Includes meditation, dharma talk & selected Q/A

Includes meditation & dharma talk. Group Q/A has been omitted.

We start with Donald's experience of being at Southern Dharma Retreat Center in North Carolina, north of Asheville, teaching two retreats during Hurricane Helene, some four weeks ago, and how staff and community members have responded during and in the weeks since the hurricane, grounded in community and their inner practices. Such a response, linking inner practice and the outer support and help of others, resonates with the aspiration of the Bodhisattva, one dedicated to awakening and to meeting the needs of others. We explore some of the qualities and capacities of the bodhisattva, including being in touch with freedom and awakening, navigating difficulties and painful experiences skillfully, and following the challenging teaching of acting fully without attachment to the outcome or fruits of one's actions. The talk is followed by discussion.

We begin with a review of last week's talk and exploration, on being a bodhisattva in our times. The theme was inspired by Donald's experience teaching two retreats north of Asheville, NC during Hurricane Helene and being inspired by the response of the retreat center, Southern Dharma, both locally near the center and in Asheville, combining community, inner practices, and helping others. In this session, we look first more at the traditional understanding of the bodhisattva, both in the context of the Buddha's teachings and later Theravada, and then Mahayana. We bring in images of the archetypcal bodhisattvas, Avalokiteshvara, Tara, Kwan Yin, and Manjushri, as well as examples of the vows of bodhisattvas, and an outline of the training of a bodhisattva in the ten paramitas (or "perfections"). We then ask about the nature of a contemporary bodhisattva, pointing to how connecting inner work and helping others can be a corrective to exclusively outer-oriented forms of activism and exclusively inner-oriented forms of Buddhist practice, in the context of a number of systemic crises that are facing us. After then looking at some of the capacities of a contemporary bodhisattva, we invite bodhisattva vows from those attending and hear from many. Discussion follows.

We gather for two hours together the morning after Election Day, 2024, in large part to ground what we are experiencing in our practice and in community. We begin with short reflections from Sylvia and Donald, followed by short periods of meditation and then sharing from many of those present at the gathering, with intermittent reflections from Sylvia and Donald. We finish with short talks from Sylvia and Donald and then a reading of the intentions of community members going forward in the next period of time.