Early on Wednesday I got in the car and took the seven and a half hour drive up to Batavia, just outside of Rochester, New York, where the Rochester Zen Center’s country retreat, Chapin Mill is. Took me a tad under ten hours…
Wednesday is casual, but by tradition features gender specific gatherings. The women planned something. The men wandered around aimlessly before most gradually coming together near the swimming pond. There has been much sadness of late regrading sexual misconduct within the Zen teachers sangha and that became the subject for much of the conversation…
The next day that was the subject at hand for a lot of more formally structured discussion. The AZTA has prided itself on not being a professional organization. It has no bylaws, no officers and only two committees, a membership committee to review applications from Zen teachers who might want to get together with their sisters and brothers, and a committee to arrange each annual meeting. As there are something in the neighborhood of a hundred and twenty or thirty members, and there are no dues or any other source of revenue, it can be daunting to find a host center. There is also a commitment to remember both coasts and the middle. San Francisco Zen Center and Great Vow in Clatskanie have been the fall back locations in the West and Vermont Zen Center and Chapin Mill the fallback locations in the East. Others have hosted, but we’ve relied a great deal on these sanghas…
West coast gatherings are larger and this East coast gathering was one of the smaller of recent years. Still, it represented teachers in the Soto, Rinzai, Kwan Um, another Korean-derived sangha the Society for Compassionate Wisdom and Harada Yasutani lineages, lay and ordained. Many old friends and some new.
What holds us together is a shared and deep love for the Zen Dharma and each having delved deeply into the great project and have been recognized by our teachers as possibly being of use in carrying the Dharma forward. We share various titles among us but most know those are place holders showing our teacher’s or community’s hopes for us…
And if any of us had inflationary inclinations this wasn’t the year to indulge them…
We had a profound discussion where various members discussed past and recent sexual improprieties on the part of teachers and the struggle to create mechanisms of healing and reconciliation for all parties involved. People were frank and honest and there was a lot of compassion expressed for the victims as well as those in power who had transgressed. There was a lot of energy put into trying to understand the many different actions that could all be batched together under that rubric of misconduct and the different ways that they needed to be addressed. Particularly appreciation was expressed for the ethical code and reconciliation process developed by the Kwan Um School.
There’s been some pressure from people inside and outside for the AZTA to take stands in regard to ethical violations of members and others in the Western Zen world. The major resistance comes out of the fact that the group is not an accrediting body, although, yes there is an accrediting feature in that it represents nearly every extant Zen lineage in North America. And, truthfully, people have even been resistant to it being a “professional” organization, with varying objections even to having presenters.
However there’s been a steady evolution of this gathering over the past fifteen or twenty years, and there certainly are now presenters and a program, even if loosely constructed. So, after much and long and not always comfortable discussion there was an agreement to charge a committee to try and create a statement around ethics and a process for people who have grievances with members to come to the AZTA and be heard in some way. Further the committee was authorized to bring the matter before the membership through electronic communication without having to await next year’s gathering, the first time such a major decision has been authorized in this manner.
Later in the conference we had a further long and equally deep conversation about gender and gender relations within Japanese, Korean and North American cultures and how that has personally impacted the individuals present. Much personal witness was featured. It was hard. It was awesome.
And still later the scholar and Rinzai Zen priest Victor Sogen Hori gave a presentation and responded to questions regarding the nature of Dharma transmission in East Asia and in North America.
How shall I say, it was an enlightening experience.
Between the presentations and discussions and meeting with people during “breaks,” this was a physically exhausting event. We got up early for zazen and Dharma talks and then pretty much straight on launched into that program. One evening despite having a wiser voice somewhere in the back of my head counseling bedtime, I joined with a three old Zen friends and snuck into town for ice cream. (We’re getting older. Once upon a time several in this gathering would have insisted this trek feature alcohol…)
My sixty-second birthday occurred over the conference. And for various reasons I was serenaded with “happy birthday” five times (and on one occasion presented with a delightful slice of carrot cake with a candle…)
I realized I didn’t take it as well as I might.
During one rendition, the fourth or fifth, I stuck my tongue out.
I fear it is the same thing that makes it hard for me to receive complements – which has led me to the discipline of trying to accept it when someone says “lovely sermon” or some such, rather than minimize or dismiss.
So, apparently, I’ve been given the gift of being told to be more gracious when I’m the center of attention, and to remember, it will pass…
All in all a lovely, if often hard, gathering.
Got up at three thirty this morning and after cleaning up began a drive that, in fact, only took eight hours to complete.
Stumbled into the house, fell asleep, awoke, was given some nice presents by Jan & auntie and now am catching up on emails, etc…
Tonight the family takes me out to dinner at a newly opened Mexican restaurant.
Life is good.
If hard…
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