Making Friends with Precarity

Wisdom and Practice for a Life of Vulnerability

One Earth Sangha director Kristin Barker led this EcoDharma Exploration on July 23, 2023. A recording is available below. We welcome your support for this program.

Photo by Kristin Barker

Death and decay are inherent in the cycles of life. In these soft bodies, we have made an enormous project of insulating ourselves in a way that is in part backfiring at the global level. As we enter a period of collective imperilment, might we be re-acquainted with the raw vulnerability of life? What might Buddhist wisdom and practices offer as we come to terms with the need for protection?

Co-founder and Director

Kristin is co-founder and director of One Earth Sangha whose mission is to cultivate a Buddhist response to ecological crises. She is a graduate of Spirit Rock’s Community Dharma Leader program and now teaches with the Insight Meditation Community of Washington (DC). As a co-founder of White Awake, Kristin has been supporting white people since 2011 with a Dharma approach to uprooting racism in ourselves and in our world. With a background in software engineering as well as environmental management, she has worked at several international environmental organizations. She is a GreenFaith Fellow and serves on the advisory board of Project Inside Out as well as the steering committee for Interfaith Power & Light DMV. Kristin was born and raised in northern New Mexico and currently lives in Washington DC, traditional lands of the Piscataway peoples.

     Pieces on One Earth Sangha

Support this Offering

One Earth Sangha and our featured speakers offer these explorations on a donation basis, with no required registration fee. We invite you to participate in the tradition of offering dana, or generosity. Your support makes these gatherings possible, and any amount offered is greatly appreciated.

Another way to support us is to share what this exploration has meant to you in a way that we can use in our materials. We invite you to share a “testimonial” here! (select “EcoDharma Exploration Participant” from the dropdown menu.)

Recording

Additional Resources

Inquiries for Group Discussion

  • How do I relate to vulnerability, generally and with regard to ecocrises?
  • What happens when I affirm vulnerability? What do I notice in my body, heart, mind?
  • What responses might be possible if I welcome and make friends with precarity?

Additional Resources

More EcoDharma Explorations

Upcoming

Healing from Trauma, Emerging through Collapse

As we face the poly-crisis, how do we escalate our actions without escalating a worldview that keeps us from interdependence? How can we view injustice as a manifestation of collective trauma? How can the Dharma support us in a skillful response?

Upcoming

A Work that Reconnects Spiral Gathering

What might the Earth desire from us this Earth Day? Alex Julie guides a Work That Reconnects spiral practice to ground in gratitude, lean into grief, and clear our heart-minds enough to listen for the Earth.

Past

Standing in Fierce Compassion in this Age of Reckoning

As extractive systems collapse and uncertainty rises, how do we stay present and act with wisdom? This session explores Dharma teachings and meditative grounding for meeting grief and the call to disrupt and reimagine with courage.