From the Teaching Council and Board of Directors of Monterey Bay Zen Center

Call to Action on Systemic Racism

In deep grief over the recent murders and the long history of racist violence, death and oppression during the last centuries, we acknowledge the deep-seated, systemic, and structural racism that poisons life in the United States of America. We vow to continue the work we are currently engaged in, and call for a fresh and coordinated effort to dismantle racism at every level of our culture, society, government, our Zen communities, and our own hearts.

We look to the Dharma to support us as a community, and to inspire and inform our actions off the cushion. As Soto Zen Buddhists the Dharma is our guide as we sow the seeds of compassion and inclusion for all people. We recognize the deeply embedded ways racism and white privilege deprive us of the world we have vowed to co-create with all beings. We vow to transform racism in our selves, our Sanghas, and our world. We vow to hold ourselves, and our leaders, accountable.

We atone for the suffering in which we have been complicit, and we renew our vow to untangle racism's tenacious tendrils and cultivate the blossoming of a new and better world. We will practice the humility that is essential to listening deeply and that leads to real and lasting change.