Discover your EcoDharma: Provocations and Possibilities for Practitioners

Instructor(s): Kristin Barker and Adam Lobel

Program Description:

This program is for anyone who senses the potential for their dharma practice to address complex social and ecological challenges. It is for those who wish to practice and shape the Dharma to meet the challenges and opportunities of this moment.

Over five days, we will open to our entanglement with the environmental and social crises of our age and inquire into ways of integrating these socio-ecological realities into the way we practice and serve. 

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 with others to whom you respond? 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 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 lineages?

If you sense the potential for your practice and/or leadership to engage complex climate/ecological challenges, this program is for you. We welcome you to join us as part of a growing network of inspired and informed ecodharma practitioners.

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

Cancellation Policy:

This policy applies to all residential and Path programs. Please note cancellation fees are at most $50 for those receiving financial assistance. 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/everything-you-need-to-know/

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):
• 

  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.

• 

  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