Discover your EcoDharma: Provocations and Possibilities for Dharma Leaders

Instructor(s): Kristin Barker, Adam Lobel

Program Description:

This program for teachers, leaders, therapists, and facilitators whose work is grounded in Buddhist practice or mindfulness is an in-person immersion version of the successful One Earth Sangha Ecodharma Teacher Development Course. Our aspiration for this offering is to build capacity for skillful responsiveness to the immensely challenging ecological reality we now collectively face. Over five days, we will gather as contemporary teachers, facilitators, and support agents to fully open to our entanglement with the environmental and social crises of our age. Supported by one another and the land, we will reflect on our personal questions, fears, and longings. Our program will provide inspiration and guidance on approaches to teaching ecodharma in modern Buddhist and secular contexts, including dharma centers, classrooms, and therapeutic spaces. We hope it will also be a deep contemplative experience and an opportunity for building mutually supportive spiritual friends. 

Together, we will explore teachings, resources, and practices in response to four guiding investigations:

• How are you personally relating to the ongoing violence towards the more-than-human world?
• What are some best practices to face eco-anxiety, climate trauma, and environmental distress within yourself and in response to your students or clients? In particular, how do we inspire and engage our communities without spreading more guilt, dread, blame, and fear? And how do we wisely work with apocalyptic predictions for collapse and extinction? 
• What role can Dharma and Dharma leadership play in addressing socio-economic and racial injustices embedded in ecological violence?
• What is the EcoDharma we can cultivate together for the coming decades of fires, floods, climate refugees, and possible social collapse? How do we listen for and give voice to a powerful expression of an Earth–based dharma from within our diverse Buddhist and secular mindfulness lineages? 

If you sense the potential for your leadership in linking complex climate/ecological challenges and mindfulness or Buddhism in any context, this program is for you. We have worked with some of the leading Buddhist teachers of our times as well as new and aspiring teachers who are just beginning. You are welcome to be part of a growing network of inspired, informed, modern ecodharma teachers and leaders. This program is co-sponsored by One Earth Sangha.

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Noble Silence:

Noble silence will be observed following each evening session through breakfast the following morning.

Experience Level:

Suitable for intermediate and advanced practitioners.

Prerequisites:

This is a program for those providing guidance in any form, whether for individuals, communities or organizations, that is rooted in Buddhist insights and practices and who long to integrate difficult social/ecological realities into that work.

Cancellation Policy:

This policy applies to all residential programs, including Paths. If you need to cancel your registration, please contact us as soon as possible. Please note cancellation fees are at most $50 for those receiving financial assistance. As of 2023, 100% of your deposit is forfeited if you cancel less than two weeks before the program start date and there is a $50 cancellation fee if you cancel two weeks or more in advance. Beginning in 2024, prior to six weeks before the program start date, cancellation fees are $50 for all programs more than two nights and $25 for programs two nights or less. 50% of your deposit is forfeited if you cancel between two and six weeks of the program start date. 100% of your deposit is forfeited if you cancel less than two weeks before the program start date.

Covid-19 Safety Protocol:

Please review our Covid-19 Safety Protocols here: https://www.buddhistinquiry.org/covid-19/.

DEI:

As we work to become a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive community, we invite feedback/suggestions you may have regarding ways that we can make participation in the program more accessible and welcoming. Please email us at contact@buddhistinquiry.org.

About the Instructor(s):
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  Kristin Barker

  Kristin Barker is co-founder and director of One Earth Sangha whose mission is to cultivate radical response to ecological crises grounded in Buddhist wisdom and practice. She is a graduate of Spirit Rock’s Community Dharma Leader program and now teaches with the Insight Meditation Community of Washington (DC). As a co-founder of White Awake, Kristin has been supporting white people since 2011 with a Dharma approach to uprooting racism in ourselves and in our world. With a background in software engineering as well as environmental management, she has worked at several international environmental organizations. She is a GreenFaith Fellow and serves on the advisory board of Project Inside Out. Kristin was born and raised in northern New Mexico, on the traditional lands of the Diné and Pueblo peoples, and currently lives in Washington DC, traditional lands of the Piscataway peoples.

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  Adam Lobel

  Adam Lobel, PhD, is a meditation teacher and a scholar-practitioner of philosophy and religion. Adam’s teachings focus on the intersection of contemporary thought, Dzogchen Tibetan Buddhism, ecopsychology, and transformational politics. A professor of ecopsychology and Buddhist psychology, he is curious about cultural therapeutics for our metamorphosing society. He leads ecodharma workshops called “Silent Transformations,” teaches in the Ecosattva Training and is a Guiding Teacher for One Earth Sangha. A GreenFaith fellow, he is active in ecological and social justice movements. Adam served as an acharya in the Shambhala community from 2005 until resigning in 2018. He lives in Pittsburgh, PA with his partner and two sons where he teaches at the Falk School of Sustainability at Chatham University and resists the petrochemical buildout in his region. For more on Adam and his teachings: www.releasement.org