Dear All,
I need your help if you are someone who, even for a moment, was ever considering pursuing the Path of Ordination as a Zen Priest, but gave up the idea of Ordination because of a health condition, disability or advanced age, or what you perceived as potential obstacles in doing so due to such conditions.
I need you to tell your stories (anonymously, if you wish) in the following survey being conducted by the Soto Zen Buddhist Association. It is vital, and now is the time to speak up! Your story will help others have a chance in the future, and knock those obstacles down.
The Soto Zen Buddhist Association, the organization of Soto Zen priests primarily outside Japan, has a long history of discrimination against the aged and disabled in their training requirements for priesthood and membership, throwing obstacles in the path of such individuals because of requirements for various residential and other physical acts of training, even if with often good intentions. This has rendered it difficult, and often impossible, for such people to become members of that organization. Furthermore, member Zen Sangha have placed like barriers on the path by their own physical requirements of ceremony, residential practice, labor and priest training. In many cases, persons have been dissuaded from even seeking ordination for fear that they could not meet the physical requirements. For years, some of us have raised challenge to such policies, but have been silenced or even punished and threatened with possible expulsion for doing so.
Finally, the SZBA has formed a committee that may be a first step to dealing with these issues. It is conducting a survey that may (we can only hope) be a first crack of light to rectifying these issues. If you are someone, or know someone, who has encountered difficulty in considering Ordination, even as a passing consideration for a moment, or who met difficulties that discouraged you in completing your Zen training, please kindly respond to this anonymous survey that they are conducting. They have created the survey to find out more about the experience of Soto Zen priests, or those who had difficulty becoming or thinking about possibly becoming so, who have physical/mental disabilities or who identify as neuro-diverse.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please take a look at the survey and fill it out if you have or have had a disability OR self-identify as facing a psychological/emotional challenge, with or without an official diagnosis.
Please complete the survey by: February 14, 2022
This survey is intended for both SZBA members with disabilities and Soto Zen practitioners with disabilities who are not SZBA members. If you know someone who is a Soto Zen priest or has considered priest training and has/has had a disability, please share this survey with them.
THANK YOU! We need you to tell your stories to help many others in the future!
Also, please spread the word about the survey!
Gassho, Jundo
STLah
I need your help if you are someone who, even for a moment, was ever considering pursuing the Path of Ordination as a Zen Priest, but gave up the idea of Ordination because of a health condition, disability or advanced age, or what you perceived as potential obstacles in doing so due to such conditions.
I need you to tell your stories (anonymously, if you wish) in the following survey being conducted by the Soto Zen Buddhist Association. It is vital, and now is the time to speak up! Your story will help others have a chance in the future, and knock those obstacles down.
The Soto Zen Buddhist Association, the organization of Soto Zen priests primarily outside Japan, has a long history of discrimination against the aged and disabled in their training requirements for priesthood and membership, throwing obstacles in the path of such individuals because of requirements for various residential and other physical acts of training, even if with often good intentions. This has rendered it difficult, and often impossible, for such people to become members of that organization. Furthermore, member Zen Sangha have placed like barriers on the path by their own physical requirements of ceremony, residential practice, labor and priest training. In many cases, persons have been dissuaded from even seeking ordination for fear that they could not meet the physical requirements. For years, some of us have raised challenge to such policies, but have been silenced or even punished and threatened with possible expulsion for doing so.
Finally, the SZBA has formed a committee that may be a first step to dealing with these issues. It is conducting a survey that may (we can only hope) be a first crack of light to rectifying these issues. If you are someone, or know someone, who has encountered difficulty in considering Ordination, even as a passing consideration for a moment, or who met difficulties that discouraged you in completing your Zen training, please kindly respond to this anonymous survey that they are conducting. They have created the survey to find out more about the experience of Soto Zen priests, or those who had difficulty becoming or thinking about possibly becoming so, who have physical/mental disabilities or who identify as neuro-diverse.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please take a look at the survey and fill it out if you have or have had a disability OR self-identify as facing a psychological/emotional challenge, with or without an official diagnosis.
Please complete the survey by: February 14, 2022
This survey is intended for both SZBA members with disabilities and Soto Zen practitioners with disabilities who are not SZBA members. If you know someone who is a Soto Zen priest or has considered priest training and has/has had a disability, please share this survey with them.
THANK YOU! We need you to tell your stories to help many others in the future!
Also, please spread the word about the survey!
Gassho, Jundo
STLah
for positive poetry 優婆塞 台 婆
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