that wasn't a sangha at all. Instead, it was like a multi-level marketing company that made claims of exclusive access to an amazing product. I was pressured -- sometimes subtly, sometimes overtly -- to sell this product to myself, my friends and family.

As with all schemes of this sort, the pitch is that you're doing something to benefit these customers and the world by letting them in on the fabulous opportunity to embrace a special brand-name product. I woke up to that fact that this is not Buddhism.

BB: What woke you up?
CO: I made a little gap between me and this dubious sangha. This happened by accident.

In Northern California where I live, there are many Buddhists of all stripes. Ever the relentless marketer, I made a deal with one of my co-workers. He would come to one of my meetings if I agreed to go with him to a weekend Shambhala training. I enjoyed the whole vibe and spirit of Shambhala.

I was a Nichiren snob, of course, so I never even considered changing brands. But maybe I touched on what the Shambhala people call basic sanity. I looked at my own sangha from a new perspective. I used to think I needed the corporate apparatus of that sangha to somehow maintain my relationship with my chosen brand of Buddhism. What I understand now is that the buddhadharma is inside me, and it has nothing to do with winning converts and feeling like I joined the right club.

This was around 2003. A lot of people I knew were coming to similar conclusions through various other pathways. I call it the big wake-up because so many of my friends woke up at the same time. One friend left the company in dramatic fashion, making big statements of disavowal, and I saw that this is actually the hard way to leave, because the whole company is trained to rope strays back into the herd, or shoot them dead so they don't infect others with thoughts of leaving.

The best way to leave is to slip out the back, jack. Just drop off the radar without a peep. Don't respond to the company's calls and messages. Don't give them another ounce of your personal energy, because if you do, they'll use it as a crowbar to leverage you back in to the company or else hit you over the head with it.

By the way, that's how you can be sure you're involved in some very questionable group dynamics, when you want to leave but part of the group's mission is to make leaving difficult and shameful.

My writing for BuddhaJones was the first hint I had that my group was more messed up than I was willing to face. I insisted on using a pseudonym. I was terrified that other members of the group would find out that I was involved in something independent and slightly subversive.

Oy, the shock and betrayal your readers will feel when they learn Christian Oaks is not my real name. There were times when group members would forward a link of an article I wrote and say, "Have you seen this? Who is Christian Oaks? What a jerk." Some of them probably suspected me.

BB: If you blog at BuddhaJones will you continue to use a pseudonym?

CO: With myspace and facebook, everybody is putting their personal business on the street, which I think is foolish for a host of reasons. I will blog "pseudonymously," as you suggest on the intro page. You and I both know of people who have been forthcoming online about who they are and what they believe with regard to Nichiren Buddhism. Unfortunately, there are some messed up people out there who make weird and credible threats. Mental illness is by no means confined to Nichiren practitioners, but I think the company actually reinforces beliefs and behaviors that are inconsistent with sane, civilized living. I learned some very perverse interpretations of the buddhadharma from the company and I know others have as well, and taken them more to heart, more than is appropriate.

BB: Whoa. You have to elaborate on that. Are you saying that your former sangha fosters mental illness?

CO: Har. I guess I should backpedal now. I'm not a mental health professional, so take my observations with a grain of salt. What the company does is encourage and reward religious fanaticism. Fanatical opposition to rival Nichiren groups, fanatical adulation of their billionaire leader, fanatical crushing of all perceived "enemies." Yes it's messed up. I won't back off that point. It's a real sickness in the Nichiren Buddhist community.

BB: After you left, did you affiliate with another Nichiren-related group?

CO: I did a little shopping, but no. I'll make one more offensive blanket statement about Nichiren practitioners. We're a bunch of sheep. We talk big about being leaders but we're a bunch of followers. We have no faith in our individual agency and power. We think we have to join a group to be of any consequence. We love to be in a little hive of groupthink and mutual reassurance. We rationalize our sheeplike instincts by saying that the sangha is one of the three treasures of Buddhism and you can't practice correctly without belonging to a group. I question that belief.

I don't have an answer yet. I'm just seriously questioning.