Discrimination in the SZBA: Small Changes, BIG BARRIERS

[Wabo]

I hope SZBA will revise their rules soon ...
But what about Soto-shu in Japan? Do they also discriminate people with disabilities? Or is this an American trait?

Gassho
Wabo
ST

[Jundo]

I hope SZBA will revise their rules soon ...
But what about Soto-shu in Japan? Do they also discriminate people with disabilities? Or is this an American trait?

Gassho
Wabo
ST

Yes, in Japan too, one cannot become a full blown Soto Zen priest without going through the normal route of training, as far as I know. However, at some time soon, I will inquire of them. Maybe we can bring this campaign to Japan too! I don't think that it is only American too, but throughout western Zen.

Gassho, Jundo

STLah

[Jundo]

I hope SZBA will revise their rules soon ...
But what about Soto-shu in Japan? Do they also discriminate people with disabilities? Or is this an American trait?

Gassho
Wabo
ST

By the way, I know that you are in the far west of Ukraine, but we all wish for peace. May there be, and few lives touched by foolishness and violence.

Gassho, Jundi

STLah

[Kokuu]

I’m worked up because I feel misunderstood. My comments were not intended to criticize Treeleaf priests or priests in training. I feel misunderstood. Maybe I can just keep my eyes open and mouth shut. Thank you thank goodness I don’t have to be judge and jury. I never believed in grades.

I don't think anyone took your words as criticism, Tai Shi. And you know how Jishin is - his words are provocative but underneath they often point at a truth which in this case seems to be how it is impossible to objectively judge who will be a good priest regardless of the number of guidelines or tests. Even in professions that require numerous tests to pass, such as Jishin's own psychiatry training, it is impossible to ensure that everyone who ends up licensed will be worthy of that license.

Gassho
Kokuu

[Jinyo]

Apologies for the following going over.

I think there isn't a clear definition of what's truly acceptable within priest training because generally our traditional notions
of just about everything are moving on fast.

Honesty - here's mine. I don't think physical disability is necessarily a major issue/bar for me to a 'notion' of priesthood (though it would be within the terms set up by the SZBA) even though disability most definitely is a major issue in my lived life. The 'notion' is the question mark and the devil is in the detail.

For example, I would not be authentic to myself if I had to wear a robe (I totally respect what the robe signifies to others) I don't resonate much with traditional chanting and in general I feel ceremonies need an imaginative re-working alongside cherished traditions ,so that the essence of Zen isn't lost but maybe becomes more accessible. I would therefore not be a good candidate to employ traditional Soto Forms as set out in the guidelines even though I feel some form of a calling. In fact, if for personal reasons I simply don't feel able to wear robes, by current rules I can't be a trainee priest at all. For sure we could get into arguments for the lessons to be learnt from submission to things we don't like but I place authenticity above that - else there's no real integrity.

To explain further - The 33 page Tree Leaf guidelines for Priest Training is extensive and specific (not a criticism). I feel I'd fail at the first post 'Carrying the Tradition' - I don't think I'd do this well because I'm always wanting to re-interpret and I believe tradition can and often needs to evolve. The history/ background knowledge is really important - but I constantly envision new choreography in it - if we go with the analogy of the dance - I see new steps embedded within the tradition and those steps transcend disability in a way hard and fast rules can't and often impede. I'm not totally ditching tradition here and appreciate the spirituality within.

I feel there is a juncture between the above and the limitations of disability = it could be argued that disability is only a limitation if we insist on tradition. I don't feel somehow bending the rules and rigours of ritual/practice to accommodate is the answer.
The notion of 'adaptation, substitution,adjustment' possibly needs a measure of trust, an open space in order to birth a wider understanding of what it may be to be a priest.

Sorry if this comes across as waffle - but I wonder what would happen if instead of trying to fit in we go even further the other way. Such a great start has been made here, does it really matter what the SZBA think? I reckon we should push the boat out further,

Gata, Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate, Bodhi Svaha!

Who's to say it won't take us to the furthest shore


Gassho

Jinyo

Sat today

[Tai Shi]

Discrimination in the SZBA: Small Changes, BIG BARRIERS

Yes in the Ukraine Ihope things are more peaceful soon.

There is just a lot I don’t know about becoming a priest, and I hope I can trust this information I read in the Treeleaf Forum. Perhaps the rules are there for a purpose. I see priest’s sometimes moving in front of the camera in ways that would be impossible for me. However, I gave up the notions of priesthood long ago because I took the advice of my wife who said I am “just a guy.” I believe that I am good at some things and not good at others. I accept advice for my practice from my best friend and others who know me well. I am just not suitable for some rolls and being a good member is what I can do.
Gassho
sat/ lah


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[Jundo]

I’m worked up because I feel misunderstood. My comments were not intended to criticize Treeleaf priests or priests in training. I feel misunderstood. Maybe I can just keep my eyes open and mouth shut. Thank you [emoji120] thank goodness I don’t have to be judge and jury. I never believed in grades.
Gassho
Tai Shi

Already 5 years ago, Tai Shi, with Kyousui and Matt too ...

https://youtu.be/mn2wLGP2pJM

Gassho, Jundo

STLah

[Shonin Risa Bear]

Apologies in advance.

I've studied all I can find of nun life in China and Japan and I think all along, at least in China, there's been a place for those who are active and self-supporting in cloistered and/or family settings, but without having it required of them that they meet ableist standards rooted in a liturgy and physicality of ritual that reflects court ritual from Imperial China. Historically, no one with so much as a limp could serve in the Emperor's bureaucracy, which is reputedly how we got the self-exile of Han Shan, who was "perfect" until he was thrown from his horse.

Several years ago, Rev. Gesshin Greenwood had a blog post (no longer extant) featuring a decision tree depicting the Soto life path. It humorously but inexorably led from hearing about Zen to becoming a layperson in a rakusu, to novice, to full priest, to teacher, to abbott. I thought, here is a recipe for "too many cooks."

Of nuns in ancient China, Dr. Karen Carr says: "Inside the monastery, women cleaned and cooked, but they also sang prayer chants and played musical instruments like gongs and bells. Many Buddhist nuns spent most of their day spinning, weaving, or working in the fields, just like other women of their time." Elsewhere I have read that many indeed ran shops or stayed home to help their elderly parents, showing up at the temple only on special occasions.

That's how I envision my life: time divided between cooking and cleaning, homestead maintenance, planting and maintaining trees, and raising and preserving food. And showing up at zazenkai when I can.

I do feel called to exemplify Buddha in my "sitting" -- such as it is -- and in my "doing" -- such as it is -- yet he recommended some separation, a home leaving, for at least some of his volunteer examplars. I'm all for it. But ultimately this led to the rigorous home-leaving of Japan's teaching monasteries, with some practices bordering (to my eye) on the abusive sadhu practices tried, and then repudiated, by Buddha himself (the Middle Way).

Did we all skip ahead from emptiness to form and forget how even the form and formlessness of a blade of grass preaches all dharma endlessly?

This has tangled up me and others in the West as we have no, or very few, temple systems and parishioners to subsist on, so we hang out at home and cosplay with bells, candles and robes intermittently and refer to ourselves as "priests." I have heard of some in Japan who have read or heard of all this and that their response was akin to a double take and "what??" Could the SZBA be simply trying to add some spine-stiffening to our Zen culture so as to stand up to scrutiny from the Soto-shu as to our legitimacy?

To which I'm tempted to respond, why bother?

I aspired to the nun life but felt that requiring of nuns that they be also priests expected to serve at the altar and leading chants struck me as likely to lead to undue stress.

My life does seem to differ in some way/ways from that of most of the laypeople around me. I've dedicated a considerable portion of it to the very altar work and etc. that I "cannot" by SZBA standards do.

Personally I'm a lot like Chudapanthaka, unable to hold the chants and dance steps in my head, along with inability to hear and coordinate with what the other officiants are doing, or often unable to sit up even in a chair for long enough to make it through a sit, and needing to pee and poo suddenly and irregularly during longer events. Also I'm prone to random seizures. So, as the difficulties mounted, I considered telling my brick-and-mortar sangha, before Covid, that I'd probably soon be hanging up my robe.

And what of those whose condition prevents any physical form of way-entering? We tell them they are not qualified, like Han Shan?

Zoom has made continued participation possible in my case. Yay Zoom and its like.

Screen Shot 2021-10-07 at 12.46.17 PM.png

"When Ma-tsu certified P’ang’s awakening, he asked him if he would put on the black robe or continue to wear white."

Maybe our cultural setting requires a third option: some kind of gray. "Home-leaving" as we have modified it but no expectation of a curriculum that must end in failure if we do not make full priest, let alone abbott. Chop wood, carry water, chant metta, or whatever one can do between the extremes of book Zen and waterfall-meditation Zen. Just another monk, just another nun.

Continuing to chop wood and carry water,

gassho,

ds sat and lah

[Ryumon]

Maybe our cultural setting requires a third option: some kind of gray. "Home-leaving" as we have modified it but no expectation of a curriculum that must end in failure if we do not make full priest, let alone abbott. Chop wood, carry water, chant metta, or whatever one can do between the extremes of book Zen and waterfall-meditation Zen. Just another monk, just another nun.

This is an interesting idea. It seems that in the west, the idea of ordination is a step on the path toward "preisthood," whereas in a monastery, ordination would not necessarily lead to that, but could rather just be a level of practice - and teaching - that is more intense and deeper. (At least as for as I understand.) But since monasteries in Japan don't really approach the teaching of zen the way we do, this makes the translation more complex.

So ordination as a goal rather than a transitional state... With no going or coming forward or back, unless at some later stage the person wants to make that next step...?

Gassho,

Ryūmon (Kirk)

sat

[Tai Shi]

I spoke too soon, and what works for one culture may not work for another. I have read that for each different shore, there is a hybrid of Buddhism and that culture, and even among the populations off a country, there are differences between various states, or provinces. A group need not conform to the standards of one centralized location to be called Buddhist or Zen Buddhist. Look at Soto and I am no speller, is it Rinzai? Entirely different approaches to one end, so why argue about who is right? I am a pacifist, and yet in ancient times and now there were and are differing ideas on how best to carry the message of peace, and always in every culture there are those who feel peace means war. Why argue about what is for me, a realization that fighting is not for me. Why fight about who is right? I think there are independent Zen or Buddhist priests who follow their own calling. The Zen Buddhist chaplain at one of our state prisons is a Soto Zen Buddhist as is one of the U.U. ministers. Both men have never heard off Jukai, or rakusu. When I tried to explain, they asked, "Why?" and that for them such rituals are not necessary. I have a friend at the U.U. church where I am a "friend," and where give a small amount of money each month to support what I see as peace, who practices Buddhist meditation and only every other month or so sits with visiting Zen priests and there are others who see the same church as agents of Satan and who see the Heritage of such a church at 180% different from the will of "God." Why argue? For me it is enough to say that my best friend, Marjorie, is right. I am not special. I am just a guy practicing Soto Zen Buddhism, and under that umbrella, I am both Unitarian Universalist, and Christiaan. One does not preclude the other, and all work in my mind toward the end of peace. This is what I believe that ultimately peaceful coexistence works in my heart. I am afraid of guilt and terror; getting along with each other is my belief; that love and tolerance is my code, and sometimes my train of loving kindness gets derailed.
Gassho
sat/lah

[Jundo]

Lovely.

I do feel called to exemplify Buddha in my "sitting" -- such as it is -- and in my "doing" -- such as it is -- yet he recommended some separation, a home leaving, for at least some of his volunteer examplars.

There is actually some evidence that it was some, but not all.

Could the SZBA be simply trying to add some spine-stiffening to our Zen culture so as to stand up to scrutiny from the Soto-shu as to our legitimacy?

I think there is some fact to this.

I aspired to the nun life but felt that requiring of nuns that they be also priests expected to serve at the altar and leading chants struck me as likely to lead to undue stress.

In this Sangha at least, we modify the altar work and chants to fit the priest and what the priest can do!

Treeleaf's Differently-Abled Ancestors Lineage Recitation

https://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?19339-A-Short-Film-Treeleaf-s-Differently-Abled-Ancestors-Lineage-Recitation

Maybe our cultural setting requires a third option: some kind of gray. "Home-leaving" as we have modified it but no expectation of a curriculum that must end in failure if we do not make full priest, let alone abbott.

Nishijima Roshi pointed out that this is the mind making categories and measures that need not be drawn just so. He said this (from the obituary I wrote about him) ...

Nishijima advocated a form of ordination that fully steps beyond and drops away divisions of “Priest or Lay, Male or Female”, yet allows us to fully embody and actuate each and all as the situation requires. ... When I am a parent to my children, I am 100% that and fully there for them. When I am a worker at my job, I am that and embody such a role with sincerity and dedication. And when I am asked to step into the role of hosting zazen, offering a dharma talk, practicing and embodying our history and teachings and passing them on to others, I fully carry out and embody 100% the role of “Priest” in that moment. Whatever the moment requires: maintaining a sangha community, bestowing the Precepts, working with others to help sentient beings. The names we call ourselves do not matter. In Nishijima’s way, we do not ask and are unconcerned with whether we are “Priest” or “Lay”, for we are neither that alone, while always thoroughly both; exclusively each in purest and unadulterated form, yet wholly all at once. It is just as, in the West, we have come to step beyond the hard divisions and discriminations between “male” and “female”, recognizing that each of us may embody all manner of qualities to varying degrees as the circumstances present, and that traditional “male” and “female” stereotypes are not so clear-cut as once held. So it is with the divisions of “Priest” and “Lay”.
https://web.archive.org/web/20160324...-zen-buddhism/

Gassho, J

STLah

Sorry to run long

[Rich]

That was an interesting discussion. It made me think about what the buddha and his sangha did daily. Meditation, dharma talks, walking to villages, asking for alms. It seemed much simpler back then. After transmission of the dharma to someone he asked that they go somewhere and teach.



Sat/lah


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[Shonin Risa Bear]

"making categories and measures" too true



gassho
d shonin sat and some lah

[Jundo]

That was an interesting discussion. It made me think about what the buddha and his sangha did daily. Meditation, dharma talks, walking to villages, asking for alms. ...

And if someone was sick or became disabled, I am sure that they did not make them walk to the village, but brought them back food to share ...

Gassho, J

STlah

[Jundo]

Doshin sorry, I saw your discussion before it was deleted, so I hope that I can answer ...

I do not mean to say this discussion is not important…I just wonder why recognition matters.

Ah, it does not. Or better, it does not, yet it does.

(1) So, each priest him/herself knows that he/her is or is not a good and sincere priest, truly teaching something of worth, truly understanding of our traditions, truly helping others. That is most important.

(2) Also, each individual Soto Zen Sangha, teacher-student between them, determines who is a Soto Zen priest and who is not. It is completely between that teacher and student, and nobody else's opinions matter. Hopefully, the teacher provides some training and guidance of substance.

(3) But when an organization which purports to be for "Soto Zen Buddhist" priests, and has a quality accrediting function, says to some, "sorry, you are not good enough to come in," we think that we should protest. In fact, I support their quality standards in general, because there are many fake or totally untrained and self-declared "Zen priests" out there, so standards are necessary and right! However, the way they are too narrowly enforcing those standards is excluding these sincere, dedicated, caring, knowledgeable priests who should not be excluded.

Now, once those priests get in the organization ... then, who cares? They don't matter a lick. Then, all that matters is (1) above, and (2) ...



Gassho, J

STLah
Sorry for running long.