Upcoming events.
Refuge Circle Meditation + Action w/ Tania Triana
Join us for another Refuge Circle! Beloved Engaged Buddhist teacher Tania Triana will be joining us to host this sacred practice space, designed to support and inspire people working for change.
We will begin with 30 minutes of guided meditation, and end our session with a call-to-action that you can participate in directly from your meditation practice.
Offered by donation.
Tania Triana (they / she / elle / ella) is a queer Black Latina spiritual warrior and proud bilingual daughter of Latin American immigrants. Tania is grateful to have found a spiritual home and social justice community at East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland, CA. They served on EBMC's Leadership Sangha (board of directors) from 2019 to 2024, and graduated from the EBMC's inaugural Spiritual Teacher and Leadership Program in 2023. When she's not teaching Spanish to her brilliant high school students or leading meditations, Tania can typically be found with her head buried deep in a book, or out and about enjoying walks in nature, hamming it up at karaoke, or plotting our collective liberation.
Refuge Circle Meditation + Action w/ Arti Mehta
Join us for another Refuge Circle! Beloved Engaged Buddhist teacher Arti Mehta will be joining us to host this sacred practice space, designed to support and inspire people working for change.
We will begin with 30 minutes of guided meditation, and end our session with a call-to-action that you can participate in directly from your meditation practice.
Offered by donation.
Arti (pronounced arthy) is a South Asian, trans and queer, neurodivergent, chronically ill counselor, artist and community Dharma leader living on unceded coast salish territories. Arti has been practicing predominantly in the Theravadan lineage since 2006. Their offerings centre relational Dhamma, somatic experiencing, social justice, and the gifts that marginalized people's experiences offer Dhamma. They are profoundly moved by how these wisdom and heart practices allow us to unfold into our inherent goodness, so that we can be good to each other.
Refuge Circle Meditation + Action w/ Dalila Bothwell
Join us for another Refuge Circle! Beloved Engaged Buddhist teacher Dalila Bothwell will be joining us to host this sacred practice space, designed to support and inspire people working for change.
We will begin with 30 minutes of guided meditation, and end our session with a call-to-action that you can participate in directly from your meditation practice.
Offered by donation.
Dalila Bothwell’s (she/her) dharma-meditation practice lives at the intersection of love for community, land, justice, and 12-step recovery. The granddaughter of Claudia and Gussie Pearl, she finds refuge and hope in the liberation teachings of revolutionary lovers - from the Buddha to Assata Shakur.
During her tenure as a director for the New York Insight Meditation Center, she learned the priceless value of sangha and the role relationships play in embodying the teachings and in creating kinder human beings. A graduate of the Spirit Rock Community Dharma Leaders Program and formally educated in nutritional science, she believes healing is a holistic art. She loves dancing furiously in her kitchen and taking long walks in the desert with her handsome pup.
Refuge Circle Meditation + Action w/ Ream
Join us for another Refuge Circle! Beloved Engaged Buddhist teacher Ream will be joining us to host this sacred practice space, designed to support and inspire people working for change.
We will begin with 30 minutes of guided meditation, and end our session with a call-to-action that you can participate in directly from your meditation practice.
Offered by donation.
Ream (they/them) is a white, queer union organizer and somatics practitioner on unceded Ohlone Land (Oakland). Ream is a teacher with Generative Somatics, and is also a community teacher at the East Bay Meditation Center. They currently co-lead the “Holding Complexity in Times of Change” multiracial somatics practice community.
Refuge Circle Meditation + Action w/ Rev. Liên Shutt
Join us for another Refuge Circle! Beloved Engaged Buddhist teacher Rev. Liên Shutt joins us again to host this sacred practice space, designed to support and inspire people working for change.
We will begin with 30 minutes of guided meditation, and end our session with a call-to-action that you can participate in directly from your meditation practice.
Offered by donation.
Rev. Liên Shutt (she/they) is a priest lineage holder in the Shunryu Suzuki tradition. Born to a Buddhist family in Vietnam, she received her meditation training in the Insight and Soto Zen traditions in the United States, Japan, Thailand, and Vietnam. They are the guiding teacher of Access to Zen, an inclusive, anti-oppression sangha and nonprofit in the San Francisco Bay Area. She lives in Oakland, on Huichin land, with her partner, exploring waterways and forests as often as they can. Visit AccessToZen.org for ways to connect and practice together.
Website: https://accesstozen.org
Opening Dharma Access (ODA) podcast: https://accesstozen.org/podcast
Instagram: accesstozen
YouTube: @lienshutt
Book: Home is Here: Practicing Antiracism with the Engaged Eightfold Path
Refuge Circle Meditation + Action w/ Kareem Ghandour
Join us for another Refuge Circle! Beloved Engaged Buddhist teacher Kareem Ghandour will be joining us to host this sacred practice space, designed to support and inspire people working for change.
We will begin with 30 minutes of guided meditation, and end our session with a call-to-action that you can participate in directly from your meditation practice.
Offered by donation.
Kareem Ghandour (he/him) is a Lebanese/Palestinian teacher, facilitator, and artist based in the UK. His teaching is inspired by contemplative creativity, ritual, and devotional practice. He has worked with youth and in mindfulness based education projects for the last decade, including serving as managing director for iBme UK. He is a member of the collaborative staff team at Sacred Mountain Sangha and a graduate of the 2 year Dharmapala training. He is a co-founder of the Sacred Justice Coalition and the SWANA+ Sangha, co-creating new dharma cultures to meet times of genocide and collapse.
Refuge Circle Meditation + Action w/ Jess Benjamin
Join us for another Refuge Circle! Beloved Engaged Buddhist teacher Jess Benjamin will be joining us to host this sacred practice space, designed to support and inspire people working for change.
We will begin with 30 minutes of guided meditation, and end our session with a call-to-action that you can participate in directly from your meditation practice.
Offered by donation.
Jess Benjamin is a photographer, meditation teacher, aspiring chaplain, and former grant writer based in Philadelphia. They are certified as a meditation teacher from the Mindfulness Training Institute, with recent classes at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, LATITUDE Chicago, and TILT Institute for the Contemporary Image in Philadelphia. They hold a Master of Divinity degree in Buddhist studies and chaplaincy from Naropa University, and have previously served as a BPF board member.
Refuge Circle Teaching + Action w/ Rev. Patti Nakai
Join us for another Refuge Circle! Beloved Engaged Buddhist teacher Rev. Patti Nakai will be joining us again to host this sacred practice space, designed to support and inspire people working for change.
We will begin with 30 minutes of contemplative practice, and end our session with a call-to-action that you can participate in directly from your meditation practice.
Offered by donation.
Rev. Nakai is a third-generation Japanese American born in Chicago and is an ordained minister in the Otani-ha (Higashi Honganji) lineage of Jodo Shinshu (Japanese Pure Land). Currently retired after serving the Buddhist Temple of Chicago since 1995. Her essays have been published in Tricycle Magazine and recent articles can be found at HigashiHonganjiUSA.org
The Joy of Clear Seeing: Trans Day of Visibility Dharma + Art Retreat/Celebration
Register HERE
It’s about more than just survival. It’s about love, it’s about community, it’s about being radiantly alive and free in our bodies, hearts and minds.
As trans, non-binary, and gender expansive people – seeing and being seen is political, and it's also deeply and profoundly spiritual.
Please join JD Doyle, Tenzin Mingyur Paldron, sam rise and Vivian Su for a creative and contemplative celebration of Trans Day of Visibility, in this spacious online container of expansive dharma practice.
Our time will include dharma reflections, guided Buddhist meditation, song and visual art practice, exploring how visibility becomes a practice of liberation – for ourselves and for each other.
This program lifts up the dharma that is known through trans, nonbinary, and gender expansive experience.
All practitioners who love and hold trans people in sacred reverence are warmly invited to attend.
Cost: $40-120, no one turned away for lack of funds.
If the sliding scale is not accessible to you, please choose the “other” option and enter a rate that works for you
Register HERE
Your Teaching Team <3
JD Doyle (they/them) teaches the liberation that is possible through the practices of Buddhism. JD is authorized to teach in the Theravada Buddhist lineage. They are based in the Bay Area of California and teach at the East Bay Meditation Center where they co-founded the Alphabet(LGBTQIA+) Sangha, at Spirit Rock Meditation Center,and elsewhere. For over twenty-three years, they worked as a public-school teacher. They are committed to celebrating the diversity of our human sangha, transforming the impacts of racism on our communities, expanding concepts of gender, and living in ways that honor the sacredness of the Earth.For more info: www.heartmindteaching.com
Tenzin Mingyur Paldron is a transgender Tibetan artist, author, and community educator in New York City. He is a first-generation college graduate and holds a PhD in Rhetoric from UC Berkeley, where he received nine fellowships and wrote the dissertation, Tibet, China, and the United States: Self-immolation and the limits of understanding. His mixed-media installation Earth is Heard was shown in the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre in last year’s exhibition Constellation of Complicity: Visualising the Global Machinery of Authoritarian Solidarity. His first book, A Capacity to Change is a story of transgender equality and our interconnected humanities. Written from Doc Tenzin’s lens as a refugee-immigrant, it is part comic book and part historical essay.
Samantha Rise (they/them/elle) is a black, gender-expansive performer, teaching artist, activist and human-amplifier based in Lenapehoking (Philadelphia). Samantha’s passion for music and community building are the heart of their work, feeding spaces that are inquiry-driven, participant led, and abundant in joy! Rise’s artistry and songwriting is a trans-genre practice, drawing on a wide root system of traditional Black American and reminds audiences that “Music is our Birthright,” encouraging communities to resource themselves with songtools in moments of crisis and conflict. sam rise is dedicated to social justice interventions that address the lethal lack of imagination we face, embracing the challenge and the opportunity of reimagining our world.
Vivian Su (she/her) began practicing daily meditation in 2018 in search of a way to meet suffering. She is regularly involved in various events at Seattle Insight Meditation as a Local Dharma Leader, including the Under-40 and LGBTQIA2S+ practice groups. She is currently in the Community Dharma Leaders training through Spirit Rock. Her practice is energized by the remembrances of death, loss, and change and she is deeply grateful for the dhamma path, retreat practice, and cultivating the heart qualities of kindness.
Refuge Circle Meditation + Action w/ René Rivera
Join us for another Refuge Circle! Beloved Engaged Buddhist teacher René Rivera will be joining us to host this sacred practice space, designed to support and inspire people working for change.
We will begin with 30 minutes of guided meditation, and end our session with a call-to-action that you can participate in directly from your meditation practice.
Offered by donation.
René Rivera (he, him) is a meditation teacher and restorative justice facilitator working and learning in all the spaces in-between race, gender, and other perceived binaries, as a queer Latinx trans man. René teaches heart-centered, trauma-informed meditation, as a core teacher at the East Bay Meditation Center. He has co-led the first residential meditation retreats for transgender, nonbinary and gender expansive people, and offers classes and retreats for many Buddhist centers and groups. René is a restorative justice facilitator, working to heal sexual and gender based violence.
Refuge Circle Teaching + Action w/ Rev. Patti Nakai
Join us for another Refuge Circle! Beloved Engaged Buddhist teacher Rev. Patti Nakai will be joining us to host this sacred practice space, designed to support and inspire people working for change.
We will begin with 30 minutes of contemplative practice, and end our session with a call-to-action that you can participate in directly from your meditation practice.
Offered by donation.
Rev. Nakai is a third-generation Japanese American born in Chicago and is an ordained minister in the Otani-ha (Higashi Honganji) lineage of Jodo Shinshu (Japanese Pure Land). Currently retired after serving the Buddhist Temple of Chicago since 1995. Her essays have been published in Tricycle Magazine and recent articles can be found at HigashiHonganjiUSA.org
Refuge Circle Meditation + Action w/ Marisela Gomez
Join us for another Refuge Circle! Beloved Engaged Buddhist teacher Marisela Gomez will be joining us to host this sacred practice space, designed to support and inspire people working for change.
We will begin with 30 minutes of guided meditation, and end our session with a call-to-action that you can participate in directly from your meditation practice.
Offered by donation.
Marisela B. Gomez, MD is a mindfulness practitioner (ordained in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh’s Order of Interbeing), public health scholar activist, and physician. Of Afro-Latina ancestry, she lives in Baltimore and is involved in social justice activism and community building. She is the author of Race, Class, Power and Organizing in East Baltimore. She blogs at Huff Post and mariselabgomez.com on the intersection of wisdom justice and mindfulness.
Refuge Circle Meditation + Action w/ Valerie Brown
Join us for another Refuge Circle! Beloved Engaged Buddhist teacher Valerie Brown will be joining us to host this sacred practice space, designed to support and inspire people working for change.
We will begin with 30 minutes of guided meditation, and end our session with a call-to-action that you can participate in directly from your meditation practice.
Offered by donation.
Valerie Brown is an author, Buddhist-Quaker Dharma teacher, facilitator, and executive coach specializing in leadership development and mindfulness practices with a focus on diversity, social equity, and inclusion. A former lawyer and lobbyist, Valerie transformed her high-pressure, twenty-year career into serving leaders and nonprofits to create trustworthy, authentic, compassionate, and connected workspaces.
An award-winning author, her book Hope Leans Forward: Braving Your Way toward Simplicity, Awakening, and Peace (Broadleaf, 2022) received the Nautilus Gold Award for Eastern Spirituality for 2023, and Healing Our Way Home: Black Buddhist Teachings on Ancestors, Joy, and Liberation (Parallax Press, 2024) (with Kaira Jewel Lingo and Marisela B. Gomez, MD). Her books include The Road that Teaches: Lessons in Transformation through Travel, The Mindful School Leader: Practices to Transform Your Leadership and School (with Kirsten Olson, PhD), and Cultivating Happiness, Resilience, and Well-Being through Meditation, Mindfulness, and Movement: A Guide for Educators (contributor).
She is an ordained Buddhist Dharma teacher in the lineage of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh and the Plum Village tradition and facilitates national and international gatherings and retreats for nonprofits and corporations and leads an annual pilgrimage to El Camino de Santiago, Spain to celebrate the power of sacred places. She is a certified Kundalini yoga teacher (500 hours), engaging leaders to embody somatic wisdom and creativity.
An accredited leadership coach with specialized certification in coaching from a lens of diversity, equity, and inclusion, she is the Founder and Chief Mindfulness Officer of Lead Smart Coaching, LLC, supporting leaders to apply and integrate leadership and mindfulness for greater resilience, clarity, and grounded wisdom. Currently, Valerie is enhancing her skills by completing training in Gestalt Psychology, Relational Life Therapy, and Earth Awareness Training to address eco-anxiety and climate grief. She was a co-director of Georgetown University’s Institute for Transformational Leadership, Leadership Coaching Program.
Valerie’s unique and extensive training blends social justice, evidenced-based mindfulness practices, leadership development, and spiritual growth. She holds a Juris Doctor from Howard University School of Law, Master of Arts from Miami University (Ohio), and Bachelor of Arts from City University of New York.
Of Afro-Cuban descent, Valerie is a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and lives and tends a lively perennial home garden in New Hope, PA.
Refuge Circle Meditation + Action w/ Devin Berry
Join us for another Refuge Circle! Beloved Engaged Buddhist teacher Devin Berry will be joining us to host this sacred practice space, designed to support and inspire people working for change.
We will begin with 30 minutes of guided meditation, and end our session with a call-to-action that you can participate in directly from your meditation practice.
Offered by donation.
Meditation teacher, Devin Berry, began practicing in 1999. His teaching is rooted in the Buddhadharma and mindfulness daily life practices. Devin’s training includes Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction teacher training, the East Bay Meditation Center Commit to Dharma Program, Spirit Rock’s Dedicated Practitioners Program, and Insight Meditation Society’s four-year Residential Retreat Teachers Program. Devin also co-founded both the Teen Sangha and Men of Color Deep Refuge Group at East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland. In addition, almost 20 years ago, Devin began some of the first mindfulness programs in SF Bay Area schools, including weekly mindfulness groups for youth.
Devin began working with youth over 25 years ago as a frontline advocate for marginalized youth living on the streets, in recovery and exploitation. Over the years Devin’s work has included leading wilderness camp programs for teens, Rites of Passage programs for tweens, and a summer camp for boys.
After retiring from youth work, Devin co-created Deep Time Liberation, an ancestral healing journey that explores the impact of ancestral legacy and intergenerational trauma on Black Americans. He is passionate about the power of witnessing and storytelling as a liberation tool. Devin is a father and teaches nationally.
Refuge Circle Meditation + Action w/ Carol Cano
Join us for this new Refuge Circle session of 2026! Beloved Engaged Buddhist teacher Carol Cano will be joining us to host this sacred practice space, designed to support and inspire people working for change.
We will begin with 30 minutes of guided meditation, and end our session with a call-to-action that you can participate in directly from your meditation practice.
This month, we’ll be calling on our representatives to end the genocide in Palestine and end the ICE occupation in the US.
Offered by donation.
Carol Cano, M.A., the founder of Braided Wisdom© and co-founder of Philippine Insight Meditation Community. She is a teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and a core teacher of East Bay Meditation Center. She is Certified Mindfulness Teacher of the International Mindfulness Teachers Association (IMTA).
Her unique teachings are deeply grounded in Basque, Native American and Buddhist influences that braid the Dharma along with indigenous wisdom and Earth-based practices. Her psychology background gives her a unique view into the human condition, which helps her hold community in a compassionate and confident manner. Carol reminds us to keep grounded in our hearts as we uphold spiritual ideals and encourages us to remain balanced within the demands of modern life.
Refuge Circle Meditation + Action w/ Jonathan Relucio
Join us for this new Refuge Circle session of 2026! Beloved Engaged Buddhist teacher Jonathan Relucio will be joining us to host this sacred practice space, designed to support and inspire people working for change.
We will begin with 30 minutes of guided meditation, and end our session with a call-to-action that you can participate in directly from your meditation practice.
This month, we’ll be calling on our representatives to end the genocide in Palestine and end the ICE occupation in the US.
Offered by donation.
For a decade, Jonathan Relucio taught trauma-healing yoga, meditation, and mindfulness in urban schools, mental health clinics, juvenile detention centers, and Palestine refugee camps as a Senior Trainer with the Niroga Institute. He completed East Bay Meditation Center’s Spiritual Teacher and Leadership (STL) Program; Spirit Rock’s Mindfulness, Yoga, and Meditation Training (MYMT); and Braided Wisdom’s Original Medicine Yearlong and In-Depth programs, and teaches with each of these organizations.
Jonathan also facilitates transformation in social justice movements as a trainer and coach with Rockwood Leadership Institute; integrates wellness and organizing through his work with the Healing Advisory Council at Filipino Advocates for Justice; and co-founded AllThrive Education to advance healing and racial equity.
He is part of Spirit Rock’s Community Dharma Leaders Cohort 7. With more than 20 years of experience in community organizing, social services, training, and leadership development, Jonathan integrates Buddha Dharma, yoga, restorative justice, Indigenous medicine, dance, martial arts, and Filipino culture in service of collective liberation. He loves soulful underground dance music, DJing, and being in the water.
Refuge Circle Meditation + Action w/ Rev. Liên Shutt
Join us for the first Refuge Circle session of 2026! Beloved Engaged Buddhist teacher Rev. Liên Shutt joins us again to host this sacred practice space, designed to support and inspire people working for change.
We will begin with 30 minutes of guided meditation, and end our session with a call-to-action that you can participate in directly from your meditation practice.
This month, we’ll be calling on our representatives to end the genocide in Palestine and end the ICE occupation in the US.
Offered by donation.
Rev. Liên Shutt (she/they) is a priest lineage holder in the Shunryu Suzuki tradition. Born to a Buddhist family in Vietnam, she received her meditation training in the Insight and Soto Zen traditions in the United States, Japan, Thailand, and Vietnam. They are the guiding teacher of Access to Zen, an inclusive, anti-oppression sangha and nonprofit in the San Francisco Bay Area. She lives in Oakland, on Huichin land, with her partner, exploring waterways and forests as often as they can. Visit AccessToZen.org for ways to connect and practice together.
Website: https://accesstozen.org
Opening Dharma Access (ODA) podcast: https://accesstozen.org/podcast
Instagram: accesstozen
YouTube: @lienshutt
Book: Home is Here: Practicing Antiracism with the Engaged Eightfold Path
What Now?! Interfaith Solidarity with Palestine — with Lubna Masarwa, Jonathan Brenneman, Alissa Wise and Jungwon Kim
Join us for meditation and conversation, refining our strategies for showing up -- as Buddhists -- to interrupt violence in Palestine
Grow Our Souls: Meditation and Arts Retreat for Deepening Spiritual Practice in Movement
October 30-November 1, 2025 | (Philadelphia PA)
Find the application here
"These are the times to grow our souls. Each of us is called upon to embrace the conviction that despite the powers and principalities bent on commodifying all our human relationships, we have the power within us to create the world anew."
– Grace Lee Boggs
Grow Our Souls is a 3-day, non-residential Buddhist meditation and art-making retreat. Through contemplative and creative practice, play, and collective inquiry, we hope to create space for renewal and relationship building among people who are engaged in both spiritual practice and movements for justice.
Our rad facilitation team includes: Marisela B. Gomez, Sam Rise, Tenzin Mingyur Paldron, and Jean-Jacques Gabriel.
We invite you to apply if you:
live and work in/near Lenape Land (the retreat is in Philadelphia, and we're inviting folks who live here, or are within a couple hours driving/train distance)
advance social, cultural, environmental, economic, and/or healing justice through your work or life, whether paid or unpaid. Teachers, cultural workers, organizers, artists, caregivers, strategists, advocates, healers — we’re looking at you!
feel nourished by, or drawn toward, Buddhism and other contemplative spiritual practices, as personal refuge and as pathways for collective awakening
are excited to explore movement, sound/voice and visual artmaking as expressive arts, as ways to have fun, and as contemplative spiritual practices ie dharma arts
This retreat will be led by, and will lift up, the voices and priorities of BIPOC, trans, queer, disabled, and/or immigrant spiritual/political/creative practitioner-leaders.
Cost: Offered on a sliding scale, with scholarships available. Accessibility accommodations are available. Childcare will be provided upon request.
$1100 – Solidarity Rate – I have financial abundance and security via personal or generational wealth
$667 -- Full Cost Rate -- I have financial comfort and can take trips, cover unexpected expenses and save for the future
$425 – Supported Rate – I have my basic financial needs met, and can dine out and afford small splurges
$275 – Sponsored Rate – I am currently experiencing financial insecurity
Even if this sliding scale isn’t accessible to you right now – please apply! We are actively raising money to offer this retreat without cost to those who request a full scholarship, or who wish to pay a rate below the “sponsored” rate
Ready to apply? Click here
The sun, the moon, and the truth: finding stability in a season of volatility
Tuesday, September 16th, 2025
5-6:30pm PT/ 8-9:30pm ET
"Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth"
– Ajahn Buddhadasa, Engaged Buddhist elder
How do we prepare for what’s coming, and how might our practice guide and support us in that process?
Join us for an emergent dharma + political education response to escalating violence and threat in the current moment.
With facilitation by Thenmozhi Soundararajan (Equality Labs), Rima Vesely-Flad (Black Buddhist Studies Initiative), Kate Johnson (Buddhist Peace Fellowship), our time will include:
Analysis and assessment
Guided movement and meditation
Dharma share
Small group discussion
Next steps
Register here to join us for this grounding community sharing and practice space.
This live zoom webinar event will not be recorded.
What Now?! Learning from Conflict in Spiritual/Political Home
Thursday, July 10th | 10am PT / 1pm ET
Our spiritual and political homes often hold our fiercest longings — for justice, yes, but also for safety, for belonging, for liberation that embraces our whole selves: messy, sacred, and still unfolding.
And they are also sites of contradiction. Misunderstandings. Heartbreaks. Gaps between who we are and who we wish to become – individually and collectively.
Conflict arises, again and again. What is it trying to teach us?
In this offering, we’ll be joined by three wise leaders and dedicated Dharma practitioners — sujatha baliga, Kazu Haga,and Leah Penniman.
Each has experience to share around building and being in justice-oriented, spirit-led communities that have moved through periods of disharmony and uncertainty, and come through the other side.
Together, we’ll explore how community conflict can be a doorway, not a dead end — and how our spiritual practices, Buddhist and beyond, can support us to navigate these difficult times.
This is not a training or a fix.
It is a space for reflection, witnessing, and shared inquiry — for anyone who has ever wrestled with how to stay in community when things get hard, and still believe in the possibility of repair.
Our very own board prez Jacoby Ballard will guide us in meditation <3
What Now?! Cultivating Peaceful Economies
What is the spiritual practice that can transform the war economy?
"Cultivating Peaceful Economies" explores a channel for spiritual practice that doesn’t get enough attention – our money.
That is: the resources we hold as individuals, the resources we have access to as dharma communities, and how we might mobilize them to interrupt systems of violence and domination, and build alternatives with peace, justice, and love at the center.
Join Taj James and Konda Mason, two passionate dharma practitioners and capital advisors working to bring about more regenerative economies, for an hour of practice, conversation, provocations and invitations toward a more liberated economic future.
Let it Move You: a care package for grieving times
Your grief makes sense.
I want to write rage but all that comes is sadness. We have been sad long enough to make this earth either weep or grow fertile.
– Audre Lorde, The Cancer Journals
In this era of constant crisis, loss, and disruption, the collective weight of unprocessed grief is undeniable. Lives have been lost to pandemics, terrorism, genocide, state violence, and systemic injustice. Many of us are left struggling to move through the sorrow for all that we have already experienced, and bracing for the tragedies that are sure to come.
Some of us have hardly had time to breathe, let alone grieve, before responding to the next crisis.
Your grief is sacred.
Now this, monks, is the Noble Truth of dukkha (“suffering” or “stress”): Birth is dukkha, aging is dukkha, death is dukkha; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, & despair are dukkha; association with the unbeloved is dukkha; separation from the loved is dukkha; not getting what is wanted is dukkha.
– SN 56.11 Dhammacakkapavattana Sutta
The Buddha described grief and loss as part of the First Noble Truth of suffering, or stress. It is a "noble" truth because it’s a part of the human condition.
And, in a world like ours, we know that suffering is not distributed equally.
Those of us who are targeted by systems of oppression and domination may be carrying unique burdens of loss, trauma, and responsibility.
Your grief deserves to be held, supported, and tended to.
Let It Move You: a Care Package for Grieving Times, is a six week contemplative journey through the winter solstice and into the New Year.
It is filled with teachings, resources, and practices to help you be with your grief, even as you work to block injustice, and build a world where all of us are safe, loved and free.
Featuring Linda Thai, Lama Rod Owens, Malkia Devich Cyril, Rev. Duncan Ryuken Williams, Sarah Jawaid, Sam Rise, and others… this care package will offer you tools, teachings, and space for individual and collective grief, pointing us toward the freedom that mourning makes possible.
In six pre-recorded sessions, you’ll experience:
Dialogues featuring six grief workers, healers, activist-organizers, and politicized dharma practitioners, each exploring unique facets of loss and resilience, both personal and communal.
Guided Practices (video + audio) to help you settle, heal, and reconnect with your inner resources, that can you can build into your regular rituals of self- and community-care
Readings and Resources for further exploration and integration.
Three live sessions will feature guided practices, small group breakouts, and teacher led-Q&A, to deepen your engagement with the material and connect with others on the journey.
You will receive lifetime access to all course material. Live sessions will also be recorded and available to watch or listen later on.
We have to grieve. It is a duty like any other duty in life…Grief is seen as food for the psyche. Just as the body needs food, the psyche needs grief to maintain its own healthy balance.
– Elder Malidoma Patrice Somé, Of Water and the Spirit
Register here
What Now? Philly Post-Election Meditation and Conversation with BPF
*Digital collage by Daní Padilla, Gazan Sunbirds Rise Above the Fire
When No Thing Works: A Zen and Indigenous Perspective on Resilience, Shared Purpose, and Leadership in a Timeplace of Collapse
A book reading and Q+A with Norma Wong
We are so geekily excited about the launch of this book! Norma Wong has been a wise, powerful and enduring force in the realms of Dharma and politics, and her teachings have inspired and sustained generations of movement leaders.
Come celebrate with us!
In Remembrance, We Heal Our Way Home
Two beloved teachers from Thich Nhat Hanh’s Plum Village tradition, Kaira Jewel Lingo and Marisela Gomez, offer wisdom and practices from their book to help us navigate towards freedom, one year into the genocide in Palestine.
Refuge Circle
30 minute: meditation + call your reps
Refuge Circle is a multi-lineage, spiritual-political space for us to ground in contemplative practice, with community, especially in times of grief, loss, and rage at ongoing harm from systems of oppression. It’s a space to share resources to support the freedom of all beings, and deepen our commitment to practicing peace and interrupting harm.
True Justice, True Peace: Practicing Non Violence in Times of Great Harm
Description
Sami Awad, Kazu Haga, Miki Kashtan in conversation with BPF Co-Director Kate Johnson
Wednesday Dec 6th 10:30am PT/ 1:30pm ET. Register here: bit.ly/bpfpeace
This is a 90-minute event that will be recorded with ASL interpretation and closed captions provided.
I chose. I chose to stand against your hate and not hate you, to resist your persecution and not demean you, to overcome your oppression and not suppress you, to respond to your violence with nonviolence. I chose to speak loud and clear for freedom and life and not insult you. I chose love to be my motivation.
– Sami Awad, Holy Land Trust
As we bear witness to the all-out assault on Gaza and the Palestinian people, we do so with profound grief.
We acknowledge and mourn the horror of the Oct 7 attack on Israeli lives. We acknowledge and mourn the horrific conditions of decades-long apartheid and occupation of Palestine from which this violence arose.
Transformative justice activist Mariame Kaba reminds us that “no one enters violence for the first time by committing it.” As we take the long view, we can see that the current crisis in Palestine and Israel is a manifestation of cycles of violence and domination that began thousands of years ago.
In this present moment, we also hold steadfastly to our fundamental interconnection and shared humanity. No one is free from the impacts of oppression and colonization, even as we are in so many different positions within it.
How does the Buddha’s commitment to the principle of Ahimsa (often translated as non-harm or nonviolence) respond to violence? How do we conjure up the courage to resist oppression without giving into the delusion of separation?
What can each one of us do to transform the conditions within us and around us, within the specific circumstances in which we find ourselves?
What can we each do to hold with reverence our own and everyone else’s humanity in the process, without exception or discrimination?
Please join us for an interdisciplinary, interfaith conversation on the practice of nonviolence, both internally and externally, as it relates to the current violence in Israel and Palestine.
Our speakers:
Sami Awad, Inspired by his uncle Mubarak Awad's leadership in Palestinian nonviolent resistance, Sami Awad founded the Holy Land Trust in 1998 to promote Palestinian nonviolent resistance to the Israeli occupation. Holy Land Trust initiatives include training workshops, participation in local nonviolent campaigns, and seeking increased media coverage for nonviolent resistance. Holy Land Trust also runs summer programs in which internationals live with host families in Bethlehem, study Arabic and volunteer with Palestinian organizations. Follow @Sami_Awad //
Kazu Haga, a trainer and practitioner of nonviolence and restorative justice, is a core member of the Ahimsa Collective and the Fierce Vulnerability Network and author of Healing Resistance: A Radically Different Response to Harm. He works with incarcerated people, youth, and activists from around the country. He has over 20 years of experience in nonviolence and social change work, and has been an active trainer since 2000. He resides in Lisjan Ohlone land, a.k.a Oakland, CA.
Miki Kashtan is a practical visionary pursuing a world that works for all, based on principles and practices rooted in feminist nonviolence. Miki is the seed founder of the Nonviolent Global Liberation community (NGLcommunity.org) and a certified trainer with the Center for Nonviolent Communication. She has taught, consulted, and engaged with projects globally. She is the author of four books and blogs on The Fearless Heart. Her writing has also appeared in The New York Times, Tikkun magazine, Waging Nonviolence, Shareable, Peace and Conflict, and elsewhere.
Hosted by BPF Co-Director Kate Johnson.
Kate Johnson (she/her) is a teacher, facilitator, writer and mother. She began practicing Theravada Buddhism in the Western Insight tradition in her early 20’s, deeply influenced by the Thai Forest and Burmese Sayadaw lineages. She has participated in many multi-month meditation retreats and multi-year teacher trainings, and graduated from Spirit Rock Meditation Center’s four-year retreat teacher training in 2020, under the leadership of Gina Sharpe, Larry Yang and Lila Kate Wheeler. Kate began facilitating organizational training and retreats after co-founding the Meditation Working Group at Occupy Wall Street in 2011, and went on to help organize yoga and meditation communities in service of justice campaigns, and advise organizations committed to the practice of wise relationship. She is the author of the book Radical Friendship: Seven Ways to Love Yourself and Find Your People in an Unjust World.
Gratitude to Erin Selover and Fiona Teng for their thought partnership in preparation for this event.
Refuge Circles
Register here: bit.ly/bpfrefuge
We are called to practice together in sangha during these heart-shattering and activating times. This is a spiritually-politically aligned space for us to ground in our practice with community, especially in times of grief, loss, rage at ongoing harm from systems of oppression. This is a space to hold all of the spectrum of feelings and experiences that may be arising during this time.
This is not a space for discussion and sharing of views. We are committed towards peace and liberation so all beings may be safe and free from harm. As such, we call for an immediate complete ceasefire on Gaza and in solidarity with Palestinian liberation. We welcome politicized teachers from various Buddhist lineages lifting up Heritage and BIPOC voices.
Refuge Circles run from October 31 - December 22, 2023
Weekdays Mon-Fri 7pm-7:30pm PST
AGENDA
2 min - Arrive & Welcome
5 min - Dharma reflection related to the present crisis
15-20 min - Guided Practice
5 min - Action to call our representatives https://ceasefiretoday.com/
True Justice, True Peace: An Engaged Buddhist Response to the Crisis in Gaza
Register for FREE: bit.ly/bpf4gaza
How can we uphold the inherent Buddha nature of all beings, as we maintain absolute clarity in our work against Israeli apartheid?
How can wise discernment guide us to be clear in our commitment to Jewish life and dignity?
How can our practice serve us as we mobilize towards a free Palestine?
Join as we explore these questions and more with Palestinian-American Christian peacemaker Jonathan Brenneman, and Jewish-Israeli and Buddhist organizer and strategist Carinne Luck, in conversation with BPF co-director Kate Johnson.
We’ll offer short practices for grounding and centering throughout our time together, which will also include time for personal reflection/journaling, and time for questions and reflections with our guest speakers.