
Awakening Together: The Spiritual Practice of Inclusivity and Community

all human. We all want to feel safe, to feel we belong, especially in the vulnerabilities at the beginning of our spiritual paths. In the service of this, it is helpful to see ourselves reflected in the teachings, reflected in the teachers who share them, and reflected in the spiritual community surrounding us.
Larry Yang • Awakening Together: The Spiritual Practice of Inclusivity and Community
My gratitude to the Center for Whole Communities in Waitsfield, Vermont, for introducing me to the terminology of “whole communities.” One of CWC’s founders, Peter Forbes, describes Whole Communities as being “the sum of healthy relationships between people, and between people and place. A community is made complete or whole when people are fully v
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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.”
Larry Yang • Awakening Together: The Spiritual Practice of Inclusivity and Community
The new teachers of wisdom in the idiom of the people will not be recognizable by their robes but by their hearts. This
Larry Yang • Awakening Together: The Spiritual Practice of Inclusivity and Community
Rainer Maria Rilke describes this gracefully: Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.
Larry Yang • Awakening Together: The Spiritual Practice of Inclusivity and Community
Quote rainer Rilke
In the fourteenth century, Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Gelug School of Tibetan Buddhism and the lineage of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, wrote (as translated by Thubten Jigme Norbu): The human body at peace with itself is more precious than the rarest gem. Cherish your body: it is yours for this one time only. The human form is won with difficult
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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
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Definition of culture
For Reflection How do loving-kindness and compassion practices manifest as communal experiences? How do they affect the objectives and outcomes of our collectives, groups, and organizations? How do members of one sociocultural community develop, maintain, and deepen their awareness of a different sociocultural community? What harm would we be able
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Exercises
The idea that peace in our inner worlds supports the creation of peace in our outer worlds is woven into the mindfulness teachings themselves.