"Creating the Conditions for Peace"

A Symposium Hosted by the Buddhist Peace Fellowship

in conjunction with Tikkun's Spiritual Activist Conference

Saturday, July 23, 2005

9:30 am - 3:30 pm

Pacific School of Religion
1798 Scenic Ave.
Berkeley, California (please note new location)


Participants will include:

Michelle Benzamin-Miki,

Manzanita Village

Canyon Sam,
artist and author

Rev. Paul Haller,
Abbot, San Francisco Zen Center

Ven. Heng Sure,

Director, Berkeley Buddhist Monastary

Anchalee Kurutach,
President, BPF Board of Directors

Diana Lion,

BPF Associate Director of Programs and Director of BPF's Prison Program

Caitriona Reed,
Manzanita Village

Lauren Van Ham,
Director, Green Sangha

Earthlyn Manuel, author
Ajahn Mahaprasert,
Abbot of Wat Buddhanusorn 
Taigen Dan Leighton, author


Symposium Information (time, location and directions, etc.)

"Creating the Conditions for Peace" Description

Symposium Schedule

Participant Bios

 

Symposium Information

Time: Saturday, July 23, 9:30 am to 3:30 pm

Location: Pacific School of Religion Chapel, 1798 Scenic Ave., Berkeley, CA. Click here for maps and driving directions, and public transportation info. Parking is available. The Chapel is wheelchair-accessible. To protect the health of people with chemical sensitivities, we are asking people to come to this symposium fragrance-free.

Registration/Cost: There is NO pre-registration required for this event -- just come and enjoy! This symposium is offered free of charge to the community by the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. Donations to support BPF's work will be gratefully accepted. Participants of Tikkun's Spiritual Activist Conference are welcome, but it's not required that you have registered for the Tikkun Conference to attend the BPF symposium.


 

"Creating the Conditions for Peace"

The past few years have brought home the reality of our interdependence in ways that have asked us to deepen our commitment to practicing peace as an end to suffering. In this symposium, to be held within the Tikkun Community’s “Spiritual Activism Conference,” we invite the Buddhist community and friends to discuss how we, together, can concretely cultivate wisdom and compassion for peace in our local communities and the larger global society.

Tikkun’s “Spiritual Activism Conference,” July 20-23, will bring together a feast of progressive spiritual and interfaith religious thinkers and activists in concert with liberal and progressive social change activists of every persuasion, including many orthodox atheists. The intention of the conference is to energize an interfaith movement of progressive prophetic spiritual activism and to give it a larger place in public consciousness. For more information, please visit Tikkun’s website at www.tikkun.org.

BPF's contribution to the conference, a symposium titled “Creating the Conditions for Peace,”  on Saturday, July 23, will draw together a diverse group of engaged Buddhist practitioners, teachers, and activists to speak on panels and lead small group discussions based on questions relating to the two wings of the dharma: wisdom and compassion. Small group discussions will be a time for participants to share experience, network, and strategize together.

The BPF Symposium is free of cost, though donations to benefit the Buddhist Peace Fellowship's work are most welcome. No pre-registration is required for the BPF Symposium; however, we encourage those attending the Symposium to participate in other portions of the Tikkun conference (register here).

 


Symposium Schedule

9:30am-12pm

PANEL #1: WISDOM

Questions the panel addresses may include:


• The Buddhist path of awakening leads towards freedom from craving and suffering. In what ways is responding to the suffering of the world through creating a more peaceful, compassionate, awakened society a part of our individual awakening?
• In Buddhist history, there are many instances of ignoring or excusing exploitative social relationships. How should Buddhists address those present-day social and economic structures that oppress and exploit?
• There are those in the Buddhist world who believe that social action is essential to our path, while others believe that action is a distraction and the most effective work is done through meditation. How can we resolve this dualism?

*followed by small group discussions

12-1pm LUNCH BREAK

1-3:30pm PANEL #2: COMPASSION

Questions the panel addresses may include:


• What does Buddhism offer us who are daily assaulted by aggression, selfishness, isolation, and fear?
• How is compassion to be expressed in a world where greed, ill will and delusion have become institutionalized?
• Social activism often adds to our ego/self through righteous emotions and anger or despair when actions appear fruitless. How can right view help us to take action in a way that avoids these traps and does not judge or blame others?
• Western societies aspire to an ideal of justice. This has significantly contributed to change in power-over relationships, such as racism, classism, sexism, and discrimination based on sexual preference. Is the principle of justice consistent with Buddhist understanding and how does it relate to compassion?

*followed by small group discussions

*Our special thanks to the Seattle BPF chapter who created this symposium format in May 2004.


Participant Bios

Michelle Benzamin-Miki

Michele Benzamin-Miki is a meditation teacher, artist, and martial arts teacher with two fourth-dan black belts and one fifth-dan black belt in Aikido and Iaido. She has led meditation retreats and workshops for 20 years. Trained in vipassana and the Vietnamese Zen tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh, she is cofounder of Ordinary Dharma-Manzanita Village Retreat Center in California.

Rev. Paul Haller

Ryushin Paul Haller has been engaged in Buddhist practice for thirty years, initially as a Theravada monk in Thailand, and then was ordained as a priest at the San Francisco Zen Center in 1980, where he has recently become the new abbot. He has been leading the outreach program at the Zen Center and has extensive experience with integrating Buddhist practice with hospice, jail, and peace work.

Anchalee Kurutach

Anchalee Kurutach has worked for 20 years providing social services and education training for refugees and immigrants both in Southeast Asia and here in the U.S. Most recently Anchalee has been engaged in
domestic violence prevention work with Buddhist faith leaders in SF Bay Area. Anchalee is a board member of Buddhist Peace Fellowship.

Taigen Dan Leighton

Rev. Taigen Dan Leighton, a member of the BPF International Advisory Board, is a transmitted Soto Zen Dharma teacher in the lineage of Suzuki Roshi.  He teaches at the Berkeley Graduate Theological Union, and is guiding Dharma teacher of the Mountain Source Sangha in the S.F. Bay Area, and the Ancient Dragon Zen Gate in Chicago.  Taigen is author of Faces of Compassion: Classic Bodhisattva Archetypes and Their Modern Expression, and is translator of many Zen texts, including Dogen's Extensive Record, Cultivating the Empty Field, and The Wholehearted Way.  He is also a longtime social activist, going back to the early anti-Vietnam War movement.

Diana Lion

Diana Lion is the BPF Associate Director of Programs, and the founding director of BPF's national Prison Program. She was introduced to the dharma in 1974 by Joseph Goldstein, and has been actively involved in social justice issues since 1968. She has been involved in peace, women's, farm workers', labour, anti-racism, economic justice, and other types of organizing, as well as working to transform the prison industrial complex. She is passionate about skillfully blending the practices of dharma and nonviolent activism. Diana is a graduate of the Community Dharma Leaders program at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and is a certified trainer in Nonviolent Communication. She is currently on the faculty of the Buddhist Chaplaincy Training Program offered through the Sati Center of Northern California.

Ajahn Mahaprasert

Ajahn Mahaprasert is the Abbot of Wat Buddhanusorn in Fremont, CA.

Earthlyn Manuel

Dr. Manuel previously practiced Nichiren Buddhism and currently practices at the San Francisco Zen Center.  She is a writer, teacher, and visual artist living in Northern California.  She has a Ph.D. in Transformation and Consciousness from the California Institute of Integral Studies.  She is the author of Seeking Enchantment:  A Spiritual Journey of Healing from Oppression (Kasai River Press), the Black Angel Cards:  A Soul Revival Guide for Black Women (Harper San Francisco), and she is a contributing author to Dharma, Color, and Culture: New Voices in Western Buddhism (Parallax), an anthology of essays by Buddhist teachers and practitioners of color.  Also, her work has appeared in numerous publications including, Turning Wheel (magazine of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship), Wind Bell (S.F. Zen Center magazine), and Mindfulness Bell (Thich Nhat Hanh’s magazine).

Caitriona Reed

Caitríona Reed is a Dharma Teacher, Group Facilitator, Poet, and Activist in the Transgender community. She has led retreats and workshops in Buddhism, Deep Ecology, and Social Responsibility in the US and Europe since 1981. She has trained with Buddhist teachers in the Theravadin and Thien traditions since 1971, and was formerly a teacher in the Tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh. She is co-founder of Ordinary Dharma in Los Angeles and Manzanita Village Retreat Centre in Warner Springs, CA.

Canyon Sam

Nationally-acclaimed writer, performance artist, and diversity consultant, Canyon Sam creates solo performances based on her experiences in both Asia and America as an activist and Buddhist practitioner. Ms. Sam has graced stages throughout the U.S. and Canada, from the Solo Mio Festival in San Francisco, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, to the Asia Society and Columbia University in New York. Her performances, known for fluidity and grace, and for rich poetic lyricism, are fueled by what Vancouver's Women in View Festival calls, "A strength and passion rare in commercial theater." Visit her website at www.canyonsam.com.

Ven. Heng Sure

Rev. Heng Sure currently serves as Director of the Berkeley Buddhist Monastery and teaches at the Institute for World Religions. Rev. Sure ordained as a Buddhist monk in 1976. He met his teacher, the late Ven. Master Hsüan Hua, while finishing an M.A. in Oriental Languages at UC Berkeley. After receiving full ordination in the Mahayana tradition of Chinese Buddhism he commenced a three steps, one bow pilgrimage. With a fellow monk, he traveled more than 600 miles up the California Coastal Highway from Pasadena to Ukiah, making a full prostration to the ground every three steps. They dedicated their efforts to world peace. The journey took over two years and nine months to complete. During the pilgrimage and for two years following, he observed a practice of total silence.

Lauren Van Ham

Lauren Van Ham is an Interfaith minister, who practices Vipassana.  She is the Program Director for Green Sangha, a non-profit organization committed to spiritually based environmental activism.  Green Sangha is an affiliate of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship.

 

 

 

 

 
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