FULL STATEMENT OF VALUES AND ETHICS

STATEMENT OF VALUES
IMT affirms its commitment to the Buddha’s teachings of wisdom, compassion in action, interdependence, and loving kindness, excluding none. Consistent with these teachings, we strive to create an environment for dharma practice that is welcoming to everyone who sincerely seeks to learn and practice.

During the Buddha’s 45 years of teaching, he established a vast sangha (community) of followers explicitly open to people of all clans, castes, and backgrounds. His disciples ranged from those who were from ‘outcaste’ communities to former royalty, to enslaved individuals. We will do everything in our power to create opportunities for dharma practice and sangha leadership that foster such inclusiveness.

We reaffirm these 2,600-year-old Buddhist values in the face of cultures of violence and harm that threaten life on this planet and that differentially impact oppressed, exploited, and marginalized people based on their race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, culture, country of origin, or religion. We denounce racism, classism, misogyny, transphobia, homophobia, xenophobia, all forms of oppression, and the valuation of certain lives over others. We value and celebrate diversity, practice respect for all beings, and acknowledge the inherent dignity of all peoples.

The Buddhist path teaches that meditation and inner freedom must develop together with a foundation of generosity, ethical behavior, and lovingkindness. We affirm that human happiness requires intentions that are free from greed, hatred, and cruelty.

We affirm the interdependent nature of reality. When one being suffers, we all suffer. Thus, our own well-being and liberation is bound to the well-being and liberation of others. The only basis for Dharma life is virtue, respect, and mutual care. Knowing this truth, we will resist the destructive forces of hatred, discrimination, and recklessness, and offer the powerful alternatives of fierce love and compassion.

IMT has its roots in Spirit Rock Meditation Center, in that our teachers and leaders have practiced and trained there. Earlier in their history, the teachers and practitioners of Spirit Rock recognized that they had unconsciously failed to fully live up to the Buddha’s model of radical inclusivity, and therefore to core spiritual beliefs. Since then, many practitioners, teachers, staff, and administrators have worked tirelessly towards the establishment of an integrated sangha that responds to the needs of people with vastly differing backgrounds, and towards a community to which all people feel welcomed to hear and practice the Buddha’s teachings of liberation. The work they have done has transformed their community, and they have made substantial progress in the ensuing decades. Their efforts continue.

IMT is a direct spiritual descendent of Spirit Rock. Understanding that systemic oppression is passed from one generation to the next, IMT leadership is likewise committed to making visible  the unseen biases related to systemic inequity. We pledge unyielding reflection on how power and privilege operate in us as individuals and as an organization. We acknowledge that this inner work is imperative to our pledge to include people of any race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, culture, country of origin, or religion into teaching and leadership positions. We recognize that we still have much work to do, and we honor the efforts and skill of all those who came before us and contributed to this invaluable shift towards a more lived embodiment of the Buddha’s teachings.

With the Earth as a witness, the Buddha proclaimed his right to liberation and taught that all beings have the right to liberation, to be free from the oppressive forces of greed, hate, and ignorance. With the Earth as our witness, we (IMT) affirm our right to offer spiritual sanctuary for all to awaken together.

Values as a Welcoming Community for All
We recognize, with humility, that there is a great deal we can learn from one another by listening and hearing a multiplicity of voices, with an open, receptive mind.

As a community we are committed to the following values:

  • Ongoing learning and reflection as a community and a saṅgha

  • Using conflict as a source of learning and growth

  • Courage to be truthful and to have difficult conversations, as a form of wise speech

  • Compassion to turn toward suffering caused by unconsciousness, rather than turning away from it, as part of our commitment to non-harming

  • Balanced transparency that both respects the confidentiality that protects tenderness and injury, and dispels the secrecy that shields unexamined and non-accountable power

  • Skillful action through the implementation of all factors of the Eightfold Path

  • Commitment to community well being

  • Accountability for practicing our values and principles and for understanding and addressing negative impacts

  • Clarity around roles and responsibilities, power, decision-making authority and accountability

  • Responsibility for impact as well as intent

IMT will respond to constantly changing conditions, and to offer practices, teachings, and refuge that nurture the internal life in support of external service. We practice not only for ourselves but for the welfare, happiness, and safety of all life everywhere.

STATEMENT OF ETHICS
Sīla: The Path of Ethics
IMT’s approach to ethics is rooted in the guidelines of the Buddha known as Sīla (ethical conduct), the cultivation of non-harming and mutual care. Sīla is traditionally divided into three groupings of conduct: wise speech, wise action, and wise livelihood. These practices are considered trainings, and are fundamental to the path, bringing together our intentions for inner and outer well-being and freedom from suffering.

At the heart of Buddhist ethical practice is the insight that our lives are deeply interdependent, unfolding in constantly changing relationships with other living beings. Through practice, we grow in compassion for the suffering of all beings, wish for all forms of life to be safe and at ease, and understand that our actions always have an impact on both ourselves and others (karma).

The Five Precepts
The Buddha’s guidelines for wise action are summarized as the “Five Precepts.” These guidelines are not imposed rules to be followed robotically. Rather, they are invitations into living our lives with attention, care, and curiosity, so we may directly discover the effects of our actions on ourselves and others. Practicing with the Five Precepts is a lifelong inquiry of acting in congruence with our values, based in a fundamental orientation toward non-harming and compassion for all life.

We endeavor for every action and interaction to be rooted in a commitment to non-harming. We regard the Buddha’s teachings of Sīla, expressed in the Five Precept Trainings, as guardrails for IMT leadership and community members. The Five Precepts are traditionally phrased in the negative, or what to refrain from doing. They may also be expressed in terms of what to do. The Precepts adopted by IMT include both expressions:

  1. We undertake the training to refrain from killing, and to value all life.

  2. We undertake the training to refrain from stealing, and to take only that which is freely offered.

  3. We undertake the training to refrain from sexual misconduct, and to take care with our sexual energies.

  4. We undertake the training to refrain from false speech, and to speak only what is true, kind, harmonious, and timely.

  5. We undertake the training to refrain from intoxicants that lead to heedlessness, and to cultivate a clear mind.

 

May all beings be free, and may our actions contribute wholeheartedly to that freedom!