Buddhist Peace Fellowship Transition Statement
The Board of Directors of Buddhist Peace Fellowship wish to announce that BPF is entering a time of transition and will be undertaking a period of pause and contemplation for the remainder of this year. During this time, all public programs and communications will be on hold. We recognize that BPF plays a unique role at the intersection of social justice and the Dharma and we commit as a Board to continue to hold this purpose with care. We look forward to sharing more updates by Summer 2022. As part of this transition, staff members Katie Loncke, Chika Okoye, and Nathan Thompson will be exiting their roles. Board member Sarwang Parikh will be stepping in as the Interim Director. You can reach out to Sarwang at sarwang@bpf.org. While we celebrate Sarwang’s move into staff leadership, we are also saddened by the transition. Katie, Chika, and Nathan, we honor your many contributions and tremendous efforts over these years, offering our bows and blessings to each of you as well as our Dharma elders and mahasangha.
Katie, Chika, and Nathan wished to share a few words with you as well:
“Over these near 10 years at BPF, it's been a tremendous honor to meet and make magic with fellow seekers striving to integrate dharma and radical change. Dissatisfied with bland spiritual platitudes that gloss over the real pains of structural oppression, yet finding ourselves too often heart-starved in movement spaces choked by thickets of overwork, anxiety, and stiff cerebral analysis, we seek a life we can live wondrously, spaciously, sincerely, with both passion and ease. Right now our world needs people, like the ones who gravitate toward BPF, who love learning how to hold these paradoxes. Strong conviction, and deep listening. Fiery anger at injustice, and oceanic compassion for all trauma in ourselves and others. Deep grief, and unassailable openness. As Block Build Be facilitator Kasi Chakravartula reminded us at one year's gathering, the Buddha said that the dharma is for those who feel. That's us. That's BPFers. Our core spiritual-political truths cannot be merely reasoned, written, or espoused. They must be felt and lived, day by day, moment by moment. As Thich Nhat Hanh says, what good is being awake if we stay unresponsive to the realities in front of us? So yes, we study spiritual teachings on ultimate truth, interbeing, and universal compassion. And all the while we help block pipelines; protect forests; heal caste and ethnic violence; support BIPOC transfemme farmers; free families from detention; build safety beyond police and prisons; speak vulnerably with loved ones; make movements fantastically fatter and more accessible; and so much more of the gorgeous devotional work that BPFers all over the world are up to.
And even if we're doing none of those things, guess what? That's ok, too. We're paradoxically flawed and perfect, just as we are.
Friends, it's been a gift to move with you this decade — from Occupy to EcoDharma, Black Lives Matter to Land Back. Looking forward to what's next. And wishing you deepest peace, joy, and freedom on your path. If you want to reach me, I'm here! katie.loncke@gmail.com”
— Katie Loncke
“As I get ready to move on from my role as program director at BPF, I feel grateful for the way my work here has felt like such a transformative praxis — this incredible blend of study and reflection with steady practice and creative action. I’m so proud of facilitating some deep dharma learning! The online courses and the Block Build Be retreats, not to mention the relationships with incredible teachers and practitioners, have been beautiful flowerings of what I believe BPF is about. We’ve been aiming to help reshape activist culture to make it more liberatory right now, and to build movements for change that are resilient, resourced, compassionate, and wise. And I’ve met so many folks inhabiting this intersection of social justice and spirituality who are making it happen already, actively building that new world we want to live into.
May our work of resourcing, nourishing, and empowering change makers to find liberation in this moment (rather than believing we have to wait for the big wins that will sweep away regimes of domination) continue on, and gain strength, as the next stewards learn from both our successes and our mistakes.
I’m so glad to have gotten to practice with and learn from my colleagues and so many members of the BPF community. I’ve been moved by the depth, sincerity, wisdom, and heart of folks I’ve met through this work. Y’all are a blessing I will carry with me. Thank you.”
— Chika Okoye
“Dear BPF community. I'm writing to say thank you and farewell. It's been an honor to serve on the staff team for the past 4 years. I'll have many fond memories of my time here, including BPF's participation in Stop Urban Shield actions in 2017, the 2018 in person Block Build Be gathering, and the first ever online BBB gathering in 2020. I'm happy to announce that the Turning Wheel magazine archive will soon be digitized and available online, thanks to a recent partnership with the University of Idaho. May BPF's next incarnation build off the best of our past! Sending each of you my deepest well wishes. May you be happy, healthy, and at ease.”
— Nathan Thompson
in peace,
The BPF Board of Directors