Awakening Together: The Spiritual Practice of Inclusivity and Community

You may think you are meditating with the purpose of attaining peace in your own mind or tenderness in your own heart. You may think that meditation practice is about creating a deep awareness and mindfulness in your own life so that you can choose what leads to happiness for you rather than what leads to suffering. You may even feel the benefits w

The etymology of the word community is from the Latin terms cum meaning “together” or “among each other” and munus, which indicates giving or a gift or exchange. Integrated into one word, community represents a form of exchanging or giving among and between each other. It suggests the development of relationship and the act of relating with each ot

When there is this, that is. With the arising of this, that arises. When this is not, neither is that. With the cessation of this, that ceases.

Samyutta Nikaya as follows:

After I ate my fill, the opportunity for me to be generous appeared. Excess food was usually given to the monastery kitchen to be incorporated into regular meals for the larger temple community — but I figured that our temple was very well supported: it had grants from the government, not to mention offerings from generous lay supporters. So I chos

Spiritual explorations require intimacy and tenderness, and it is very hard to relax into what is an open, vulnerable state when our defenses already have to be in place to protect from the injuries and traumas caused by unconsciousness and patterns embedded in the dominant culture. To deny nondominant cultures the same sense of intimacy and safety

The Buddha said in the Dhammapada (Thomas Byrom translation): In this world Hate never yet dispelled hate Only love dispels hate This is the law Ancient and inexhaustible.

described by culture. I would define culture as the dynamic, ever-changing way in which a group of people lives together, including their conscious and unconscious behaviors, attitudes, norms, values, institutions, and symbols. This collection of characteristics is communicated verbally and nonverbally, transmitted from generation to generation, an

he would gesture toward his chest, his heart. Perhaps a way of languaging mindfulness more closely to its cultural intentions is to use a description of “mind-heartfulness.”

All men [sic] are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. — REVEREND DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.