March 2008
Dear Dharma friends
Some of you may have heard of the East Bay Meditation Center (EBMC’s website: www.eastbaymeditation.org) which is a project that I have been involved with several other dharma friends in downtown Oakland, California. I thought I would give a current update on our progress and what has been happening there over the past year. Last January 2007, we opened our doors in the heart of downtown Oakland with the intention of bringing the teachings of the Buddha to the different and diverse communities of Oakland and the East Bay.
We started by offering meditation classes and sitting groups for Communities of Color and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning (LGBTQ) Communities. In our previous experience with other meditation centers, it was important to create a safe space for groups who often do not feel safe in the larger world. By dedicating attention and programming efforts towards these communities, our intention was to create as safe a space for practice as is possible. Likewise, some of our first daylong retreats were for teens and young adults, again to cultivate a sense of safety to be able to relax into a spiritual practice. We were and are looking to create a sacred space that people from all different backgrounds and life experiences can consider to be one of their spiritual homes.
In two different fundraising events, writer and poet, Alice Walker and Buddhist teacher Sylvia Boorstein, offered their generosity with their teachings to raise awareness and financial support for the new Center. Both Jack Kornfield and James Baraz will be doing similar events in 2008. These fundraising events are crucial for our sustainability because we are an all-“Dana” center, meaning that no events have a cost associated with them. It is not that the events are “free,” because the teachings are regarded as so precious that they are priceless. People who come to EBMC events are supported into deepening their practice of “Dana” or “Generosity,” and contributing resources to the Center to the best of their ability. In that way, finances are not a barrier to participation or deepening of spiritual practice.
EBMC has also had both daylongs and class series in yoga, Tai Chi, and Conscious Embodiment to bring the awareness and mindfulness practice into physical activity and movement. We have been fortunate to have Ruth King lead several events through her amazing transformational and healing work around Rage. Quarterly, we have had very popular and successful daylongs entitled “Transforming Depression thru Mindfulness.” It feels that this subject has resonated deeply with many folks coming to the Center. And we have had overflow registrations on the class series: “Transformation of the Heart” and the “Four Foundations of Mindfulness: Bridging Personal Change with Social Transformation.”
As part of our ongoing work in exploring culture, ethnicity, and race as a spiritual practice and a mindfulness practice, EBMC has done ground-breaking events such as daylongs on “Facing the Pain of Racial Difference: A Buddhist Path” as well as the class series called “Interconnected: Being Mindful and White in a Multi-cultural World.” The latter being the equivalent of an unlearning racism series within the context of the Buddha’s teachings.
In addition to programming, the Center also is trying to govern and organize itself differently from traditional institutions. Not only are all the events presented without financial charge to facilitate access, the Leadership Sangha (the name for the Board of Directors) is also structuring itself to create as much access as possible. Most non-profit Boards expect people to volunteer their time and energy in order to create a functioning organization. This traditional method assumes that the folks who can volunteer their time also have the luxury of doing so. However, being in the mix of Oakland, we know that we require skills and talents of folks who might otherwise have to earn a living for themselves and their families. So the Leadership Sangha has instituted a method that each Leadership Sangha member is offered a financial stipend (for now, relatively small) as an offering of Dana (again, Generosity) for being a Leadership Sangha member. If the member does not feel they require the offering to meet their living expenses, then they decline the stipend. In this way, the Leadership Sangha can also participate in the practice of Generosity just as the practitioners who come to the Center. It is just another example of how things are being attempted in a different way to create different, hopefully more inclusive, conditions within which for us to deepen our collective spiritual practice.
If you are interested in any of this work or process, please visit our website (above), or better yet, please visit EBMC! This is an experiment and it will only work with your support—your support of your resources, but also of your presence. We are attempting to create the greatest accessibility for the teachings of freedom to as many different communities as possible. May it be so.
Blessings to you and your loved ones!
Larry
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