<Begin Segment 13>

EK: Just kind of a follow up question. I'm kind of wondering -- you mentioned kind of the idea of this progressive, or conservative/progressive approach to the religion and services. And I'm just wondering how that's kind of reconciled with these modern needs of people in terms of having a exciting public speaker, everything from making the services interesting to speaking to their more personal needs and the needs of a more possibly diverse sangha, I guess.

RI: I'm not quite sure what the question is.

EK: What the question is?

RI: Yeah.

EK: Well I guess kind of with this conservative progressive approach, they're kind of moving forward by looking back. And, you know, looking back to a type of service or a type of church that served the people at that time, maybe in Japan. And how is that recon -- do you see that being reconciled at all with these modern needs of the people today?

RI: Uh...

EK: Does that clarify it? Kind of? Or...

RI: Well, I, well, I'll respond to it in the way I hear it...

EK: Okay, okay.

RI: ...and we'll see if that works.

EK: That's good enough.

RI: I think as -- well, let's just talk about BCA here, in the mainland U.S. As its history lengthens and as more generation, generations participate in this organization, and then all the intermarriage and so on that the -- it began kind of a very homogeneous: they're all Isseis with similar needs. And then the Nisei came, of course, and so some changes were made along the way. But it still stayed one organization under the old structure. And what I'm beginning to see more and more is that like what happens in Christianity or Buddhism where when new needs are expressed and the old organization cannot accommodate those needs, then a group breaks off and forms -- still perhaps with the same basic teaching, but a different way of observing and acting out how they understand the teaching. And so I think within BCA, there's probably at least two distinct groups -- one looking off into the past and gaining great solace in the beauty of old tradition, and another group that maybe wants to bring in new creativity and things that haven't been tried before. Not just in terms of services and music and ritual and so on, but also in how the teachings are interpreted. Whether it's a more traditional way of interpreting it -- that's very Japanesey or a, shall we say a more contemporary one that we don't know where it's going, but we encourage that creativity as we bring in more and more different constituents and diversity. So I think if it's going to grow, one way would be to -- for certain individuals getting together who have like mind to go out and form another group. And it's gonna be, 'course, difficult at first and -- and so on. But I think our members, by and large, have the financial resources and the education to do this now. And so it's just the old fears and allegiances that are keeping people together I think. And otherwise, I think they'll just continue to decline. So there might be ten new forms. In Japan there's ten different sects of JoudoShinshu there, all slightly or significantly different from the other. And they all serve different constituencies. So if Japan is so homogeneous, and the United States which is not at all, there'll be a hundred of them, you know, and that'll be healthy. So I don't think we should talk -- fight about who's right or who's wrong, what direction to go. We just simply go our own ways. And have that confidence that the timeless teaching that's been around for twenty six hundred years is gonna continue in another land. So...

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.