That's the second one, the one I'm in now.

Just kidding. Yes, the photo was a big red flag. Also their dharma just didn't make sense and they were like "it may take a lifetime to understand this one thing". Later I realized that most Buddhists teach kind of the opposite of that.

Now I'm in a direct democratic zen group that explicitly has no master. The founder has some natural authority because he learned it in Japan but no one cares about his strict rules. Which is the best of both worlds: you have rules for those who seek guidance but you can just ignore them with no consequences.

Could easily be SGI too, they have some very culty elements to their practices. And they are all over with many convenient locations, like all the best cults.