Community aspiration and town hall

David Parker introduced the contemplations.

 

From the beginning, when we were planning our community aspiration event, we knew that all 120 members couldn’t fit in the room even if everybody could be there at the same time.  So my job was to share some of the discussion and provoke reflection on some important questions that are up for all of us, as individuals and as a community.  Thinking about what we want to do individually and collectively seems like a natural thing to do together although it isn’t something we can wrap up in one afternoon.  You might bring these questions up with friends in Shambhala: “what’s up with you? with you and Shambhala? with you and the world?”  Here’s my report on the 2015 “Members only event” to get the ball rolling.

• What do we want to commit to, to engage with in personal practice this year?  (… a silent contemplation where we could write down our thoughts)
• What want to offer to the Shambhala community in coming year?  (… a silent contemplation followed by discussion in small groups, followed by a group-wide discussion summarized below)
• What do I want to offer the greater world this year?  (… a silent contemplation followed by individual discussions and posting on the wall)

We organized into small groups to discuss our intentions for the next year.

Here are some of the intentions that people shared with respect to their involvement in the Shambhala Center:

• Spending more time together at the Shambhala center – in community
• Not “just be a member” but “engage more deeply in those activities I’ve committed to.”  More heartfelt engagement, continue learning how to be kind.
• Find a harmonious balance between practice and daily life in a way that would be sustainable: between “personal life” and “Shambhala life” (for some that meant cutting back while for others it meant increasing engagement in Shambhala activities)
• Bring good food to potlucks
• Offer our specific skills: cooking, guarding, leading, etc.
• Maintain or increase monthly dues
• Increase integration of people from all sides (geographical and social) of Portland
• Reach out to veterans and other groups, outing ourselves as Buddhists
• Increase focus on social action, especially diversity issues
• Work toward finding a new space for our Shambhala Center.

Juan Carlos, a new member of Shambhala, who was talking about bringing the courage of basic goodness to human rights organizations. He is a consultant for Amnesty International and other organizations.

Lisa Stanley and Corey Adkins led the Town Hall meeting.

Lisa Stanley opened the town hall by recalling a conversation with someone who was stepping out of a role they had held.   They were wondering, “how to be here [at the Shambhala Center] if I’m not doing a specific role?”  Lisa led a reflection on what it means to be a member of the community: recall Pema’s teachings on “come as you are.”  It starts with that.  Whatever it is that we are experiencing, whether challenges, richness, our gifts (large or small), the delight we can take in one another or in our lives.  Also our foibles, our faults, our neuroses, the irritations with ourselves and with others, our conflicts — all of that is part of the notion of coming as you are. We should know that that’s why this community exists: to hold dear our humanness.  Not the idea of moving toward perfection.  We are not trying to be perfect or have a perfect society.  It’s more about having a place where we can hold our heart, which is our strength.  Like meditation: “strong back and soft front” applies to meditation and to our lives.  This is a place where the lineage, our practice and our lives come together.  We could be supported and nourished here but never give up: on ourselves or on others.

• How about an electronic suggestion box?
• Our organization is too opaque: how do we select leaders?  Who gets on the council and for how long? Who chooses Council members? What other positions are there?  It’s a mysterious process.
• Moved by the words: “Sangha burnout happens”.  Good to know ourselves: how we practice this way.  Important as part of transparency: individual leaders or the whole sangha experiencing burnout.  When it’s happening and how we can uplift ourselves together.  That would bring true friendship if we had the tough conversations.
• Efforts to hang out with people who are on the periphery (rather than wait for people to come in and speak to council).  People who are within the sangha who are on the periphery of the community.
• Are council meetings open to the Sangha?
• Approaching seniors who feel lost and alone.
• Access Council.  Restrictive process for observing.  Publish when council meetings are happening and publish the agenda.  It’s a black hole: nobody knows what’s going on.

• We have tremendous resources regarding conflict and communication.  Would like to have meetings like these to practice conflict resolution skills with each other.
• “We have to learn how to not get along better.”  Would a session about that be fun or inviting?
• Efforts to take care of each other are paying off.  The vibe in the center has warmed up.  Greeters on Tuesday nights or Sunday practice matter a lot.
• Our goal is “kind and not asleep.”  Awake means protective of our environment, of the dharma, of each other.  We need to have more awareness of what has led to some thefts.
• To help reduce chronic inventory shrinkage in the bookstore, we could offer to help people with the process of buying a book when people are browsing there.  We could say, “Would you like to buy a book?”, or “Can I help you with buy that book?”

1. Practice — for benefit of self and others,
2. Volunteer time in small or large ways,
3. Contribute financially,
4. Practice of community.

• Suggestion to open up this building process to membership as widely as possible
• What about Eva Wong input in this process?  The response is that she advised us to stick to the inner southeast part of Portland, near to where we are now.
• Is there a concern about the number of volunteers who are up for involvement.  Response: we are starting from scratch now, developing consensus, volunteers, and everything together.
• This town hall event is much appreciated!
• Wouldn’t a new space involve more money demands?  We are actually starting from a great position, since we already have around $75K in the building fund and some people chip in a bit of their membership dues to building fund every month.
• The big issue is for us to figure out how open up the teachings and and the building project to a larger group.
• At the end of the last Level I, there was a staff meeting that ended with toasts and one of them was to the future where we find a better building.
• Contributing to a building search might be a great way of inviting or engaging people who feel more peripheral to the sangha.
• Creativity will play a role.  For example in Nelson, they invented “Buddha bonds” where people would buy long-term bonds that did not carry interest but enabled the community to move into a great new space.
• What’s the Unified Giving Model that I keep hearing about — for more than a year?  It all sounds so abstract, but we haven’t heard any details.  Response: more details are to come!

The town hall ended with the dedication of merit.  Next came the pot luck and the arts and, of course, the clean-up.

Chris worked on the clean-up after the potluck.