BCA Ministers Told of Constitutional Rights, Free Speech

Educational Seminar Included Self-Reflections, Connecting With Non-Buddhist Listeners

I am grateful to have been able to participate in the Ministers Continuing Education (MCE) seminar, which was held from May 6-8 at the Jodo Shinshu Center (JSC) in Berkeley, California.

Participants included both Resident and/or Supervising Kaikyoshi ministers, Kaikyoshi-ho Assistant Ministers, and Kyoshi-certified Minister’s Assistants.

Attendees came from all over the United States with 16 participating in-person and 17 online via Zoom. I thank BCA Ministers Association Chairperson Rev. Henry Adams for organizing an informative and meaningful set of sessions and for inviting a number of well-informed specialists and teachers to help us all learn more about crucial political and social concerns facing our communities all while learning and sharing how to more meaningfully connect to our sanghas.

The BCA Ministers Association would also like to express its deep gratitude to the Dharma Forward campaign, which provided generous financial support to make this event possible, as well as the staff and volunteers of the Center for Buddhist Education (CBE), who provided planning and technical support, warm hospitality and delicious meals for the participating ministers throughout the gathering.  

CBE Director Rev. Jerry Hirano led a meaningful discussion about the Minister’s Assistant Program and the important role of Kaikyoshi ministers in charting the future direction and development of training for Minister’s Assistants.

Over the course of the three-day seminar, we had the good fortune to learn from two lawyers with connections to the Buddhist Churches of America (BCA). 

Jeremy Chan, who practices in San Francisco, shared a presentation on immigration safety and understanding our constitutional rights. In the past few months, many of us, as American citizens and residents, have been profoundly affected by the daily overreach of our executive branch, especially with regards to the rights of immigrants. 

This presentation highlighted constitutional protections afforded to all residents of the United States, whether citizens or documented or undocumented residents, and offered a great deal of insight into how we might better protect our sanghas, especially the most vulnerable in them, and our friends in the larger community from illegal oversight and abuse.

The second legal training was given by former BCA President Rick Stambul on the topic of legal protections of free speech, another constitutional right eroding under the weight of fascism in the United States. 

Stambul carefully explained a thread of historical U.S. Supreme Court decisions that vacillated between protecting and harming groups of people based on our constitutional rights to free speech, especially the sinister way in which the U.S. government arrested, relocated and imprisoned Buddhist ministers and Japanese American community leaders at the outbreak of World War II. 

Stambul offered the legal advice of taking great care in what we, as ministers, say and do, alongside the personal conviction that there are dire consequences to our remaining silent on the injustices unfolding in the United States and around the world today.

Following this thread of navigating tempestuous sociopolitical waters, in another session, Rev. Blayne Higa, our guest speaker from the Hompa Hongwanji of Hawaii who is a dear friend of mine and peer from the Institute of Buddhist Studies (IBS), offered the approach of facing fear with the courage of “preaching the Dharma with a lion’s roar” as stated in Bodhisattva Dharmakara’s vows in the “Juseige.” 

Rev. Higa’s presentation came not only from his own experience of interfaith and political advocacy work as a Jodo Shinshu minister, but was also grounded in a place of courage further upstream in his Dharma lineage from Bishop Rev. Yemyo Imamura’s legacy of responding to xenophobia and racism against Japanese migrants to Hawaii in the early 20th century.

Equally important and related to these previous topics were the two presentations on Dharma talks which covered ways of connecting to listeners from non-Buddhist backgrounds and clear and relatable ways to present Jodo Shinshu teachings by BCA Minister Emeritus Rev. Patricia Kanaya and Rev. Dr. Takashi Miyaji, respectively. 

In both presentations, the ministers emphasized the importance of remaining true to Ven. Shinran’s teachings while holding the flexibility of relating to everyday life events and finding commonality with visitors and longtime members of our sanghas. 

During the discussions, many of us reflected on our own journeys to ministry, especially certain points of deep self-reflection that forced us to think much more carefully about who we are and what we believe about the world and ourselves. 

Sharing these moments of transformation, along with demystifying and better translating or interpreting points of Jodo Shinshu teachings, seemed to be some of the most rewarding and yet challenging parts of ministry.

The opportunity to gather in the evenings for comradery and frank conversations among fellow ministers provided comfort, inspiration and a renewed sense of purpose for the participants.  One evening, BCA Bishop Rev. Marvin Harada hosted a “Bishop’s Hour” gathering, welcoming participating ministers to share the joys and challenges they are experiencing in their ministries.

For my own part, as an Assistant Minister at the Berkeley Buddhist Temple and the Buddhist Temple of Marin, I am grateful to be with my peers, mentors and friends in struggling with our roles as teachers and fellow travelers, especially when it comes to addressing issues of systemic injustice and the vast amounts of harm that unfold around us. 

I trust that none of us wishes to be complicit in these forms of discrimination and harm, but I hope that we are also able to recognize our culpability, and that the only way forward is to make drastic and lasting change that starts with each of us. 

In the past few months, I have noted a rising sense of fear among many of my friends and colleagues. As a transgender minister who is often in the spotlight, whether I want it or not, I, too, frequently find myself choking on the fumes of terror at what is happening and what may yet happen. 

But we must look within ourselves, find resolve in community, and seek the Buddha-Dharma to find the courage to work together in alleviating suffering. 

We must hear the calling voice of Amida in the cries of those whose lives are most impacted by the turmoil of injustice unfolding around us and show solidarity with them, putting our own lives and well-being on the line if necessary. 

If we only turn inward in fear to protect ourselves, our families, our friends and our sanghas from future harm, while neglecting those who are already experiencing it, then it is only a matter of time before we will be the ones being harmed. When that time comes, who will answer our cries for solidarity?