Finding Inspiration in a Tale of Two Sanghas

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times … in short, it was so far like the present period.” That opening line from Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities” came to mind on my flight home from Minneapolis, where I had attended the BCA Eastern District Council Meeting and the 80th anniversary of the Twin Cities Sangha, on the weekend of May 2-3.

Dickens wrote about the past, but the duality he described — extreme swings between hope and despair, between the best and worst — has a way of applying to any era, including our own.

I often share what I call the “bad news” with BCA and temple leaders at national and district meetings: Our membership is declining. As part of my commitment to transparency, I believe leaders deserve access to this data so we can make better decisions together — even when delivering it is so difficult. The presentation I was preparing for the Eastern District Council was no exception.

The numbers are sobering. Membership reported to the BCA has fallen roughly 3% year over year since 2023. At that rate of decline, projections suggest the organization has approximately 30 years before membership becomes unsustainable or concentrated in just a few large temples — a sobering benchmark that underscores the urgency of reversing the trend. 

This is why, as reported in the April 2026 Wheel of Dharma, we are proposing “Project Catalyst”: a 5-year pilot program that changes how BCA collects membership income by fixing the assessment amount, freeing each temple’s leadership to focus energy on growing membership rather than managing assessments.

I’ll admit I wondered how the Eastern District Council would receive data like this. Would it land as “the worst of times”? I may have suggested that some emotional preparation wouldn’t hurt.

What happened next surprised me. The bad news was readily accepted. Leaders engaged in a thoughtful, energized discussion about “Project Catalyst” and the path to long-term sustainability. But it was what came during the temple reports that truly shifted my perspective.

Our friends from Albany Sangha — in New York’s state capital, nearly three hours by car from its sponsoring temple, New York Buddhist Church, led by Temple President David Brady and Rev. Kurt Rye — were described as growing steadily and insistently requesting official BCA recognition. 

Thanks to the efforts of Rev. Dr. Aaron Proffitt and Rev. Gary Jaskula, the Albany Sangha gathers for services in a Unitarian church building and has established a Dharma School. Here was a community building itself from the ground up, in a new city, with no permanent home of its own — and asking not for help, but for recognition.

The following day on May 3, the Twin Cities Sangha offered a similar lesson. As I learned from Rev. Chiemi Bly, in its 80-year history as a satellite of the Midwest Buddhist Temple in Chicago, the Sangha has never had a permanent temple site — moving from homes to community centers and beyond. 

Sangha President Cheral Tsuchiya joked warmly that they have a “temple-in-a-box,” and that the best part is they can hold a service wherever the moment calls for it. That Sunday, the anniversary service was held on the second floor of a beautiful restaurant and conference center, where nearly 100 guests experienced the Nembutsu with the altar framed against blue skies, green trees and the Minneapolis skyline. It was as beautiful of a view and as moving as any service I’ve attended in our most established temples.

Despite very different circumstances, both Sanghas share a common thread: audacity and persistence. Albany is building community in a completely unexpected new area. Twin Cities has thrived for eight decades without a building to call its own. Neither has waited for ideal conditions. Both have grown by embracing flexibility and refusing to let convention define what a Sangha can be. 

It is a testament to the continuing historic effort that larger temples have made to create and develop Sanghas around them — and my hope that more temples will consider starting. It parallels the national effort the BCA is making to support new Sanghas in communities without the support of a larger temple nearby — and only possible due to your support and generosity through donations and membership.

That is the “best of times” Dickens was reaching for — and it’s happening right now, in Albany and Minneapolis and, I believe, in communities like Las Vegas, Dallas, Cleveland, and across the BCA. 

The membership decline is real — and the urgency is real. But so is this: that when given the chance, our temples, churches and Sanghas meet the moment with creativity and heart. It inspires me to keep sharing the “bad news” and asking for financial and leadership support without hesitation, because I’ve seen firsthand that our leaders and members have the capacity — and the will — to write a different ending.