A note: This is not a quick read, but well worth the time. You may want to make a cup of tea, put your feet up, and take a nice, quiet break.

Dear Sangha,

In these challenging times we know it is critical that we communicate with you about the fiscal health of Living Compassion and the Zen Monastery Peace Center, both to keep you informed and because times like these call for a team effort.

We are, quite suddenly, experiencing the effects of the global economic downturn. The main way we support ourselves financially is by providing workshops and retreats. This year we cancelled a January retreat due to low sign ups. Retreats led by Cheri often have a waiting list and bring in solid income. This year even those retreats are not filling. Of course, this is because so many people have less income and cannot afford registration pledges and travel costs.

Being students and teachers of Zen Awareness Practice, we are always ready for changes life might offer. If we were not able to keep the organizations going, we would be ready to move on and do other things. And, as much as these are difficult times, we sense enormous possibility for creative responses. The world is backed into a corner, and that may be the best place we have ever been. From our perspective, this is “great good fortune.” We can no longer consume in the ways we have. We must now accept the reality of the interconnectedness of all humanity, of all life. It is possible that we will be living in a far more just, compassionate, sustainable, and happy world. We feel that all of us together– everyone reading this email–are potential leaders and mentors in this transition. We are the people who have been practicing for this. We are the people who have trained to let go and allow life to live us. We understand how much richer life is when we let go of “me” and “mine” and join with those around us, with all humanity, with all beings. We receive far more than we could ever imagine.

It is worth a team effort to keep this work available in the world. Few of us have much disposable income anymore. No individual is going to save the organization, and that is wonderful. It is going to take all of us.

As we were talking about the financial situation with our board, one woman related a parable she used to tell in her ministry days:

“The king decided to host a great celebration for the village. He sent his messengers to spread the word. Every kind of food would be provided. All that was asked was that each villager bring one jug of palm juice for the festival.

Ezra and his wife received the invitation. He thought, ‘Surely, there must be some way to go to the festival without having to pay for a jug of palm juice.’  His wife protested, ‘It’s not too much to bring one jug of juice.’ But he said, ‘It would be foolish to pay for something when there must be a way to go for free.  I know. I’ll fill my jug with water. With all the juice that others will bring, no one will notice that I am adding only water.’

The day of the festival each family greeted the king, and then was directed to the huge pot where all poured the contents of their jug. Ezra added his contents and then went to join the dancing. When all had arrived, the king ordered the music stopped and the servants to fill everyone’s glass with the sweet juice. Upon taking a sip, a gasp spread through the crowd. In everyone’s glass was not palm juice at all, but water. Everyone had thought, like Ezra, that no one would notice their one jug of water.”

When each of us steps up to do what we can, we can hold hands and make it through this time. Some of us will be able to contribute a cup of palm juice, some a jug, and others a 50-gallon drum. Together we can do it. We can sustain ourselves. Our colleagues in Kantolomba have been wonderful mentors for us. Each person contributes what seems to be an impossibly tiny sum, and yet when enough of those tiny sums are pooled together, there is an amount large enough to pay for something that will sustain the entire community.

Another “parable” (we religious types love parables), this one from modern-day:

“There was once a woman who lived in a very poor village and, indeed, was very poor herself.  She cared deeply for her children and did anything she could to ensure they would get an education. She knew giving up was an option. What guarantee, after all, would there be that her children would survive into adulthood in a community where seven in ten children died before age five? And yet she knew in her heart that if they went to school everything was possible.

Someone noticed her eldest son in his local school and saw potential. This stranger was a person of modest means, and a very big heart, who had a little extra income to spare–enough to see this young man through his basic schooling and into seminary. The young man, being grateful for the opportunity, applied himself in his studies. He progressed well and, after being a friar for many years, his Order sent him to Italy. While in Italy he met a woman, a woman with a very big heart, who was open to assisting in the village where the friar grew up. That village is Kantolomba.

And today, 40 years after Mary Kapenda struggled to send her children to school; 35 years after a stranger reached out to pay a boy’s school fees; 5 years after Cheri Huber had a chance meeting in Assisi, Italy, there are nearly 400 children eating in Kantolomba every day. The community now has clean water, there is a medical clinic under construction, and employment opportunities are growing.”

One person can make a huge difference, and each of us is that one person. As a group, we are among the very fortunate few who have a map, a process, for finding our way back to our heart, back to our true nature, in order to be that one person who can make a difference. A quote from Cheri’s recent email:

It’s an excellent time to make a commitment to the shift I’m suggesting. Our new president is encouraging us to do the same. We must put petty selfishness behind us and work together to be the best we can be. That’s another way of saying, “We need to turn our attention away from egocentric karmic conditioning, realize we are not separate, choose interconnectedness, and live together from center.” Good plan!

Below, you will find a plan, an invitation, and some information:

1. An outline of the steps we will take to cut costs and generate new income

2. Our “Keep the Doors Open” plan

3. How to add your Palm Juice

4. A link to our financial statement. We want you to see how donations are spent.

1. HOW WE WILL CUT COSTS AND GENERATE NEW INCOME

We are blessed with a beautiful piece of land, a resource we can benefit from in these lean times. Along with a group of neighbors (it would be impossible to do it on our own!), we are expanding our garden towards the goal of reducing grocery store purchases. We have one enthusiastic person looking into cheese and yoghurt making. When we perfect the art, we promise it as a workshop! We will be going through our budget line-by-line to discover other ways to cut costs.

Each of the monks is looking at ways s/he can generate income, aside from hosting retreats, and each is excited about finding creative ways to use his or her talents to support the organization. You will hear from them as they develop their ideas.

As you have likely read, Cheri is once again offering her time as a one-on-one practice coach and is donating the proceeds to keep the organizations viable.

2. “KEEP THE DOORS OPEN”

Borrowing from the Palm Juice Parable, the best way to keep the Monastery and Living Compassion afloat is for all who are in the Sangha to do his or her part. We are proposing that you make a monthly contribution–of any amount, small, medium, or large. Our objective with this campaign is to generate enough baseline monthly funding to “keep the doors open” and to maintain the day-to-day operations of the organizations. Knowing how much money we can count on each month will help us make sound financial decisions and continue to be the thoughtful stewards of your money we strive to be.

Monthly donors will be entitled to an array of practice opportunities, such as the ones Cheri mentioned in her email yesterday. We will send another email very soon more fully describing these new practices. While we see these as a way of supporting the Sangha, and as a way of expressing our thanks for your financial support, we hope you will join the campaign as a commitment to YOU.

“Open Doors” partners will be the beating heart of the organization, offering this practice to the world, sustaining the Sangha financially and spiritually in this time when we most need Practice and one another. Our goal is the same as always: finding the place that is most compassionate for all.

Please note that your monthly donation will be in addition to donations you make for other things, such as gift cards, Reflective Listening Buddies, or sponsoring a child in Kantolomba. We tell you so you can plan accordingly.

Cheri tells a story of hiking with a friend and his young daughter. About halfway through the hike, when the only route back was the way they came, the daughter began not to feel well. Cheri’s friend picked up his daughter and put her on his shoulders commenting, “It is wonderful when physical fitness pays off in practical ways” And so it is with practice. We have been practicing for this. We are adept at not believing the voices of gloom and doom. Let us all roll up our sleeves and enjoy putting our skills to work.

3. COUNT ME IN

Count me in

Please note that we don’t want you to contribute to the point where you feel (perhaps even more) financially depleted. We want it to feel exactly right. Finding the monthly amount to give might be the biggest spiritual opportunity of this whole endeavor.

Gasshō,

Jen

Living Compassion and Zen Monastery Peace Center Financial Steward

PS  We will keep you updated on our Keep the Doors Open drive.

News from Africa

The Living Compassion team is back in Zambia in January. Read all about it in the blog.

Theresa with her beautiful smile and one of the Living of the Living Compassion women.

Theresa is coming to the United States!

Most of you know Theresa Kapenda, the Kantolomba Project Coordinator in Zambia for the Africa Vulnerable Children Project (watch her story on video). She is coming to the United States this summer. It is getting closer and closer to reality. An excerpt from her most recent email:

“The good news is that I got my passport and it was so great that i almost screamed when I got it. All this because of Living Compassion, imagine. Thanks guys never in my life have I dreamed that i would get a passport for what? And to go where? Thankyou thankyou!!!!!!!!!! so so so so so so so much from the bottom of my heart.”

The plan is that Theresa and Jen will fly back from Zambia together in late August. They will meet up with Cheri, who is doing a retreat in western Massachusetts. We would like to have as many of you as possible meet this extraordinary human in person. Let us know if you want to help host her in Boston, NYC, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, DC, North Carolina, Seattle, Los Angeles or anywhere else not yet on the list!

Visit our Peace Practice Pages One of the features of our Peace Practices webpages is a monthly opportunity to turn attention to peace in our lives. It can be a guided imagery, a reading, questions upon which to reflect, or perhaps a particular practice to do throughout the month.

In the beginning days of the Monastery, meditation took place in half of a 32’ X 16’ army tent. In the other half of the tent residents and guests cooked and ate their meals. During the summer months it was too hot to meditate in the tent so wooden platforms were placed outdoors for meditation in what was called “The Meditation Grove.”

What we now call the Meditation Hut was originally called the Meditation Hall, and it was built in the original Meditation Grove. The first summer, only the floor was built so the floor provided a new, larger, platform for outdoor meditation. When it was finished, the plywood walls were half-walls so that the upper half could be covered with screen to allow air flow and keep out the bugs and mosquitoes during summer. That design required that the upper half of the walls be covered with plastic sheeting each winter to retain the heat from the wood-burning stove. Unfortunately, it also retained any smoke created by the fire.

Years later, when construction on the new rammed earth Monastery building progressed to a point where meditation could be held in the new building, the little Meditation Hut changed its function. It has served as an auxiliary location for meditation, a space for stretching and yoga, overflow housing during large retreats, and most recently has provided additional workshop space, allowing the Monastery to offer two sessions of the There Is Nothing Wrong With You retreat at the same time.

Last month the little Meditation Hut was given new life. A local contractor donated some windows to the Monastery and those windows went into the window openings in the Meditation Hut. After receiving its first real windows, the exterior was painted dark chocolate brown, like the rest of the buildings on the property. The little Meditation Hut looks and functions better than ever before!

The meditation hut under construction and the finished product.

In October, we completed two projects to improve our solar power system at the Monastery. We added six panels to increase our generating capacity, something we have needed in order to keep up with expanding demand. We built wooden racks on which to mount the panels at the correct angle to the sun. These racks have wheels, enabling us to rotate the panels over the course of the day to follow the light. We still do not have all the power we need to supply our kitchen, dormitory, meditation hall, shop, and several offices, but this has been a successful first step.

In November, we experienced a major failure in our solar system just five days before a full There Is Nothing Wrong With You retreat. One of our two inverters (the machine that converts the DC electricity generated by the solar panels into the AC electricity that our appliances use) malfunctioned suddenly and left half of the Monastery without power. For several days the monks scrambled during the day to find a replacement in time for the retreat and ate their supper by candlelight at night. A new inverter would have cost us more than we can afford, but we managed to find a used one in the nick of time. The retreat started on Saturday afternoon at 3:00. After a two-day adventure full of wires, voltmeters, electrical tape and other interesting things, finally at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, we finished the new installation and turned on our new inverter. It worked! Never have we been more grateful for the power that brings so much ease to our lives, or to the monk ingenuity that makes it possible.

The new solar panels and the monk’s solar flashlights hanging nearby.

What if you could do one thing that would change your mind, change your attitude, change your day, change your life, change the world –would you do it? Wondering what that one thing might be? The answer is amazingly simple. That Onething is whatever you want it to be. What will you do?

Join the Revolution, tell us your onething, watch other’s onethings on video, find out more….

Help us spread the revolution in January!

January – Kick-off month – Tell your friends and help us share the Onething Revolution!

January 17 – Film “I’m gonnas…..” out in the world as you go about your day.

January 18 – Film “I’m gonnas…..” with family and friends.

January 31 – Your films will be posted on the web. Please send your videos by January 31.