Module 12
Prompts & Practices
Los Angeles, 2020
1) Sangha as a force for good in the world
In what ways do the gifts of the Bodhisattva overlap with white-awareness?
How is your sangha context a force for good in the world?
How do you distinguish between finding middle ground with opposing views, and discerning views that are actually harmful and therefore not reconcilable to a middle ground?
2) Grounding our liberation in love
What jumped out at you in the readings?
What does “grounding in love” feel in the body, heart, mind?
Can you think of examples in your own life of organzing/responding from aversion or horrified anxiety? Or from love? What is the difference? What is the impact?
3) What’s my role in the revolution?
Are you drawn to any of these modes of intervention?
What comes easy to you? What is harder?
Any new ideas? In your context, what is needed? What is radically doable?
4) Dealing with fear and hostility
What is a skillful response towards people who don’t agree with you about how to address racial harm? Do you have examples of working with reactivity around that?
How can fear and polarisation with people of opposing views be transformed into positive energy and action?
Optional:
If you read the article by Maurice Mitchel about some of the unhelpful habits of progressive movements, what jumped out at you? Have you witnessed of this playing out?
If you read the article on the Appendix by Gleig and Artinger (Appendix), what do you make of their three-fold typology? (Reactionary Centrism and Performative Transcendence / The Buddhist Right / Alt-Right Buddhists).
5) What Next?
What comes next for you in this work?
Generosity: How you can support us
Friends, what has this course meant to you?
Do you want such initiatives to continue?
Are you committed, like us, to keeping this free?
Two things are particularly challenging in the work that we do:
1) the lack of funding and over-reliance on volunteer labour
2) the mis-perception and fear about this work and its impact
Good news! YOU can help to remove these two obstacles with the super-power of dana. Two things REALLY make a difference….
Offering financial dana:
it really helps, big time.
Do not underestimate the power, material and psychological, of a donation. In addition to technology costs, the team does need support. We also offer dana to the Wisdom Circle of folks of color who support us. Without financial support, this work simply cannot be sustained. And we want to keep it free for participants!
Offering your testimonial:
it really, really matters.
Honestly, nothing is more effective that hearing from participants, in their own words, about what this course was like, and the impact it has had in their life. People in positions of authority and foundations with resources are far more interested to hear from you, than from us. Bonus: it really fills our spiritual tank!
