Saturday kicked off with the business meeting. It began with reports from our president Taihaku Priest, and our Administrative Coordinator Domyo Burk. As they were describing how the organization now counts something more than one hundred and fifty full members and, I admit I don’t recall the number but I think some fifty associates, it occurred to me that with its various problems North American Soto has achieved gender equity. Not only are Taihaku and Domyo both women, but as I looked out at the gathering (okay the details of the report weren’t all that compelling) without actually counting, the gathering was pretty close to being fully equally women and men.
There were also comments describing cordial relations with the Sotoshu and their support of the organization, and particularly our gratitude for the presence at the last several SZBA meetings, including this one of Daigaku Rumme, Sotoshu’s bishop for North America.
They announced that Ejo McMullun and Daijaku Kinst had completed their terms and were cycling off the board. Ejo and Daijaku received enthusiastic applause for their hard work. Taihaku then described the process that led to Mary Mocine and me being appointed as our new board members, starting our terms at Sunday morning’s board meeting.
A treasurer’s report followed. We’re solvent.
The SZBA is currently organized around the board, which no doubt has certain advantages. However, the weaknesses of that organizational model becomes apparent when addressing comprehensive, and unavoidably controversial policies like the upcoming standards document. The main order of business for the balance of the meeting was to begin a process to establish a fair, transparent and inclusive process for deciding major policies, given our size and geographic distribution, including priests beyond North America, and where the biennial meeting no longer feels representative enough. What that process might look like was discussed. Majority votes, super majority votes, consensus, modified consensus were all put on the table. Names of possible members for that committee were collected, noting names of people not at the meeting would also be solicited.
Following the business meeting and a brief break, we broke up into various workshops. I attended the seminary discussion led by Daijaku Kinst and Taigen Leighton, prominent academics among us. We discussed the need for more formal educational opportunities for priests, how the informal trainings going on among us are valuable, but that formal academic training brings with it gifts that we should embrace as we can. Daijaku who is a professor at the Institute for Buddhist Studies in Berkeley announced that a certificate in Soto Zen Buddhist was nearly ready to launch at IBS. While only a one year program, and not a full MDiv, it is a major step toward some form of formal academic training available for North American Soto priests. I personally found this enormously heartening. The breath taking problem of the cost of formal accredited programs, the certificate would cost something in the neighborhood of sixteen thousand dollars, was discussed and lamented. While there was considerable support for that formal academic preparation, there was also a substantial pull within the group, which I found surprisingly well attended, for gathering an archive of rigorous syllabi available to all as well as internally generated classes that could be available online across communities.
This was followed by lunch. I was grateful for an opportunity to slip away and spend time with my Dharma sister Gyokuko Carlson. We talked about many things.
The afternoon featured a richness of additional workshops. I sat on a panel with Victoria Shosan Austin, Enkyo O’Hara and Gyokuko Carlson on Dharma transmission facilitated by Wakoh Shannon Hickey. It revealed while we have some very strong commonalities, we have as many divergences of view and application as we have those commonalities. I found it enriching and generally fun. I particularly enjoyed getting to know Enkyo a bit better, mildly surprised at how close our thinking was concerning matters of authorization and transmission.
Another brief break.
And finally we came to the major event of the conference, the Dharma Heritage ceremony. It came off beautifully.
During I found myself sitting in seiza for far longer than I am used to, and getting up I pulled a muscle in my back. Of course.
After that we took our formal photograph. I look forward to seeing if this year I don’t look like I’m glowering. The pulled muscle wasn’t going to help with this, I fear…
The evening concluded with what was announced as, and was indeed a banquet, a vegetarian feast. Chozen and Hogen Bays, being the perfect hosts they are, had small presents for the departing members.
I left before the no talent show, facilitated this year by Koun Franz, began.
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