Equinox Update ~Gathering Energies & Allies~
This summer has been full of abundant connections alongside slow and steady growth for us here at BPF. As we welcome the waning light of autumn – a season of harvest, ancestral reverence and gratitude for what's grown – we want to share some of the fruits of our recent labor.
HELP SHAPE THE FUTURE OF BPF
A project close to our hearts and crucial to our continued fruitful growth is the capacity to broadly listen to our maha sangha. So we specially designed this survey just for you! Help us spread it far and wide to sanghas and “Buddh-ish” activist communities throughout Turtle Island. While this survey is specific to us at BPF, we recognize that much of the feedback might benefit other sanghas, Dharma centers and practitioners - so we hope to hear from folks unfamiliar with BPF as well. As a small acknowledgement for your time and energy, we are happy to offer free access to one of our online courses (Get Out, Dharma of Pose, etc.) upon completion.
Please take a few minutes to take our survey! http://listening.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/.../tt-8a8ec0
WELCOME OUR NEWEST STAFF!
After an open search that received over thirty amazingly talented applicants, we followed our thorough hiring process to reduce bias and ensure fairness. We are overjoyed to have found the logistically (and otherwise) brilliant Erica Bestpitch join us at BPF as our new Operations Manager. In just a couple of months, Erica has already demonstrated their deep love of investigation, problem-solving and refining systems with lots of creativity and forethought. The operations role is the backbone of an organization and Erica brings an abundance of energy, wit and integrity to the work.
Learn more about Erica at our newly updated website - bpf.org.
IT TAKES A COMMUNITY TO LISTEN
We’ve been gathering our energy and calling in allies to help shape the next iteration of this organization while holding the inquiry: How can the Dharma fortify our social justice movements during such precarious times?
In the spirit of transparency, we want to pull back the curtains of some of our processes and considerations. While interviewing for a new staff to join us, we also put out an open call to enlist a values-aligned consultant who could help us bring to reality our community engagement strategy to listen broadly and deeply to the diverse communities that practice, live and work at the intersections of social justice and Buddhism here on Turtle Island. We again received over thirty incredible applicants and went through a thorough review process and series of intensive interviews that allowed us to meet several radical folks (sidenote: there are so many superheroes among us)!
Through the search process, we have come to recognize that listening to community requires a community to listen. This is the deep wisdom of the third precious jewel of sangha. Our initial quest to find a consultant + facilitator extraordinaire who could also hold and represent the many facets of our intersectional communities was likely too narrow and limiting. We realized what we really needed was a skilled project coordinator with experience in facilitation and social justice movement to help lead a team. We found that combo in Celia Kutz who comes from a background rooted in movement building and facilitation. Celia’s passion and thoughtfulness has helped bring this project aboveground through designing the survey and the listening sessions ahead.
The heart of this community engagement project are the listening sessions. These sessions are designed to be more intimate opportunities to listen to our diverse community. We organized them into caucus groups to allow for safer spaces that center voices that most often get ignored, left out and/or erased in convert Buddhist spaces in the US (which mirror the habits of dominant culture in our society). Guided by our purpose of centering BIPOC voices, we looked at demographic data from our past programming and consulted with other community members to identify the following identity-based caucus groups. We recognize that while caucus/affinity groups intend to foster solidarity there are also complexities and limitations as a by-product of colonization and white supremacy. The caucuses we are prioritizing are: 1) Heritage Buddhist 2) Asian American & Pacific Islander 3) Black/African American 4) Latine 5) LGBTQIA+ 6) Elders (50+) 7) Youth (18-30) and Movement Leaders/Organizers.
Our superstar board and staff rose up to offer themselves to help co-facilitate these listening sessions as a way to be more connected to the feedback and be the face of the organization. Additionally, we recruited a team of facilitators from diverse sanghas and intersectional backgrounds to help us listen deeply with care. We are excited to bring on B. Anderson, Dorothy Imagire, Renata Moreira and Guangping Chu for this special project.
Learn more about our Community Engagement team at https://www.bpf.org/.../meet-our-community-engagement....
We welcome your support of our community engagement project by donating at our website using the DONATE NOW button.
GROUNDED IN GRATITUDE
This last year of transition has been marked by unsettling dissolution and necessary change. The Earth reminds us that decomposition and decay are essential to the cycle of growth. Today we feel that steady resurgence of growth and coherence more than ever. We have tremendous gratitude for the generosity of the Kataly Foundation which has enabled us to take this long pause to stabilize and fortify our roots in order to regenerate. May all beings and organizational organisms be provided the nurturing support to rest, heal and re-emerge anew. And deepest bows to you, our thousands of supporters who continue to champion engaged Buddhism.