Resources
Our last session took us to the second pillar of our three-fold bridge to the other shore, that of wisdom. We examined how worldviews have conditioned not only our global ecological crises but other pervasive social ills. We also heard the role of assault on other ways of knowing, particularly indigenous in establishing domination and how some in the mainstream culture struggle, even in their aspiration to solidarity, struggle to yield to indigenous cultures, to release our patterns of domination.
After our break last week, we’re delighted to return with Reverend angel Kyodo williams, a provocative Zen teacher and powerful voice calling for the radical integrity in our practice. In this week’s session, Rev. angel will help us to bring our investigation of worldview to the internal and the intimate. We’ll examine how our own self-conception and the limits of our trust render implicit support to that which we seek to dismantle. Lou will also return with an extended look at the multiplying geophysical conditions we face and the dramatic strategies to stabilize the climate under serious consideration by some scientists and policy-makers.
Rev angel Kyodo williams is a teacher, author, activist, master trainer and leader. She is co-author of Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation and author of Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living With Fearlessness and Grace. Williams is the Spiritual Director of the meditation-based newDharma Community and founder of the Center for Transformative Change in Berkeley, California[3] and is also credited with developing fearlessMeditation, fearlessYoga and Warrior Spirit Training. More at the Center for Transformative Change.
Lou is co-founder of One Earth Sangha, an environmental lawyer, a teacher and the leader of the climate change program at World Wildlife Fund which he joined in 2008 after a year on the staff of the Obama for America campaign. He also serves on the board of directors of the US Climate Action Network. Lou came to the Dharma as a response to the challenges of working on climate issues and practices within the Insight Meditation Community in Washington.
Homework for Session Four
- Focusing on what Matters – Video
An individual exercise offered by Reverend angel at the 2016 Iomega Women’s Leadership conference. Note that the language references self-identified women but her practice equally applies to all genders.
Access the Webinar
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- The live session begins [localize_time tz=”America/Los_Angeles” fmt=”l, F j, Y g:i a T”]Sunday, October 29, 2017 9:30 am [/localize_time].
- Add this meeting and the full the series to Google Calendar, Outlook or other .ics-compatible calendar.
- To prepare for the live session, ensure that you have downloaded and installed the latest version of Zoom to your PC, Mac, iPhone, or android device. This program is free and will allow you to see and hear the webinar. You’ll also be able to ask questions and interact with the session leaders. You might run the program and choose the option to test your audio and video (if you have a webcam) to make sure everything is working.
- You may join the session up to 30 minutes before the meeting begins. At that time, the link and further instructions on how to join the webinar will appear on this page.
You’ll be taken into the live session once it begins.
If you don’t have a good internet connection, either for video or audio, you can still join by phone:
- One-click: +16468769923,,481234991# or +16699006833,,481234991#
- US: +1 646 876 9923 or +1 669 900 6833 or +1 408 638 0968
- Enter the webinar ID: 481 234 991
- International numbers are available here.
To raise your hand, ask a question, or connect by phone during the session, use the buttons provided on the zoom interface:
(Click the image to enlarge)
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To view the video in full screen, click the expand button 
on the lower right.
Practices
Each session will feature inquiries that you can explore on your own in meditation or with others in dyads, triads or larger groups. We’ll post basic instructions and the inquiries immediately following the live session.
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Here we offer some optional (but highly recommended!) exercises to help you integrate some of the ideas and practices presented in the session. Each inquiry may be practiced individually or in dyads, triads or even larger groups. If the practice of meditative inquiries or group inquiry is new to you, we offer some guidance and suggestions here.
Liberation and the Edge of Trust
In this period of rapid destabilization, many of us experience the fierce demands of our time and also the fierce love in us that wants to respond to those demands. At that point, we have the opportunity to see how we habitually shrink, perhaps doubting our own capacity or fearing the ways that transformation might make us vulnerable. For instance, dominant culture conditions our belonging on the elusive, vaguely defined and ever-shifting goal of “being a good person.” In response, we may find ourselves pursuing some negotiation or bargaining, engaging just enough with the issues that call us to assuage our conscience and shore up that sense of being good. While the movement toward wholeness is natural and generative, if our journey is to continue, we must come to recognize the exits. Our task is to move through the tight, egoic sense of being good and the constant maintenance that this sense requires out into a vaster terrain where we can know and act on our deepest knowing, our absolute belonging and an ever-widening sense of self.
- What is your practice for? As you discover motivations, note that and ask again. Keep going.
- What is love (Dharma, Practice, God etc.) calling you to recognize? To be grounded and unshakable in such uncertain times, what do you know that you must remember?
- What do you distrust in this terrain? What are you being called to release?
- How might you support yourself in trusting and acting on your deepest knowing?
Experiencing Contact
Explore how our interactions with others are dramatically shaped by our internal state. You’ll need a partner for this one!
Share Your Experience
After you’ve done any/all of these inquiries, we invite you to share your experience and engage in conversation with one another in the community discussion below.[/time-restrict]
Follow Up Resources
- Radical Hope is Our Best Weapon – Interview by Krista Tippett with Junot Diaz (Podcast recording and transscript)
- Dominoes fall: Vanishing Arctic ice shifts jet stream, which melts Greenland glaciers – article in The Washington Post
- The Garden, Reconsidered – article on finding right relationship with “nature” by Jason Mark of The Sierra Club
- Radical Dharma – Rev. angel Kyodo williams’ latest book
Support Session Leaders
To maximize participation, we are offering this series at minimal cost. In addition, all of the teachers and leaders on these calls offer their gifts freely in this spirit of dana.
If you value what is offered here, we invite you to support these leaders and you may also wish to support One Earth Sangha. Dana, or generosity, is considered an essential part of practice and situates us in the unbroken line that seeks to bring the gifts of Buddhadharma, wisdom and compassion, to our world.
Any amount you offer, no matter how small, is greatly appreciated.
Community Discussion
We invite you to share with the community your reflections on any aspect of the session: the webinar, homework, practices, follow up resources or anything else!