Balancing Stable Operations with New Explorations

Hello. For the next two days, leaders from all Jungto Society units have gathered at the Seonyudong Education and Training Center for a conference on revitalizing the Jungto Social and Cultural Center.

After completing his early morning practice and meditation, Sunim departed from Seoul at 6 AM, heading towards Mungyeong.

The highway was packed with cars leaving the city to view the autumn foliage. Even the rest areas were crowded, so Sunim skipped breakfast and continued on his way. As they traveled, the sun rose outside the car window.

Arriving at the Seonyudong Education and Training Center in Mungyeong at 9 AM, Sunim had a late breakfast. After a short rest following the meal, he attended the conference for revitalizing the Jungto Social and Cultural Center, which began at 10:30 AM.

About 230 leaders from various Jungto Society units gathered in the training center’s main hall. This was the first large-scale offline meeting since the National Delegates’ Meeting and Senior Jungto Practitioners’ Assembly held five years ago, before the COVID-19 pandemic. Everyone arrived in Mungyeong with a sense of nostalgia, as if on an autumn outing.

After reciting the Three Refuges and the Heart Sutra, participants introduced themselves. Starting with the Seoul-Jeju branch, followed by Gangwon-Gyeonggi East, Incheon-Gyeonggi West, Daejeon-Chungcheong, Gwangju-Jeolla, Daegu-Gyeongbuk, Busan-Ulsan, Gyeongnam, Youth, Community, and the Happiness Movement Headquarters, each group came forward to introduce themselves and shout a brief slogan. Overseas and international branches regrettably participated online.

After happily recognizing each other, everyone bowed three times to request Sunim’s opening Dharma talk. Sunim explained the purpose of today’s conference and the topics to be discussed over the next day and a half.

“It’s been almost five years since we experienced the COVID-19 pandemic. When the pandemic first started, we all had many concerns about how to conduct our activities. We judged that the pandemic might last for a long time, and even if resolved, there was a possibility that a similar virus could return in a few years. Also, since we had plans to expand online activities from the 2nd 10,000-Day Practice, we decided to quickly transition to online platforms, not to be dragged by external circumstances but to respond proactively and independently.

Reasons for Jungto Society’s Transition to Online Platforms

The transition to online platforms seemed appropriate even from the perspective of Jungto Society’s founding principles and the words of the Great Master Seoam: ‘A practitioner is one with a pure mind, wherever a practitioner stays becomes a temple, and this is Buddhism.’ This is because there’s no need for a separate Dharma hall; when our minds become pure, wherever we live becomes a Dharma hall. We decided to respond proactively to changes in the external environment, not just defensively. Before COVID-19, our direction was to establish many local Dharma centers within walking distance of where people lived, making the Buddha’s teachings easily accessible. However, taking this a step further, we thought it would be more in line with Jungto Society’s founding principles if we could make the spaces where we live our Dharma halls.

Firstly, there was a change in external circumstances due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Secondly, there was a discussion to respond proactively rather than passively to these external changes. Thirdly, we had already planned to expand online activities starting from the second 10,000-Day Practice. Fourthly, we judged that this direction aligned more closely with Jungto Society’s original founding purpose. As a result, we transitioned to online activities in a short period. The early Sangha during Buddha’s time adopted a unanimous consensus system and direct democracy. We also expected that by transitioning Jungto Society online, we could incorporate more elements of the early Sangha. Consequently, we changed our discussion structure and organizational system to more closely resemble the model of the early Sangha.

Now, five years after COVID-19, as the pandemic has somewhat subsided, people are increasingly returning to offline activities. Looking at society as a whole, we see that some aspects have changed due to COVID-19 and continue to evolve, while others have reverted to pre-pandemic norms. Areas that had already begun to change before the pandemic merely accelerated their transformation due to COVID-19, and these changes persist because the pandemic was not their primary catalyst. Aspects that were forced to adapt to non-face-to-face interactions due to the pandemic are now showing signs of returning to their previous state as COVID-19 subsides. As a result, current society can be described as a mix of online and offline elements. This situation presents a blend of apparent returns to normalcy alongside significant changes, as well as substantial transformations coexisting with aspects that seem to have reverted to their original state.

Online Jungto Society Experiencing Transitional Confusion

Since transitioning to an online system, Jungto Society has experienced many advantages but also encountered numerous contradictions. Firstly, there’s a limitation in that the people operating the system are not from the online generation. Suddenly switching to online operations has made it challenging for us to adapt. Even with consistent adaptation and training, some aspects still don’t run smoothly. This leads to stress during activities and sometimes nostalgia for the past when we primarily operated offline. Secondly, we merely transferred our basic organizational structure and operational methods, which were designed for offline activities, to an online platform. These systems and methods were not originally designed for online operations. As a result, while some aspects function without issues, others are not effective. Therefore, Jungto Society’s organization and operations can be seen as currently undergoing a transitional phase.

Our experience is still insufficient to completely transform our organizational structure, operational system, and goals to an online format. It’s also not easy to find models in society that we can benchmark. Since our purpose is to predict and prepare for a future society that has not yet arrived, it’s challenging to garner active participation from the public. Nevertheless, we have been working with a future-oriented approach for the past 30 years. We cannot lose this future-oriented perspective because we need to ensure that when we look back on today 30 years from now, we can evaluate that we made good decisions. However, if Jungto Society were an experimental organization with just a few young people gathering to take on challenges like when it first started 30 years ago, we could focus more on the future than the present. But now, we have achievements from the past 30 years, so abandoning everything to focus solely on the future would result in too great a loss. Because we are in this transitional period, although we have made individual efforts over the past five years, from the perspective of the entire Jungto organization, our progress may feel somewhat slow. In a way, we are in a stagnant state. Internally, everyone is trying hard, but the external effects are not readily visible. We need to decide whether to accept this stagnation as a natural phenomenon that occurs as an organization grows, or to consider it a problem and seek new alternatives to overcome it.

When seeking alternatives, we must also consider whether to reinforce offline activities or focus on future-oriented initiatives. Jungto Society attempted a rapid transition to online platforms, which resulted in sacrificing some of the advantages of offline activities that had been built up over time. In this situation, there are two paths. First, we can break through the current stagnation by recovering and reinforcing the strengths of offline activities. Second, we can overcome the stagnation by taking a future-oriented approach from a long-term perspective, even if it means accepting losses, just as a small group boldly moved forward with a future-oriented mindset 30 years ago. These concerns have existed since the initial stages of the online transition. However, even if the current Jungto Society wishes to move forward with a future-oriented approach while accepting offline losses, the younger generation lacks the capacity to lead Jungto Society. The existing generation lacks the ideas and drive to take the lead. Therefore, this aspect requires extended discussion.

To Achieve Stable Operation and New Pioneering Together

Although reinforcing offline activities may not be a future-oriented approach, it is something we have experience with and can help alleviate the current stagnation to some extent. Therefore, we should first attempt to strengthen offline activities while simultaneously preparing for more future-oriented strategies with a long-term perspective. We have discussed future-oriented approaches extensively, but no clear policy has emerged, and even if one did, it would be difficult to pass through the current decision-making structure. A few young people might easily make a decision, but in Jungto Society’s current structure, it is very challenging to pass through the branch and chapter leaders’ meetings. Branch and chapter leaders tend to focus on maintaining stability within their terms, which naturally slows down the process of change. Moreover, if a proposal doesn’t receive more than two-thirds support in meetings, it cannot even be adopted for discussion, making it difficult to initiate conversations about change. However, this operational method isn’t necessarily problematic. Jungto Society has already achieved a certain scale, making it important to stabilize the existing organization while also exploring new avenues. The challenge lies in balancing stability with pioneering efforts. For the past 30 years, Jungto Society had little to lose, allowing for continuous challenges and pioneering without considering stabilization. But now, Jungto Society must preserve the achievements of the past 30 years while pioneering new paths, which necessitates a different approach. With the dual tasks of maintaining stability and pioneering, it’s challenging to find quick solutions to overcome the current stagnation.

First, we need to decide whether the current stagnant situation should be considered a problem. Attempting to change something that isn’t problematic will only result in undermining the achievements made so far. Therefore, we must first determine whether there is a problem or not, but this diagnosis has not yet been accurately made. If we judge that there is a problem, we need to identify what the problem is, and then discuss how to solve it. In this process, we also need to decide whether to focus on maintaining the status quo or to place more emphasis on pioneering and expansion from a future-oriented perspective. This is not a simple issue.

This issue was presented to all leading members as a topic for discussion, but during the actual discussions, they raised many different concerns. In the past, when we had such discussions, we mainly talked about how to develop Jungto Society. However, this time, the leading members expressed their own difficulties. Many requests were made, such as introducing a vacation system, implementing sabbatical years, and concerns about people leaving due to the demanding nature of the activities. This is the first time in 30 years since the establishment of Jungto Society that we’ve encountered such issues. However, if we only make development plans without listening to the voices of these volunteers, we won’t achieve internal unity. Therefore, we’ve tentatively concluded to form a preparatory committee for the 2nd 1000-Day Practice to discuss fundamental issues regarding the development of Jungto Society. Since this issue won’t be resolved in just a few months, the preparatory committee for the 2nd 1000-Day Practice will need to conduct opinion polls or discussions to reach conclusions one by one.

How to Revitalize the Jungto Social and Cultural Center

Today, we will discuss how to revitalize the Jungto Social and Cultural Center. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, face-to-face gatherings became impossible, and people started meeting online. As a result, we haven’t been able to utilize the building as originally intended when we built the Jungto Social and Cultural Center. Over the next two days, I’d like all of you to put your heads together and think about how we can revitalize the Jungto Social and Cultural Center. Since we’ve already discussed this topic several times, it’s as if we’ve already cut down all the trees. Now, you just need to trim the branches and organize. Let’s have a good discussion together over these two days.”

After the opening Dharma talk, the President of Jungto Society introduced the topic for the meeting.

At the joint Jungto Society meeting in August, there was a discussion about the stagnant growth in the number of leading members since transitioning to online operations. It was suggested that accurate cause analysis and understanding of the public’s needs were necessary. In September, during the Leading Members’ Assembly, there were proposals and discussions about conducting special practice sessions. In October, after discussions by each branch, all leading members had a public hearing with Sunim during the Leading Members’ Dharma Assembly.

Listening to the President’s progress report, we were reminded once again of the purpose of today’s meeting. Following this, we had a Q&A session with Sunim on the topic of “Revitalizing the Jungto Social and Cultural Center.”

Many proposals were made on various topics, including what can be done to revitalize the Jungto Social and Cultural Center, when to start, who will be in charge, who to include if forming a new unit, who will oversee the new unit, where to secure personnel for implementation, what to name the new unit that will handle future tasks, and how to operate the offline Dharma School.

After an hour of discussion, we took a lunch break. Everyone gathered in small groups to eat the packed lunches they had brought from home.

After lunch, we resumed discussions at 2 PM. Once all questions about the topic were addressed and there were no more queries, we began group discussions at 3:30 PM.

In groups, we had heated discussions on how to revitalize the Jungto Social and Cultural Center. After two hours of discussion, we had dinner.

As the sun set, from 7:30 PM, each group presented their discussion results. Various ideas were shared on how to revitalize the Jungto Social and Cultural Center. Sunim listened attentively to the presentations.

After the presentations, Sunim returned to the stage to continue the dialogue. He asked questions to the audience about contentious points, checking which option among the first, second, and third proposals had the most support from the audience.

“Those who agree with trying to run the Jungto Dharma School offline as well, please raise your hands.”

Most people raised their hands.

Sunim continued to ask questions, narrowing down the topics.

“If we run the Jungto Dharma School offline, do you prefer the current 5-month duration or extending it to 10 months?” “For the Dharma talks, do you prefer listening to them in advance as we do now, or listening together at the Dharma center?” “For classroom composition, do you prefer the current ratio of 1 facilitator per 7 students? Or since it’s offline, would it be better to have 1 facilitator for 30 students?”

After confirming the overall opinion of the audience, we had another session for suggestions and proposals. Participants made various suggestions on how to structure the curriculum for the offline Jungto Dharma School.

Following this, there were many proposals about whether to conduct the Rice Offering Chanting every day, whether it’s necessary to provide a space for the general public to pray and meditate, and who could take on the role if a special team were to be formed for revitalizing the Jungto Social and Cultural Center. Sunim concluded the discussion with closing remarks.

“We’ve organized a lot of content today. Tomorrow, we’ll discuss further about who will be the core people to lead the revitalization of the Jungto Social and Cultural Center. Thank you all for your hard work.”

Due to the variety of suggestions and proposals received, the meeting extended well past 9 PM.

Tomorrow morning, Sunim will conduct a live-streamed Dharma Q&A in English for foreign participants. Following that, he will engage in further discussions on revitalizing the Jungto Social and Cultural Center. After concluding the two-day meeting with a closing ceremony, he will immediately depart for Incheon Airport in the afternoon, with plans to fly to Bhutan in the evening.