Tarver:
When I was at CML, Soryu reminded me of a teaching of the Buddha that some things are true to say, some things are useful to say, some are both, and some are neither. The idea was to stick to what is both true and useful.
Indeed.
but basically the overall tone is somewhere in the range of tabloid journalism and/or an accusation of wrongdoing. (...)These posts of yours, however, seem accusatory, inflammatory, and in one carefully chosen word: unhelpful.
Is this true and useful? You could support your statements here if they are true versus created beliefs.
For me,
-- transparency and even delight in transparency is useful time and again, and
-- expresses appreciation graciously and skillfully for being accepted and publicly supported as a non-profit entity
-- it helps uncertain students to see the 990 history when paying a teacher; I'd encourage 990 sharing here.
-- 990 sharing helps an organization earn trust and more support.
You will also find that, personally, I have included thanks this teacher in the past two weeks elsewhere. It is unrelated to this thread, so I feel in stating it that your emotions are being placated where they could be placid naturally through clearly seeing. Still it may help you to know that, so there it is.
I don't get any wrongdoing vibe from Shinzen, CML, the HPP, or any of the other fun, interesting, and helpful people I have been learning from and getting increasingly involved with lately, up to and including recently being invited to offer these cool and clever teachings through one of the established channels.
Good. Nor do I. Otherwise I would have said so clearly and with support.
Speculating, based on just going to the center once, I do think your teacher and his colleagues could handle this transparency well if it is brought to their attention. Accountability and transparency are great friends to a business and monastery alike.
[edited: we've covered it]
The number of people on the call makes no difference to the pay, but by the time Emily is also paid (and I assume and dearly hope she is paid, although I don't know for sure), and overhead is taken into account, Shinzen may even lose money on a first-time junior facilitator such as myself, because subscriptions to undiscovered gems such as moi-meme always run at a fraction of what Shinzen gets.
You mentioned in your thread that hundreds participate. So it's probably okay at $20/pp even if it's a handful.
And you're learning for yourself a difference between teaching dharma for dana (gift, generosity, including none at all) versus charging a payment (dealing with overhead, profit, compensation) while also being a non-profit guest of the public and the public's generosity by way of offering non-profit status, free provision of municipal services, funds, etc. Many great teachers taught freely, accepting dana, receiving no dana, and then the dana of "just practice sincerely; sincere practice is more than enough payment". And the dharma lineage began with no payment, just dana if dana was offered.
Best wishes.