Membership: the condition and the endeavour

Belonging to the fourfold assembly

Membership here is not a mailing list, and it is not a reward for attendance. It is joining the fourfold assembly the Buddha founded — lay men and lay women standing alongside the monastics — with one condition and one endeavour, both as old as the tradition itself.

What membership gives

• Belonging in a practising community, which is a different thing from an audience.
• One vote in our affairs, because this community is governed by its members, not over them.
• The standing invitation to serve.
• A community that will renew the same vows beside you every year for the rest of your life, if you wish it.

What membership asks

• The Precepts, sincerely.
• The endeavour of the Path.
• A modest annual subscription of $[amount], which keeps the lights on and buys no influence.
• Truthful, unifying speech within and about the community — we disagree freely inside the room and never as factions outside it.

The renewal — why we do it aloud

Once a year, at the Annual General Meeting, the whole membership stands and takes the Five Precepts again, together, aloud — the same undertakings lay communities have spoken since the Buddha's time. It takes two minutes. It is worth more than any document we hold, because a community that renews its promises in one voice knows exactly what it is, and so does everyone listening.

Dāna — generosity is a practice, not a subscription, and it is kept on entirely different pages of this site from the teaching and from membership.