Present: Jane Condon, Judith Broadus, Alan Sloan, David Whitehorn, Jay Stewart, Tara Slone, Judith Broadus, John Barbieri
Excused: Dennis Southward and John Seex
By this merit may all attain omniscience!
Chair and note-taker: Amy Conway
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Agenda Item |
Discussion |
Action Item |
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Introductions |
Welcome and Introductions Welcome to our two new workgroup members! Tara Sloan is representing the Vajra dawn group. John Barbieri has worked extensively on community housing issues. |
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Review of the “Caring Community in Action” document crafted by Jay Stewart and Alan Sloan
Suggested changes to the document are highlighted with italics. |
The group had already read through this document before our call. The following additions were suggested by the group.
Upaya councils were originally created for mediation and arbitration purposes. John Barbieri sat in the first Upaya council in Boulder in the late 1970’s. The notion is that members take an oath to be present, sane and kind, and to try to assist other sangha members. Quarterly reports were submitted to the VCTR. Initially, Upaya councils were so process oriented that the mediation process took a very long time. Finally Rinpoche said you can cut through some of that and go straight to arbitration.
Tara Slone said that Joel Mandel in Davis Ca is researching Upaya Councils and she will follow-up with him to get whatever he has found.
Jane says there are teachings on Upaya council that we could research. There has been one in Boulder in the past.
There was a suggestion that we add the notion of “no privacy” as a way of being open to someone who needs a place to stay at your house. Jane pointed out that “no privacy” is one of the qualities of court. We agree to “no privacy” when we take the bodhisattva vow. There could be a larger category in the document discussing the idea of sharing our space with others and expressing the notion of permeable comfort zones.
David asked how the “Caring Community in Action” document fits into the “view” document that our group decided to write during the last call. Jane suggests working “backwards” – meaning that we would complete this document describing a caring community first and then write the view document afterwards. The group agreed.
Jay asked the group if this document is too simple minded. They tried not to use insider jargon and she thinks they did a pretty good job of that. Everyone agreed that it should be simple and that the language is fine – not pedantic.
John suggested that writing a vision statement would bind the elements of this document together. A vision/view is being written already by Dennis Southward. John agreed to work on the view/vision statement with Dennis. Jane was chosen on the last conference call to work on the view document, but at this point is not as interested in working on it.
The group explored what kind of well being are we really talking about? The group agreed that we are looking a holistic well-being meaning that this is not just about health, but that there is an assumption to help each other thrive as a community in all ways. This again needs to expressed in our vision statement.
John asked how all the workgroups intend to integrate our group results together? Amy is in touch with the Chairs of all the other working groups. The chairs have their own conference calls approximately monthly. Also, the work being done by all the other groups are posted on the Congress website so we can make sure we are aware of their work.
Jay and Judith suggest that the final product from the various work groups will need some sort of editing process. An editorial board or team will need to look at all the reports to see if we are dealing with the same themes.
The group agreed that the workgroup reports should be skillfully presented to the Shambhala community especially if this process is indeed a culture change for our sangha. How these reports are presented is related to the vision of what we are trying to do. The final document is the “what”, but we must also address the “how”.
Tara asked if the Sakyong’s treatise on society is being referenced as ultimate view. Jane says it is not being referenced in several groups and that it should be the ground from which we are working.
On Karuna-talk, Alan Sloan is hoping to develop a ground, path, and fruition approach with the Karuna Talk group as a way to move forward with that project. There is no formal relationship between Karuna Talk and our community care workgroup, but it is recommended that workgroup members go to http://www.shambhala.org/karuna and read some of the postings on Karuna Talk to inform the work we are doing. It is a grass roots movement which relates directly to some of the objectives of our work.
Jane says we can come up with objectives, but the way to inspire one another to take action is through actual practice. We know where we would like to go, but how do we inspire that slowing down and engagement in our daily lives?
The Lexington sangha started “community as practice”. They have as a community contemplated community care and what it means and what inspires them to be part of the community.
For some people, caring for others seems like a genetic trait. But different things motivate different people. Some are motivated by pain. Some are motivated by great leadership.
The Sakyong’s Treatise is the front end of the wave of consciousness about the importance of community. Our communities are growing organically and we are trying to create ways for communities to experience each other even more. In Lexington, Judith says their community is growing. They see more interest in staffing, in sitting, in open house, in the Shambhala café. People are practicing together more. There is a sense that there is something of value in the community.
David suggested that death and dying should be separate from illness and old age - There is another level of relating to people who are dying apart from the tasks listed under illness and old age. The group agreed that “death and dying” should have its own category in the document.
In order to develop this document into a more useful resource, the group members agreed to take the time to go over it individually and send additions and suggestions to Jay and Alan. Put additions in a different color font and or tools in MS Word using “track changes” feature and change the name of the document for revisions.
John asked about finances – Jane said that she would like us to introduce the Ratna. People at Naropa work with this specifically. John shared a story about how the Boulder sangha helped a couple get financial assistance and advice. Jay requested that there be a visual or picture for this theme. John will work on that.
Tara asked if under illness and old age, David could offer something in terms of mental health care.
We may add resources lists as an appendices or reference guide that accompanies this document. |
Amy will find out who is leading the Advisory group on Conduct and contact that person to make sure we both know what each others’ group is doing.
Tara will follow-up with Joel Mandel regarding Upaya councils.
John will work on the view/vision statement with Dennis.
Amy will contact Connie Brock who is the Chair of the Workgroup Chairs and Richard Reoch with the suggestion that there be one person designated to look at all 8 work groups reports to integrate them together.
She will pass along our suggestion that “how” these reports are presented to our community needs to be in line with the vision of what we are trying to do. She will also let the other workgroup chairs know that the Sakyong’s Treatise has been suggested as the place to find the ultimate view for this work.
Amy will send the treatise to everyone to review before the next call.
Workgroup members will look at these objectives and send suggestions/edits to Alan and Jay by May 11th. (Please Put additions in a different color font and or tools in MS Word using “track changes” feature and change the name of the document for revisions.)
Alan will make “death and dying” a separate category in the document.
John will write up this story and send it to Alan and Jay to add to the document. He will explore the idea of having a picture that goes along with these themes of helping one another through financial challenges.
David will add some content to the document in the areas of “hospice” and “mental health care.”
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Preliminary workgroup objectives and preparing to work with our Review Group |
Amy had sent out the incorrect preliminary objectives prior to our call so throw those away. The correct preliminary objectives were at the bottom of the minutes from our first meeting and are listed here with some edits (in bold) noted during this call:
Main Points in our call that may be preliminary Objectives: 1. Identify what are the qualities of a caring individual and community. Explore ways that our community and traditional communities might relate to the acute needs of community members and maintain the long-term, ongoing sense of connection which allows us to share both joy and suffering. 2. Collect "skillful means", best practices, and models of care - how to create a caring community as part of our practice. Identify practices that are working well now and share them with the community. 3. Create specific proposals about how our sangha community can increase our awareness of each others' needs, stay connected to each other, and be more proactive in helping one another. This may be different in each local area depending on the community. 4. Recommend community processes that can be put in place to respond to the needs of community members. (Some workgroup members thought perhaps we should not make recommendations – but this is still up for discussion.) 5. Connect the recommended care models with the Shambhala Buddhist teachings using the Shambhala Treatise on Society as the ground.
Please send any further suggestions on these objectives to the full email group. Amy has been asked to post our final objectives on the website as soon as possible.
After discussing these objectives, we had further discussion about (??). Jane asked what is it about this community and these teachings that are unique to how WE implement things? Jane suggested that we are trying to become a drala culture and we don’t even talk about it. Let’s think about that and discuss it over email. Jay asked if Jane had some inspiration to share more with us about this topic? It relates to specific individuals relating to mental health issues. What is a Drala culture? We know that the Rigden is the central figure in a Drala culture.
Alan suggested that we could create one document that shows our view, practice (how view manifests in our activities), and the benefits to the community. Perhaps, we can make this a drala-fied document.
Amy asked if and when we will be ready to share our objectives or any of our work with our large review group of 60 community members. Jay suggested that we just inform them that we are working on this “Community Caring in Action” document. We can then open up and ask them to share if there are other ideas they think we should share. Alan suggested going ahead and sending them this document explicitly stating that it is a rough draft and let them shoot holes in it so that we do not get too far without any input.
Jay out of town the 3-8 of May. Alan doesn’t mind doing the editing work on the document since he has more time.
Final group comments: · We should continue to think about our inspiration for doing this work and convey that inspiration so that this work does not turn into shelf art. · It would be inspiring to have simple steps that people can take for success right off the bat. · It is inspiring to tell stories about our community that reinforce the idea of caring for one another and how to do that.
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Amy will send out the correct objectives with edits made on this call.
Everyone is asked to make more suggestions or edits to the full group over e-mail.
Amy will ask Dennis Southward to please send out his work before the next call.
At Jane’s suggestion, the group decided: 1. To finalize our objectives over email 2. Refine our document with everyone’s input 3. Send out objectives and a rough draft of our document to reviewers after the first editing work is done.
In the interim, Amy will send reviewers a note to welcome them as reviewers, telling them who is on our workgroup, and telling them that we will send them content to review by the end of the month.
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NEXT CALL |
Our next call will be held on May 25th at the 8:00 p.m. Atlantic time, 7:00 p.m. Eastern time, 5:00 p.m. Mountain time and 4:00 p.m. Pacific time at the same phone number 1-603-488-0702 - code 677063# |
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