The Soto Zen Buddhist Association, an accrediting organization of Soto Zen clergy in the English speaking world which I have belonged to since 2004, will currently not recognize any priest as a full member unless the applicant has spent:
"At least 5 years training at a monastery, in a residential practice community, or while living a temple-centered life"
and
"At least one 90-day formal practice intensive that meets the criteria established by the SZBA training committee."
(https://static1.squarespace.com/stat...-Standards.pdf)
and
"At least one 90-day formal practice intensive that meets the criteria established by the SZBA training committee."
(https://static1.squarespace.com/stat...-Standards.pdf)
These are honest, well-intended standards meant to identify those Soto Zen priests who are serious, dedicated, well-trained and experienced in our Traditions, priests who have a proven record of good, ethical and energetic service to other sentient beings, filtering out those who are not so serious, dedicated, ethical and the rest. I support these standards, and the vast majority of SZBA full members have been able to satisfy these standards. Problems arise only with regard to those serious, dedicated priests who, due to disabilities and other hardships which they are passing through with grace, wisdom and courage, are unable to meet those requirements because of how they are narrowly interpreted by the SZBA. When requests for change are made to the SZBA, the complaints are ignored, microphones turned off, doors slammed shut.
Despite many possible meanings to "living a temple-centered life," and despite Master Dogen's own flexibility on the meaning of "90-day formal practice intensive" (Ango), the SZBA continues to discriminate against those fine priests who cannot do so, simply because most members of the SZBA and its Board of Directors once physically could or can.
There are active priests who have demonstrated, over long years, that they are dedicated and have been serving others ethically and with great energy, but who are simply unable to attend to such physical training and residential isolation without serious risks to health. Nonetheless, such priests have repeatedly, over years, demonstrated their knowledge and understanding of our Traditions, history and practices (as they are able to adapt them to their physical needs) in ways which bring unique insights and outreach to our Path. To give a few examples:
- One priest, although unable due to age and health and his duties to care for a visually impaired partner, has spent years with good reputation, catering to a small Sangha of other primarily elderly individuals in his community.
- Another priest, although with a health condition which rarely allows him to exit his room without threat to health, has spent years making sound recordings for the visually impaired of Shobogenzo, offering guidance online, especially through his group focused on Zen, Pain and Chronic Illness to so many Zen practitioners in like circumstances.
- Another priest, with cancer and in chemotherapy, is simply unable to perform standard rituals, so has designed alternative ceremonies which can be undertaken from a cancer bed.
- Another priest, although with a potentially life threatening illness, carries on as a medical practitioner near her home helping ill and suffering sentient beings, but would be at serious risk of thromboembolism and stroke if engaged in residential practice away from home.
- Still another priest, although healthy himself, cannot be far away from a relative in need of constant nursing care, yet also finds the time to cater to a Sangha, study and practice our Zen ways, all with good reputation.
These priests would barred by the powers within the SZBA because, if I may summarize what has been said by some who would close the doors on their entrance, "Their training cannot be like our training was." In other words, their personal experiences of Zen practice, sitting with physical pain, debilitation, loss, isolation, cancer and mortality on the brink of life and death are deemed just not equivalent to a few weeks of sitting by a healthier person in a retreat somewhere.
Why? Because a few healthier priests, fortunate enough to swing circumstances and get by, were able to get away from their life responsibilities for a time to do these things. I ask those more fortunate priests, "What is the true living of a 'temple-centered life'?" As one of these barred priests said to me, "We sit RIGHT HERE with pain, loss, isolation, cancer, and mortality, not off in some special isolated place." Their ministry is directed toward others who also know pain, loss, isolation, cancer, and mortality.
I am sure that the SZBA folks mean well, that they are not bad people with evil intent. But sometimes even good people can do cruel things and can engage in terrible discrimination and prejudice without meaning to do so. I have been told by people in the SZBA, "Well, these folks don't have to be priests, and they can be of service in some other way." But why can't they be priests? Better said, are they not now demonstrating that they are superb priests, serious and serving others?
Some have said to me, "Well, a priest must be able to do X, Y and Z, such as run a temple, sit Zazen for long hours, travel and give talks, for that is what priests do." Such people ignore the fact that, in both Asia and in the west, today and in centuries past, not all Zen priests fit that description, have found other ways of service (e.g., feeding the poor, nursing the sick, making art and poetry, building bridges and waterways, and much more) and that "running a temple" is not always a matter of some old building of wood and gold. Some recline Zen, or sit their Zen in the chemotherapy chair. Today, in the 21st century, there are ways for these priests to be trained, to practice and study, and to serve others through media simply unavailable 100 or 1000 years ago.
Some in the SZBA have said to me, "Well, this is just their bad Karma from the past to now be sick, it cannot be helped." Such people ignore the fact that identical claims were used in the past by Soto Zen in Japan to excuse their discrimination against certain "untouchable" classes, the poor, lepers and other disabled, an injustice which Soto-shu in Japan has only now begun to apologize for. (read up on some Soto Zen history here: https://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/nfile/2584)
The SZBA points to some of its members, and has made a committee of its members, who have some types of disability that allowed them to do residential practice. Thus, they say, "See, even some disabled people can do it, and they became our members." However, the SZBA thus forgets that not all people are disabled in the same ways, and that, just because some could, that does not mean that we can compare those disabled people who cannot.
The SZBA is now conducting a survey asking for input from individuals who have encountered barriers to priesthood "to find out more about the experience of Soto Zen priests and practitioners with physical/mental disabilities and/or who identify as neuro-diverse." It is a well meaning effort. HOWEVER, our fears are that the SZBA, once again as in the past, will fail to waive its residential training requirements for these good priests, and will instead insist that small measures ... a wheelchair ramp here or there, a shortened schedule, someone to help them walk to the bathroom ... is enough.
It is far from enough for some. Taking small measures, while leaving in place the big barriers, will continue to bar some completely.
More on this next time.
Gassho, J
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