Announcement 12/05/12

Joshu Sasaki Roshi, at the age of 105, stepped down from his role as the primary Zen teacher for Rinzai-ji nine months ago due to serious illness. Our community is working to provide a forum where both students and ordained teachers of Rinzai-Ji may voice any concerns regarding organizational structure, student-teacher relationships, and a vision for our collective enterprise: to further study and deepen our understanding of Roshi’s Zen Teachings, and to carry them forward into the future for others’ benefit. As part of this broad effort, the Boards of Directors of the affiliate temples are working to create policies and procedures regarding practice and conduct. In the near future a meeting of ordained members and leaders of the Rinzai-ji community will convene to address these profound issues and work towards establishing a true democracy.
 
Because this is likely to be a significant and time consuming undertaking, the Rinzai-Ji Board of Directors has begun to establish interim policies and procedures to be used pending a collective determination of these issues. The first interim policy and procedure developed sets forth procedures to address complaints about conduct. This policy and the procedure for communicating concerns are located on this website by going to the Rinzai-ji tab and then to the tab Conduct Policy.