Discrimination in the SZBA: Small Changes, BIG BARRIERS

[Tomás ESP]

Very inspiring, thank you Shokai and Jundo

Gassho, Tomás
Sat&LaH

[Kotei]

Gassho,
Kotei sat/lah today.

[Tai Shi]

Kahunan please don’t worry when I sit Sunday Sit I will sit metta for you, please know we care about you. I have disabilities!
Gassho
st/lah


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[Naiko]

Thank you, Jundo, for your advocacy efforts. I hope SZBA does the right thing. Metta to Shokai and his partner; may they recover quickly from Covid.
Gassho,
Naiko
st lah

[Shujin]

Thank you for your persistence, Jundo & Shokai. Shokai & Ben Connelly are wonderful people. I'm curious to see what happens next; organizations have to decide whether the structure or the situation takes precedence. Unfortunately, they usually choose the former.

Gassho,
Shujin
st

[Anchi]

Thank you, Jundo, for your advocacy efforts. I hope SZBA does the right thing. Metta to Shokai and his partner; may they recover quickly from Covid.
Gassho,
Naiko
st lah

[Shonin Risa Bear]

Let's sit for Shokai today, who pets the tigers alongside the Path.

gassho
sitting sat ds today

[Kaishin]

Thank you for the update, Jundo, and for your continued efforts towards change.

And a very happy belated birthday to you, dear Shokai! I hope you are both recovering well.

-stlah

[Rich]

I think the most important thing is that you gave Shokai transmission. Being authorized to teach is more important than some organization. In fact the transmission from a transmitted teacher should automatically make you a member. But if that’s not the case then if it was me I wouldn’t want to be a member

Sat/lah




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[Jundo]

I think the most important thing is that you gave Shokai transmission. Being authorized to teach is more important than some organization. In fact the transmission from a transmitted teacher should automatically make you a member. But if that’s not the case then if it was me I wouldn’t want to be a member

Sat/lah

And one of the jobs of a Buddhist teacher should be to identify a FAKE Buddha quote. Okay, nice thought even if he did not say that ... but he did not say that.

These are not, in fact, the words of the Buddha, but are the words of the Insight Meditation teacher and psychotherapist, Jack Kornfield. ... Although the Buddha didn’t say we are born every day, he does seems to have made statements like, “a sage at peace is not born, does not age, does not die, is unagitated, and is free from longing. He has nothing whereby he would be born.” The “sage at peace” is one who is awakened, having overcome delusion.

https://fakebuddhaquotes.com/each-mo...-matters-most/

Gassho, Jundo at Quality Control

STLah

[Rich]

And one of the jobs of a Buddhist teacher should be to identify a FAKE Buddha quote. Okay, nice thought even if he did not say that ... but he did not say that.

Gassho, Jundo at Quality Control

STLah

Yea it didn’t sound like buddha to me either but there’s a grain of truth in it 🥸

Sat/lah


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[Seth David]

As a parent of a child with disabilities, thank you for your passion and dedication to the cause 🙏

Gassho,
ST
Seth

[Kokuu]

While I appreciate where you are coming from, Jundo, I am not sure I like the idea of going after a director of the SZBA by name rather than the board in general.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday-

[Jundo]

Dear All,

I have rewritten my post from yesterday, based on the feeling that it may be proper and necessary to criticize an organization for its unfair and discriminatory policies, and to criticize the board of directors of the organization which makes and sustains those policies, but somehow not the individual directors on that board who support those same policies. I respect that.

Our goal should be for inclusiveness and diversity in priesthood, not exclusion.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

DISCRIMINATION IN THE SZBA: IS THIS A GOOD PRIEST?

An organization can claim one thing, yet do quite the opposite. The Soto Zen Buddhist Association bills itself as seeking "to make Zen practice available to everyone [working to] transform barriers based on race, ethnicity, gender identity, religion, political affiliation, economic class, sexual orientation, age, and ability." Their webpage states, "We find harmony in both our differences and what we share." [https://www.szba.org/] Sadly, high sounding words and actions can be far apart.

This SZBA (the union of English speaking Soto Zen teachers in North America and elsewhere) is populated by priests who have pushed the boundaries on what it means to be a traditional Buddhist priest. Male and female, of all genders, often married with kids, most residing in America in situations of relative (by world standards) prosperity in a modern western economy, overwhelmingly highly educated (perhaps the majority with graduate degrees), its members rarely fit the tradition of what it meant to be a monk or priest, typically celibate, cloistered and male, in Asia for hundreds upon hundreds of years. Oh, SZBA leaders are overwhelmingly good people, sincere and well meaning, dedicated to the path ... and yet, even people who are well meaning, who stand for diversity in words, can engage in discrimination without meaning so.

The SZBA (as well as the AZTA, the American Zen Teachers Association, a similar organization, but for Zen/Chan/Son/Thien teachers of many traditions) is overwhelmingly populated by married priests, often Buddhist priests married to other Buddhist priests, not exactly a traditional state of affairs in centuries upon centuries of Buddhist celibate priesthood. Most did not pass through monastic training in the standard ways of China and Japan. Many or most, just by the fact of having grown up in modern, developed countries, enjoyed privileged upbringings and educations, had economic resources to allow and afford their own priest training, were able to pursue their own path due to the good fortune of good health and youth (or, even when living with some health issues, typically not to a degree which prevented residential training completely.)

Now, with all good intent, such individuals, as leaders of the SZBA and AZTA, turn around to exclude others who are less fortunate, less physically able, others who ask that like doors be opened for them.

There is a tendency in reformist religion to always draw the line of orthodoxy/heterodoxy just to the left of where one stands: One may have engaged in training short-cuts, to have wealth and to live a personal married lifestyle unlike anything that Master Dogen and the other ancient ancestors would recognize, yet be willing to discriminate and exclude others who are more disadvantaged and limited in physical and economic abilities compared to oneself.

I address the Boards of Directors of the SZBA and AZTA -- In your recognizing who is welcome in your organizations, perhaps the central question you should ask is this:

Is someone a dedicated, wise, compassionate, caring, ethical, experienced, informed and knowledgeable, sincere Zen priest, a friend along the Way to many, whatever the hard and winding road which led them there?
How one became a good priest does not matter so much as one having become so. There are wonderful, warm and wise, awakened and hard working Buddhist priests who became so though life's monastery of hard knocks and struggles. Sadly, there are more than a few hurtful and heedless priests who took the orthodox route, with fancy robes, official paperwork, and training at famous monasteries. In other words, there are good and bad priests and teachers of all kinds, some orthodox and some not.


"Is this a good priest?"


That is the only question, and it is not a matter of famous monastery or particular means.

There are dedicated, wise, compassionate, good Soto Zen priests who deserve admission to the SZBA and AZTA, but who are older than some, sicker than some, who live in war zones and the developing world unlike most of you, who have overcome hardships where their very dedication and compassion as a good priest is proven on the front lines of life. These are excellent priests who simply lacked the wealth and health to attend the residential training that you and others could afford, yet finished as excellent priests. They deserve admission too.

THERE IS ROOM FOR ALL GOOD PRIESTS. same yet diverse!

Will the SZBA and AZTA Directors, all good priests, recognize these other good priests as well?

dlt szba1.jpg

[Jishin]

In some states it's not necessary to go to law school to be a lawyer although one still has to pass the Bar to practice law regardless of formal education.

It would be nice if all priests had to pass the "Bar" to practice. This would solve the problem.

Gassho, Jishin, ST, LAH