a grocery store. In the midst of the growth, Baker became a popular public figure. Although his salary was reportedly modest, he lived a lifestyle which many perceived as extravagant. With so many students and so much public attention, some felt Baker became less available to the members of the community. All of this discontent emerged when it was made public that Baker had allegedly been having an affair with the wife of an influential sangha member. Resignation Although Baker claimed that his relationship with the woman was a love-affair which had not yet been consummated, the outcry surrounding the incident led to a series of accusations of impropriety on Baker's part, including the admissions by several female members of the community that they had had affairs with Baker before or during his tenure as abbot. The community's sense of crisis sharpened when the woman's husband, one of SFZC's primary benefactors, threatened to hold the organization legally responsible for its abbot's apparent misconduct. These revelations led to community-wide pandemonium, and in 1984 Baker was forced to resign as abbot. However, San Francisco Zen Center's website now comments: "Although the circumstances leading to his resignation as abbot in 1984 were difficult and complex, in recent years, there has been increased contact; a renewal of friendship and dharma relations." And Baker, for his part, is quoted as having said in a 1994 interview with Sugata Schneider: I don't think that the gossipy or official versions of what happened are right, but I feel definitely that if I were back in the situation again as the person I am now, it wouldn't have happened. Which means it's basically my fault. I had a kind of insecurity and self-importance, which I didn't see for a long time, that was a bad dynamic in the community. In 1983 Tenshin Reb Anderson received shiho (Dharma Transmission) from Richard Baker. Anderson succeeded him as abbot, and later co-abbot. In the late-1980s Baker also gave shiho to Issan Dorsey, whom he had ordained as a priest in 1975. Dorsey went on to serve as abbot of the Hartford Street Zen Center in San Francisco, where he worked to develop hospice care for AIDS patients. Dharma Sangha Following his departure from the San Francisco Zen Center in 1984, Baker relocated to Santa Fe, New Mexico where he founded a new community known as Dharma Sangha. One student who followed