Ekoji Race Awareness Course: Using our meditation practice to be more kind, more aware, more free
Practical Information
Dates: Monday January 27, February 3, 10, 17 and 24, March 3
Hours: 7 – 8:15 PM
Location: Zoom (online)
Facilitators: Marjolein Janssen and Carolyn Stachowski
Registration: fill out this form.
Schedule
7:00 – 7:10: Silent Sit
7:10 – 7:25: Amiable talk and introducing of the topic for the evening
7:25 – 7:55: Small group breakout
7:55 – 8:10: Rejoin the larger group to report out, reading suggestion shared for the following week
8:10 – 8:15 Closing
Description
Ekoji Buddhist Sangha is inviting you to join Marjolein Janssen and Carolyn Stachowski. They will be offering a 6 week course to raise our awareness of the complexities of racial conditioning in our society.
There will be some reading suggestions for each week, that we can use as a basis for our discussions.
The small group breakouts will be formed as racial affinity groups as outlined in the book “Mindful of Race; Transforming Racism from the Inside Out” by Ruth King.
We will be investigating with mindfulness and compassion both what we have internalized and what we can observe in the conditioning in the world.
Topics per week:
- Mindfulness: What are the tools from our practice that we can bring to this work together?
- Definition and History: When did you realize you were a race? What were you taught in schools about the history of slavery, race?
- Culture Conditioning: What images do you remember in shows or movies from childhood depicting race?
- Beliefs:What are some beliefs that you maintain regarding the races?
- Institutions How are Racial Disparities maintained?
- Gender: “Gender is surely the modality through which race is lived.” Does that sound true? Getting proximate: how can we more actively engage with this inquiry, to go deeper, to build close connections, to take action?
Generosity for the Facilitators and Ekoji
The facilitators are not compensated and rely on generosity. There are two ways to practice generosity for this course:
- Generosity for the facilitators, suggested donation: $8 –$30 per session (sliding scale).
- Generosity for Ekoji, suggested donation: $8 – $30 per session (sliding scale).
Your donation to the facilitators provides support to allow them to continue offering teachings, and your donation to Ekoji allows for all the groups to continue holding events at Ekoji. Please give as feels appropriate and generous for you. Please delight in your generosity and know that the dharma continues to be offered to you and others through our collective acts of sharing. All are welcome, no donation is required.
Donations to the facilitators can be offered through the IMCR website, please add in the note “Donation for race awareness course with Marjolein and Carolyn”. Donations for Ekoji can be offered through Ekoji’s website.
More information about the concept of dana, generosity, in Buddhism.
Important:
- Please register in advance by filling out this form.
- Please attend as many of the six sessions as possible, as they build on one another and everyone’s attendance will help foster a sense of community.
Questions?
Don’t hesitate to contact us.