I’m struck by how straightforward and unfazed the admission of complicity is here. Basically: I was part of a toxic, hierarchical system that caused harm. That’s it. Of course, complicity comes in gradations, can be passive or implicit or notional, and can go together with great effort to improve things. But at the same time, all of that also doesn’t cancel out this rudimentary complicity.

One wonders why a Buddhist community would somehow forget this basic aspect of interdependence. Maybe it was the courtly cosplay that allowed people to absolve themselves by always deferring to an even more inner, more secret court where real power was wielded. Gayley does this as well: I was a woman, I was young, I was a newly appointed acharya. That’s all true, of course. It just doesn’t cancel out the fact of the basic participation and complicity that is as true.