Does the program structure significantly differ from OAK? Is there separation between staff and participant roles? Is MAPLE practicing informed consent? What about oversight and accountability? What is the onboarding process?
I would like to know what the organization is doing to “investigate” and improve based on my post and other feedback. The last “investigation” conducted by this organization consisted of Soryu sending his girlfriend to sort things out during which she never spoke to me about the events in question. The organization’s recent public statement was incredibly disappointing to myself and other former members. When I read this statement these were the things that stood out to me from my pov and the information available to me: distortion of information about my interactions with leadership and interactions with other former members, shifting the blame onto the past trauma of participants rather than acknowledging they have created a VERY high-risk environment that exceeds others intensive training practices, denial of and justification of other serious risk factors, mischaracterization of my prior relationship, denial of knowledge of allegations which I have email records of, lack of transparency, a continued pattern of appointing persons with conflicts of interests to handle grievances, lack of a 3rd party investigation which would generally be expected of any other spiritual community or organization in similar circumstances. Based on this public statement alone I would conclude that my concerns are not being taken seriously as they indicate, there are still serious issues that are actively compromising accountability and growth, protecting Soryu from being accountable to harm caused to past students is still a primary concern for some leaders, and it is uncertain whether or not significant changes will actually happen that ensure current and future participants will be treated more ethically than I was.
I also imagine there are many discussions happening internally which I am not aware of regarding these issues that may reflect something very different. Perhaps there are members who are willing to advocate for real accountability, address issues of privilege and power, and engage restorative processes regarding the harm done to many past members—and to ensure that the organization does not continue to justify patterns of behavior and organizational practices that have been harmful. However, it seems like if the organization is taking other steps this information ought to be a matter of public record.
I did appreciate the acknowledgment that they had failed to inform myself and past residents of risks and to obtain consent for this training- and that they indicated that they intend to update the website with risks. I still have not seen a list of specific risks yet but this seems like a good first step.
I want to acknowledge that I have multiple competing goals in engaging here. I want to engage with you with compassion and understanding. I also want to do my best to answer honestly and clarify what I see is happening for both you and others, and finally I want to personally understand what did happen and clarify if I’m seeing the organization clearly and if we need to make changes (or in the extreme case do I need to distance myself from the organization).
So I likely won’t make anyone completely happy with this response, including you, myself, or my friends here at MAPLE.
I also want to state that this isn’t an official response from the organization, it’s my own personal sensemaking and understanding having done a lot of work to critically examine the organization and understand how it works.
So all that being said, here’s my best attempt to answer the questions I think I have insight on.
Does the program structure significantly differ from OAK?
Yes. The program here in Vermont is quite different from what you described. For instance, we are discouraged from fasting during retreats, and typically maintain a much tighter container for them (such as reading out the rules before beginning them).
Is there separation between staff and participant roles?
During awakening periods (silent retreats), MAPLE has people running the retreat center, and others doing the meditation, and there is a clear separation (aside from a couple roles—Head Monk, and Care, which do both). During “responsibility” periods (off retreat) of course the residents and apprentices are expected to take on non-profit responsibilities, that’s a key part of the training, and there’s less of a separation.
Is MAPLE practicing informed consent?
As far as I can tell MAPLE does a fairly good job of this. For instance the guest management typically is very clear with people what a retreat entails before they attend, and then a very clear speech is given the day before retreat about what it will be like, and people are once again given the opportunity to leave. Finally, every participant reads out loud a retreat agreement the moment before the retreat starts, so that everyone is crystal clear on the expectations.
I’ve seen MAPLE continue to get better and clearer about this over the time I’ve been here.
What about oversight and accountability?
My understanding is MAPLE has 3 decision making roles at the org—head teacher, executive director, and love role. One of the benefits of this arrangement is that there’s checks and balances to power, and I’ve seen those checks and balances effectively used to make sure no one in the organization has too much power.
In addition, there’s also the board, which provides external oversight. To my understanding one way they could improve is to get a bit more of an active board.
What is the onboarding process?
MAPLE has a number of different ways people can attend the center, and the onboarding process is different for each of them. They have short term guests, long term residential members, service guests, apprentices, residents, and retreat guests. Can give more specifics here based on what you’d like to know.
I would like to know what the organization is doing to “investigate” and improve based on my post and other feedback.
In the year that I’ve been here, I’ve seen clear and consistent efforts to improve along the dimensions that people have mentioned they have issues with. I’ve already mentioned the improvements in informed consent above, and I’ll include several more below. Note of course that all of the initiatives below are new and may change or be ceased as MAPLE learns more.
Removing Leaders that Made Mistakes
On the immediate and obvious level, as far as I can tell, the leaders at OAK that made some admitted mistakes are no longer in leadership roles within the organization. That’s not to say none of them will be in leadership roles in the future, but to my eye at least they weren’t ready and the organization sensibly removed them from those roles.
Changing How They Approach New Centers
The organization as far as I can tell has also drastically changed the way it approaches launching new centers. I had an opportunity to experience the new OAK container for a month when they were experimenting with it, and the leader there is deliberately NOT trying to hold a “teacher” role. Instead, he is simply there to hold the container/rules, and may in time step into the teacher role if he feels ready.
Meanwhile our sister center Willow is ran an even more radical experiment, trying to mostly do away with hierarchical structure all together and run a 3 month experiment with a more collective/holocratic structure.
Implementing a Formal Teacher Training Program
The organization has now created and implemented a formal teacher training program, which replaces the previous less formal method of teacher training. My hope is that this training program will help to standardize the process and quality of teachers at new centers.
Creating a Standard Rubric for the Training
In addition to standardizing the teacher training, the program is also working to standardize how they measure the core things they’re looking to train, and see how effective the teachers and training actually are.
Creating Systems for Better Oversight at New Centers
The organization is developing software for use at all the centers, that can track the aforementioned metrics and provide a standardized system for running centers and allowing anyone at the center to give feedback. This gives better insight into what’s happening at centers for leaders of the organization, and can help prevent issues before they become very large.
Better Communicating What to Expect from the Training
The organization has continually improved how it describes what the organization is and what to expect as an apprentice, including updating the website, updating the resident/apprenticeship agreement, as well as giving very clear talks/conversations early on in apprenticeship about what to expect.
That’s just a sample, and there’s a lot more improvements I haven’t mentioned here.
In terms of investigation, there’s a number of things going on. All of this is of course subject to change as they learn more and adapt:
Research
MAPLE is taking a look at best practices that other similar organizations have and recommend, and seeing how we can model our policies, practices, and process after succesful investigations/policies of others.
Interviews
We’re starting to interview previous residents and apprentices (hopefully quite a few of them), and better understand their experience in and after the training. This will help us to better understand and improve where we can.
Conversations
Leadership here is having many conversations with others, getting their perspectives and insights and seeing what MAPLE can learn from others.
I know that you’re dealing with your own suffering right now, and want you to know that you don’t have to respond to this if you don’t think it would be good for your mental health, otherwise, I’m happy to engage.
Does the program structure significantly differ from OAK? Is there separation between staff and participant roles? Is MAPLE practicing informed consent? What about oversight and accountability? What is the onboarding process?
I would like to know what the organization is doing to “investigate” and improve based on my post and other feedback. The last “investigation” conducted by this organization consisted of Soryu sending his girlfriend to sort things out during which she never spoke to me about the events in question. The organization’s recent public statement was incredibly disappointing to myself and other former members. When I read this statement these were the things that stood out to me from my pov and the information available to me: distortion of information about my interactions with leadership and interactions with other former members, shifting the blame onto the past trauma of participants rather than acknowledging they have created a VERY high-risk environment that exceeds others intensive training practices, denial of and justification of other serious risk factors, mischaracterization of my prior relationship, denial of knowledge of allegations which I have email records of, lack of transparency, a continued pattern of appointing persons with conflicts of interests to handle grievances, lack of a 3rd party investigation which would generally be expected of any other spiritual community or organization in similar circumstances. Based on this public statement alone I would conclude that my concerns are not being taken seriously as they indicate, there are still serious issues that are actively compromising accountability and growth, protecting Soryu from being accountable to harm caused to past students is still a primary concern for some leaders, and it is uncertain whether or not significant changes will actually happen that ensure current and future participants will be treated more ethically than I was.
I also imagine there are many discussions happening internally which I am not aware of regarding these issues that may reflect something very different. Perhaps there are members who are willing to advocate for real accountability, address issues of privilege and power, and engage restorative processes regarding the harm done to many past members—and to ensure that the organization does not continue to justify patterns of behavior and organizational practices that have been harmful. However, it seems like if the organization is taking other steps this information ought to be a matter of public record.
I did appreciate the acknowledgment that they had failed to inform myself and past residents of risks and to obtain consent for this training- and that they indicated that they intend to update the website with risks. I still have not seen a list of specific risks yet but this seems like a good first step.
Hey HS2021,
I want to acknowledge that I have multiple competing goals in engaging here. I want to engage with you with compassion and understanding. I also want to do my best to answer honestly and clarify what I see is happening for both you and others, and finally I want to personally understand what did happen and clarify if I’m seeing the organization clearly and if we need to make changes (or in the extreme case do I need to distance myself from the organization).
So I likely won’t make anyone completely happy with this response, including you, myself, or my friends here at MAPLE.
I also want to state that this isn’t an official response from the organization, it’s my own personal sensemaking and understanding having done a lot of work to critically examine the organization and understand how it works.
So all that being said, here’s my best attempt to answer the questions I think I have insight on.
Does the program structure significantly differ from OAK?
Yes. The program here in Vermont is quite different from what you described. For instance, we are discouraged from fasting during retreats, and typically maintain a much tighter container for them (such as reading out the rules before beginning them).
Is there separation between staff and participant roles?
During awakening periods (silent retreats), MAPLE has people running the retreat center, and others doing the meditation, and there is a clear separation (aside from a couple roles—Head Monk, and Care, which do both). During “responsibility” periods (off retreat) of course the residents and apprentices are expected to take on non-profit responsibilities, that’s a key part of the training, and there’s less of a separation.
Is MAPLE practicing informed consent?
As far as I can tell MAPLE does a fairly good job of this. For instance the guest management typically is very clear with people what a retreat entails before they attend, and then a very clear speech is given the day before retreat about what it will be like, and people are once again given the opportunity to leave. Finally, every participant reads out loud a retreat agreement the moment before the retreat starts, so that everyone is crystal clear on the expectations.
I’ve seen MAPLE continue to get better and clearer about this over the time I’ve been here.
What about oversight and accountability?
My understanding is MAPLE has 3 decision making roles at the org—head teacher, executive director, and love role. One of the benefits of this arrangement is that there’s checks and balances to power, and I’ve seen those checks and balances effectively used to make sure no one in the organization has too much power.
In addition, there’s also the board, which provides external oversight. To my understanding one way they could improve is to get a bit more of an active board.
What is the onboarding process?
MAPLE has a number of different ways people can attend the center, and the onboarding process is different for each of them. They have short term guests, long term residential members, service guests, apprentices, residents, and retreat guests. Can give more specifics here based on what you’d like to know.
I would like to know what the organization is doing to “investigate” and improve based on my post and other feedback.
In the year that I’ve been here, I’ve seen clear and consistent efforts to improve along the dimensions that people have mentioned they have issues with. I’ve already mentioned the improvements in informed consent above, and I’ll include several more below. Note of course that all of the initiatives below are new and may change or be ceased as MAPLE learns more.
Removing Leaders that Made Mistakes
On the immediate and obvious level, as far as I can tell, the leaders at OAK that made some admitted mistakes are no longer in leadership roles within the organization. That’s not to say none of them will be in leadership roles in the future, but to my eye at least they weren’t ready and the organization sensibly removed them from those roles.
Changing How They Approach New Centers
The organization as far as I can tell has also drastically changed the way it approaches launching new centers. I had an opportunity to experience the new OAK container for a month when they were experimenting with it, and the leader there is deliberately NOT trying to hold a “teacher” role. Instead, he is simply there to hold the container/rules, and may in time step into the teacher role if he feels ready.
Meanwhile our sister center Willow is ran an even more radical experiment, trying to mostly do away with hierarchical structure all together and run a 3 month experiment with a more collective/holocratic structure.
Implementing a Formal Teacher Training Program
The organization has now created and implemented a formal teacher training program, which replaces the previous less formal method of teacher training. My hope is that this training program will help to standardize the process and quality of teachers at new centers.
Creating a Standard Rubric for the Training
In addition to standardizing the teacher training, the program is also working to standardize how they measure the core things they’re looking to train, and see how effective the teachers and training actually are.
Creating Systems for Better Oversight at New Centers
The organization is developing software for use at all the centers, that can track the aforementioned metrics and provide a standardized system for running centers and allowing anyone at the center to give feedback. This gives better insight into what’s happening at centers for leaders of the organization, and can help prevent issues before they become very large.
Better Communicating What to Expect from the Training
The organization has continually improved how it describes what the organization is and what to expect as an apprentice, including updating the website, updating the resident/apprenticeship agreement, as well as giving very clear talks/conversations early on in apprenticeship about what to expect.
That’s just a sample, and there’s a lot more improvements I haven’t mentioned here.
In terms of investigation, there’s a number of things going on. All of this is of course subject to change as they learn more and adapt:
Research
MAPLE is taking a look at best practices that other similar organizations have and recommend, and seeing how we can model our policies, practices, and process after succesful investigations/policies of others.
Interviews
We’re starting to interview previous residents and apprentices (hopefully quite a few of them), and better understand their experience in and after the training. This will help us to better understand and improve where we can.
Conversations
Leadership here is having many conversations with others, getting their perspectives and insights and seeing what MAPLE can learn from others.
I know that you’re dealing with your own suffering right now, and want you to know that you don’t have to respond to this if you don’t think it would be good for your mental health, otherwise, I’m happy to engage.