member of this community. We don't get to see him or hear him speak so often, so we're happy to have him here. Thank you. I was going to say that since, by way of introducing my topic, I was going to say that I have since moving to Berkeley, I've spent a number of years serving on the Zen Center Board of Directors, and during that time, We dealt with the formulation and adoption of the Statement of Ethical Principles, which is the topic which Mele asked me to speak to you about today. I'm not actually sure why she asked me to speak to you about it, but I will try. a committee or ethics council was formed to help implement the statement of the procedures that we had worked out.

[01:31]

And I've been serving as a member of that committee for a couple of years now. So what I'd like to do, I was advised that many people probably have a lot to say brief as possible. I thought I'd give you as brief as possible overview or history of the Zen Center's consideration of this, and the history of how we came to adopt an ethics statement, and then raise some of the issues that came up along the way. And then after that, we can see what direction everyone else would like to go in. So, from this vantage point of having said what we believe in, in terms of our community standards of ethics, we made a statement about that.

[02:40]

It all seems very obvious that, you know, of course this is what we should have done, and why hadn't we done it sooner, and it seems so simple. But back when we first started considering this, although it may have seemed obvious that it was a good idea, and almost everyone would have thought, yeah, it probably can make sense in some way or another, the road to getting there was actually very difficult and arduous. Rev Anderson, who was, attention, Rev Anderson, who was abbot of Zen Center at the time, back in about 1991, when this first came up at Zen Center, had asked the board to consider adopting an ethics statement. And this was both in response to Zen Center's very difficult history over perceived lapses in ethical behavior, whatnot, It had caused a number of people a lot of pain.

[03:45]

So in some sense, it seemed like, yes, this is an obvious thing to do. However, it was initially prompted, as I was told back then, this was initially prompted by people in the donor community. And that seems, you can take a rather cynical viewpoint about this, but actually, I think it makes a lot of sense. When I thought about it this morning, I was reading a long letter from a writer on the East Coast, Diana Rowan, who had written to a number of people in Zen Center about this issue back then, urging us to get on board here and figure out what we were doing with it. But those are the people, people to whom Buddhist groups came to, to say, you know, this is our program, this is what we're doing, please support us. They were the ones who had more of an overview of what was going on in the American Buddhist scene than almost everyone else, I would say.

[04:50]

Because they were approached by various people from different directions. And not only were they approached by leaders of Buddhist groups asking for support, but they also received letters and communications from people who had been deeply hurt in the context of practice in a particular Buddhist group. So they could see this whole picture, and they sense a certain inconsistency, and they're saying, listen folks, please address this, because it doesn't work. It doesn't work that people are having a hard time, people are getting hurt, and yet there's no sort of community statement. The communities are not taking an open position about where they stand on ethical issues. So, that was one of the initial promptings.

[05:55]

And as I say, in a lot of ways, this made quite obvious sense to do something like this. But it also prompted a lot of questions of why? And a lot of these questions came from from, I would say, legitimate concerns about what it means to make a statement about, this is what we consider to be ethical behavior, and this is not. We consider this to be outside. To draw a line like this, or is that, in the sense you're drawing a line. One of the big issues that people felt, and it came up again and again in our community discussions, was it wasn't something that people could articulate, but people reacted to a sense of, I might be excluded. I might be the one who is, by my behavior, deemed unethical after we agree on this.

[07:01]

I might be tossed out of Buddha's heart, literally. And it's very threatening. It's not, it is a big deal. Secondly, discussion of the precepts and what they mean has always been a very lively, a very informative type of dialogue in the community. People were concerned that if, particularly as the ethics statement was eventually framed as a kind of interpretation of the precepts, people were concerned that This was going to deaden, this was going to set a certain interpretation of the Precepts in stone. We could not really discuss what they were about now that we put it down on paper as our community statement. Then there was another issue. that has to do with how is this going to affect, this wasn't so much in terms of what ethical statements per se we would, or what ethical principles we would adhere to, but there's a question of does this codify the relationships between teacher and student in a way that takes away

[08:30]

By raising the question of whether or not someone is acting ethically as a teacher or doesn't place a burden on that relationship, which in fact deadens it and creates a... and stifles the teaching. It's a little bit hard for me to explain how that might be so, but it was a definite and real concern on the part of a number of people. And then there's this whole question of, well, what are we really talking about here? What kind of conduct are we talking about? Who does it cover? And so on and so forth. Well, getting back to the obvious reasons for making a statement of ethical principles.

[09:37]

We have an intentional community. We come here to do something together. some of our members in the form of ordination. But we don't. And we try to make the Zen Center open to anybody who can walk in and practice with a minimum of instruction and indoctrination or what have you. We try to make it available to people. At the same time, anybody walking in is free to think Whatever they think want to think about people wearing dark robes if they're anxious about doing the right thing anxious about If they have questions about You know what they should be doing who they should be relating to and so on and so forth You know

[10:47]

in our practice are things that will people interpret in any way they want. Likewise, it's well known that the attention that comes to people who are ordained and wear a different dress may be difficult for someone to handle in an appropriate way. The kind of projection to not go to my head, and so on and so forth. So, in our community, there are real or perceived disparities in power, which we need to be careful about. And one of the ways we can be careful about that is making a statement about what it is that we stand for, what it is that we consider to be ethical behavior, what it is we consider to be getting in the way of what we came here to do.

[11:57]

So those are some of the sort of internal reasons that it makes sense to be more explicit about what our intentions are as a community. Now, having stated our principles, having stated that, for instance, let me just get a little more specific here. I know what I've been saying is very general so far. as a restatement of the precepts.

[13:06]

So it says, number two, as we've just recited these precepts just a few minutes ago in our Bodhisattva ceremony. A disciple of the Buddha does not take what is not given, but rather cultivates and encourages generosity. And then he gives an interpretation of this in a positive way. Well, I'll just read this one. This precept expresses Bodhisattva's commitment to live from a generous heart rather than from an avaricious mind. At a personal level, avaricious behavior harms the person who steals, and on a community level, stealing can harm and even destroy the opportunity and the environment of Zen practice. One can handle Sangha funds and other assets who also have special responsibility to take care of them and avoid deliberate misuse and misappropriation. And so on. In addition, we recognize that misuse of authority and status is a form of taking what is not given. Within the complex life of the Sangha, various hierarchical levels of authority and seniority play a role in some situations and not in others.

[14:19]

It is particularly important that individuals in positions of trust do not misuse their status or authority as a way to achieve special So having made a kind of statement like that, which interprets in a positive way what we're trying to do, and then gives an example of how conduct may stray from this ideal, we then take on the problem of what happens when conduct does stray from this kind of statement of what we're aspiring to. And, well, I think the intention of making the statement is in fact to take this someone, is to meet it.

[15:28]

I think when we, having done this now, I am sort of surprised to see how I view it in that I now feel that dealing with these issues that come up in the community, whether it's conduct or whether it's just a conflict between people, that this, in fact, becomes part and parcel of our practice as a community together. This is the material we're working with. It is not something we're trying to get rid of in order so that we can do our real practice. Now we've embraced it. This is an embrace of all the little crap that comes up, big or little, in a way that allows us to really bring our practice and our heart to solving the problem, to, if not solving the problem, just staying with the painting, because this is who we are.

[16:32]

And, as I say, I find it somewhat surprising to suddenly feel myself on this side of it. Whereas before, on the other side of it, I felt like, oh yeah, if we do this, then we can do this other thing. Now I feel, oh, now we're doing this other thing. I don't know if I like it so much, but we're doing it, because this is what we've taken on. So, as I was speaking, there were a number of things that I felt like I left out. And I think what I'm going to do is leave them out for now, because I trust they're going to come up, because either Alan's going to erase it, or someone else who was involved in this process, or you have a question about it, will come up. But there's one other thing I want to say, which is that This statement, and this addresses the issue of the discussion of the precepts and how whether or not we're just sort of saying goodbye to the precepts now that we figured out what they mean, that kind of problem.

[17:43]

This statement is really a kind of formulation of the precepts that addresses our community situation. And when I say our, I'm speaking specifically about San Francisco Zen Center. And the ethics that we formulated around that are relatively specific, although we are referring to the Buddhist precepts, which we all consider to be at the heart of our practice. As I was having a discussion with Meili about this, she wanted to talk to me about it because she was going to be on a panel discussion with all these other individuals from other religious traditions who were going to talk about conflict and reconciliation.

[18:44]

And we got to talking about the differences between Christianity and Buddhism and how in Christianity, there's a kind of a built-in part of the whole thing which makes it, which presumes or which allows or empowers the ability to go out into the wider societal context and act in your spiritual heart take action to address the intractable problems in our society, which is seen by the individual as an enactment of their spiritual path. Our development of ethics and ethical standards has been somewhat internal to our community setting, and it has great strength and rigor because of that, because it's based on actual experience.

[19:52]

But as we started to think about it, we realized that Buddhism has not, in America, has not articulated a way of action or articulated itself as part of the society's societal context. I mean, I'm kind of thinking off the top of my head What I'm trying to say is that we don't see it as part of our practice to, you don't see it as an integral, fundamental part, even though many of us individually are doing things in our community, we don't see it as an integral and fundamental part of our practice to face up and deal with societal problems. Now, I think that's kind of a simplistic statement, and I think, about here. There's a difference about that. And I know that some people are trying to think about very hard about this and how to make a further step in this direction so that we can bring the power of our practice into a wider situation.

[21:15]

in a way which actually embraces that situation. We don't see ourselves as separate from our society, separate from the world at large, in bringing our practice to the world. So, I'm going to stop now. I'd like to kind of hear from other people this is stimulating in any way, or if you really came to this, came to today thinking about these things. Yes? You started out saying that the philanthropic community, I think you called it, was concerned and gave the impetus to this work of this epic statement. Is that correct? I did say that, yes. Well, I can tell you that at the time, I was hoping that I was still on the board when the ethics statement was finally adopted, which I wasn't.

[22:33]

Because I wanted to write to Diana Rao and say, yes, we did it. And in fact, I know that she provided a great deal of money in order to print hundreds of these. As I understand it, people are pleased that the work has been accomplished. And, you know, it's just the first step. It's just the first step. Now that we've said what we're going to do, now we can try and figure out what that means in terms of actually doing it. The Ethics Council has sponsored some workshops in mediation and with an upcoming series of meetings on ethical issues that we're trying to engage the community on a continuing basis on these issues about what it means to actually deal with conflict.

[23:36]

Yes? Right, that's the... There's a number of streams, and Christianity has just as many streams as Buddhism, you know, in terms of its diversity. And I know in myself that part of... that as someone who was raised in a Christian context, I kind of react to the mission of conversion somewhat negatively. At the same time, I realized that there are streams in Christianity that going out to take on the suffering of the world is there, and there is no... this conversion aspect is sort of absent.

[24:46]

I think of some major figures like Martin Luther King and Mother Teresa, who see themselves as as Christians acting in the world, you know, and just giving, you know. That's kind of more the strain I'm thinking of. Yes, Ross. I'm wondering if any of the teachers or people in position at Zen Center have found, since the Ethics Statement, that relationships have changed That's an interesting question. I don't think so. I think that the ethics statement we adopted was something that everyone supported in terms of what kinds of behavior and so on it addressed and who in particular was being considered.

[25:52]

I don't feel that it's had that kind of effect that people were concerned about at all. Yes? Oh, did you have a follow-up? Yeah, I can see how the potential for help in the future, I'm wondering Oh, okay. Well, I'll tell you that while we were in the midst of formulating the ethics statement, it took four or five years, I can't remember how long, but it seemed like forever, things started to change. People who had grievances from 15 years ago came, and at the time, because we didn't have an ethics council or anything like that, I had to deal with it when I was chair of the board or something, so I just had to deal with it. But since the adoption of the statement and the formation of the ethics council, a number of people have come forward with

[27:12]

They had long-term members of the Center who just had a lot of difficult history with the community. They didn't want us to do anything. They just wanted us to listen to them. And they felt wonderful about it. It was really great. As a member of the Ethics Council, we had not yet been presented with really difficult, painful stuff. While I was on the board, such things were presented to the board that had gotten to the place where we were being talked to by so-and-so's attorney rather than them. But what we were trying to do with the formation of the Ethics Council was create a context which was outside of the usual community framework, the directors and the officers, Just where if somebody wanted to be heard, a lot of times what people really want is to be able to say whatever it is they feel and whatever it is they're on in their mind and have someone listen to them.

[28:25]

And so that's the most basic function that we've tried to establish so far. How would they? Well, that relates to how people deal with conflict. And our position on the Ethics Council is that we encourage people to deal with it at the lowest possible level. In fact, the biggest problem we have is that there's a tendency for Zinssiner to sort of suck this group into the machinery of the community. and become part of dealing with, you know, that we should deal with everything that comes up that's a problem, whereas we would prefer, you know, I mean, members of the Council have mediated disputes here and there, but we really encourage people to kind of go to their friends or practice leaders they trust or people in the community that they can talk to and try and work these things out directly.

[29:52]

You know, we also provide for a formal grievance procedure when all that kind of stuff doesn't work. When any kind of mediation or so on and so forth doesn't work. I'm not sure I answered all of your questions, but... How are the members selected? Oh, they're appointed by the board, I believe. having some process knowing people knowing where to go

[31:14]

Well, I would like to comment a little further on that. Having been on the Ethics Council and discussed the how-to, we're going to deal with this kind of situation, or how are we dealing with this situation now, I realize that what we've been aiming at here is how, as Buddhist practitioners, are we going to deal with conflict? And we do have a grievance procedure for you know, really difficult situations. But as Alan said, there's a huge range of things that we could be dealing with. And as this is entitled, Ethical Principles and Procedures for Grievance and Reconciliation, I think what we've come to recognize is that reconciliation may not in any conflict resolution. There may be a conflict resolution.

[32:39]

There may be an agreement as to how to proceed from here. But there may not be reconciliation. Reconciliation can take a lifetime, perhaps. But this is our goal. We don't want to force reconciliation, create a false reconciliation. We do want to resolve conflict. We do want to look honestly at what is happening in a conflictual situation, but we don't want to force a sort of false solution or false, you know, okay, it's all better now kind of thing. This is particularly true in cases where people are deeply hurt and they're deeply hurt in a situation where and they've misused their power.

[33:41]

These kinds of problems, particularly around sexual misconduct by people in positions of status and authority in the community with regard to, say, newer students, this can create situations where the pain is terrific and that there has to be a balancing you know, maybe you have to seek justice first before you can start talking about reconciliation. So we're not, what we've tried to do is deal with, we realize there are situations that are just going to be plain difficult, and we're going to have to seek our most ethical path through it. And it may not come out nice, but we're willing to deal with that. We're willing to take that path. She was the ethicist who dealt with the, basically the decisions about who they were going to treat and who they weren't going to treat on a daily basis.

[34:56]

And here these people get in a room and they're going to decide who's going to live and who's going to die, okay? And this woman's job was to keep people honest. That, you know, you know, How you make this decision, honestly, about what your feelings really are about it. When we walk out of this room, we're making a decision. We're not going to, kind of, you know, we just have to. It's that kind of sort of triage situation. But, in fact, it's required. And we will be forced to deal with situations like that. Sometime, someplace. But, so our Intention has to be that we're going to go through and we're going to do the best we can and we're not going to blink and pretend that we didn't see something and let it fall off the edge of the table by itself. This is our task in practitioners of Zen and dealing with conflict.

[36:00]

Yes? How did older Buddhist communities sound interesting question. One of the things that helped a lot was the kind of ceremony we just did before this talk. And the form it took, actually, in the beginning, in early Indian Buddhist communities, was that they didn't come and chant, the kind of things we're chanting so much, is that they came and they just confessed to each other what they had done, which was a variance to the precepts. That is one way of letting go of the kinds of things that eventually result in intense conflict. In terms of, you know, if people actually violated the precepts by their conduct, I think that elders in the community met and they either

[37:08]

were convinced that this person, through some expiation of this perceived damage, could stay in the community, or if it was serious enough, they were expelled from the community. But I think there's a big range there, again, about what was possible. At the end of this statement here, there's a list of possible things that a grievance committee in a formal grievance situation could recommend. And anywhere from a mediated resolution to, you know, to reversal of an administrative action or follow-up meetings with a person's teacher. I've just started reading a few of them as I go along. Therapeutic work, private reprimand, public censure, apologies to the community.

[38:12]

I'm not sure that directly addresses the things that, and I don't know, Alan, do you have any comments on that? No, just I think that various municipalities have Sometimes it's very personal. Because I understand it's confusing because some of our pre and some of our senior students are involved in San Francisco Center and the Berkeley Science Center.

[39:29]

So that's my question to you. Berkeley Science Center, yeah, the answer is a qualified yes. The principles are not rooted. And the community is not aware of them. So then that's just a rule in a way that's not aligned. So there are these principles. There is a very, very sketchy outline of process that is nominally a committee, but it's never met.

[40:33]

with my teacher, the abbot, whoever, a practice leader. So if you have a problem with me, you should talk to Karen or Rob. But you're right. And this guy got flagged about a month ago. It's that people don't know. We're not aware as a community that we have some principles, and we really need to have some process. People need to know where to go when you have a problem. And it should be easy. And the community needs to know about it. And they have to see, as Peter was saying, this is actually embracing a practice rather than making a rule. I was wondering, what are these ethics based on?

[41:52]

where if you're meditating, you're questioning in the meditation, you're refining your emotionality, you're developing what Nietzsche might call a transvaluation of that. So you have the same, as in philosophy, you have the same questions Well, what it comes down to is... It's a little confusing because they're... I mean, it's not confusing because they're stated as the precepts. You know, just a restatement of the precepts. But they answer your question. The short answer is they come from our community life together, as practitioners. This is how we're going to live together. But they also are rooted in the teaching of the Buddha.

[43:16]

Our effort was to find what standards we needed as a community together And how are those expressed in Buddhism? How do we express that in our language that we use in our practice together when we're trying to understand our practice together? Because we do talk about it as well as practice meditation. So, I think what you're asking is a big question. I can't really do justice to it right now. that we've tried to integrate to make something we consider workable for our community. Yes? One last question. One last question, he says. Well, Peter, maybe you do. There might be one more. Absolutely, absolutely.

[44:51]

Yeah. It is, it is, and that's why, you know, this specific community around the Berkley Zen Center has to do the work. I mean, some people, there's been some work done, and it's been helpful, but they have, this community has to do the work of figuring out what it is, what this expression for this community is. And that actually will enliven. That will bring everybody in, I can assure you. This is, as boring as it seems, this is a hot topic when you get into it. And that will engage people and get folks to really think through these problems. Okay, one more. I just want to say that the ethics statement Alan referred to is in the new membership packet, so a lot of our new members are getting it.

[45:57]

What does it say? It's a very nice piece. It's like one and a half pages. I think it's really well done personally. I've read it several times. And what's important for our community is that newer members are using it as a guidepost and they're looking to people who haven't read it. To be embodying it and remodeling it. But I mean, seriously, I think that as we find a way to bring it out, because we really are a community that's based in relying on each other and working on things at the lowest, I'd rather say the simplest level possible. You know, talking with the person you have a problem with or I mean, making it very easy before it gets very formal. And I think that's one of the things I love about this community is the support that's available. So the more conscious we can bring sort of the guidelines that we're working from, the better it is for people who've been here a while and then newer people who are looking to others to embody that.

[47:05]

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