How can we respond to racial injustice from a spiritually grounded place? How can the development of compassion help lead to the end of individual and social suffering? Beginning Wednesday, September 2, 2020 from 5:30 - 7:00 pm, the Wellspring Insight Meditation Community in Hardwick will be hosting a weekly series of study and practice sessions focusing on compassion, and racial and structural injustice. This series will last through the fall.
Guided by movement of the Great Radical Race Read, we will read and discuss the book Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation by Jasmine Syedullah, Lama Rod Owens, and Rev. angel Kyodo williams. Interwoven in these discussions will be guided and silent meditations on compassion. We will investigate manomaya, the mind-made weapons of oppression. Manomaya refers to the mind-made world: how we react or respond to what we experience in the body-mind, how we process processes thought and define our emotional experience.
As the authors advise us, "The lotus actually emerges from the mud. So we're talking about wisdom emerging from the chaos, the ignorance, the suffering because we're learning to transform this relationship to what is around us… One of humans' greatest attributes is the ability to disrupt our programming and form new cognitive connections based on direct experience that then becomes embodied through repetition – practice…"
We have the ability. The question is, will we use it? It is likely to be the work of lifetimes.
We will meet masked and indoors in a space large enough to accommodate up to 10 people with a safe distance, with an air purifier and fans to keep the air moving out the window. We will have books on hand for you, and ask that you make a donation toward the cost of the book (~$10) if you can afford it. The class is free or by donation. Some background in meditation is helpful, but not required. A heart-mind that has a willingness to be open, compassionate and forgiving is also quite helpful. We are hosting this with the aspiration that our reading, discussion and meditation will help us be in better relationship with all beings.
We ask that folks pre-register so that we can maintain a safe limit of 10 participants.
For more information or to register, please contact Molly Zapp at mollyzapp@live.com
https://radicaldharma.org/
https://wellspringvt.org/meditation/
Dec 17, 2024, 5 PM
Hyde Park Selectboard Meeting - Dec. 17Dec 17, 2024, 5:30 PM
Table TennisDec 19, 2024, 6 to 8 PM