BPF / SEB Mandala Workshop

Question: Think back to an action or event that you were involved with that was both effective as well as nourishing to you and others. This might have been an action that your BPF chapter organized, or one that you participated in with others. What were the factors/qualities that made it effective and nourishing, for you personally and for the group and/or society? What insights are we gaining here, both into our own activism and in the ongoing process of creating this Mandala?

Group I (Friday morning)

Action: Change Your Mind Day (Portland)

Qualities/effectiveness: helps to cultivate community, connections between engaged Buddhists, personal connections

* We need an archetype for CULTIVATING—connecting what’s already there, being a conduit.

Seattle: Creating spaces to build bridges btw ‘activists’ and ‘meditators’

Action: Seattle Vigil in 2003 to stop Iraq War

Qualities: perseverance, respect

Action: New Hampshire weekly peace vigil

Qualities: Building alliances

Action: Cleveland “Peace Show” on Labor Day nearby to Air Show

Qualities: Creating alternatives

Action: Israeli/Palestinian textbook

More reflections from everyone:

You never know who is influenced by an action, e.g. the Peace Show

Finding the ‘next right thing’ – what is consistent with my path? Perhaps more important than ‘effectiveness’

Using the mandala to see how others show up as archetypes for us – not only what we ‘are’ How do we co-create?

The action of building regional collectives, whether BPF or other dharma groups (e.g. Northwest Dharma association)

Sense of nourishment, connection

Can be broken down into manageable bites, e.g. Living Wage campaign. Victories are important!

Group II (Friday afternoon)

White folks and Aboriginal people meeting together in Australia

Hiroshima vigil in Tampa—circle of people sharing their intentions and fears was very powerful

Bearing Witness meditation at prison/interrogation center in Santiago, Chile

(timely—came not long after 1,000 page report on victims that included their stories)

Qualities common in all of these:

healing and reconciliation

giving people an opportunity to be heard, to tell their story, to make space for stories

Freedom Road organization

Intention to build diversity and effectiveness around doing so

Ella Baker’s phrase: we make the road as we walk on it.

The Southeast Social Forum

Add to the mandala (in the qualities section): Spirit of Giving

Consider putting a small circle in the very center that represents community as the nexus and shared space of all the actions

Beware! The three poisons can contaminate our intention… have awareness

Change Your Mind Day (Cleveland, in Metro Park), having mandala art activity for kids… way to learn about impermanence (adults didn’t get it! They wanted to glue it down!)

Making connections to people outside our usual circle—expect the unexpected!

Becoming aware of our own self-righteousness, allowing ourselves to change (interaction with cub scouts)

Sustainable food production (e.g. organic gardening)

Real homeland security!

Jay: patient modeling project in Rochester hospitals

Jose: be aware of making the archetypes too dualistic, getting caught in thinking that I or someone else am only one thing or another. How can we hold the whole nature of it, both for ourselves and others?

Group of teachers identified some of the myths:

Belief that we’re not doing enough

Belief that big group work is more important than one to one interactions

When you give up on the idea that the revolution will happen tomorrow, you become the Bodhisattva vow.