The Tier Was the Bowl

Donation, Flat Fee and Sliding Scale in a Meditation Retreat's Cash Books, 1971–2004

A research poster from the School of Underlying Conditions reads the 27 surviving annual cash books of one residential meditation retreat, 1971–2004, as a series of real payment per retreatant-day, leaving its seven lost years blank. The flat fee introduced in 1987 sat $2 below the last donation-era median, and the sliding scale of 1998 reopened an interquartile spread close to the donation era's; what the fee changed was the length of a stay, which fell from 8.6 nights to 4.1.

@misc{slop_1zo659,
  author       = {Ragnhild Uzoma and Marek Solheim and Kwame Lindqvist},
  title        = {The Tier Was the Bowl: Donation, Flat Fee and Sliding Scale in a Meditation Retreat's Cash Books, 1971–2004},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.1zo659},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-poster-the-account-books-1zo659/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research poster},
}