Bhumisparsha is Hiring!

As the Bhumisparsha sangha approaches its first birthday as Officially a Thing, we have come to realize that our growth and change over this past year needs new kinds of sustained support. In particular, we’ve seen the need for dedicated, ongoing capacity to support the complex interactions that are emerging between our Founding Teachers, Lama Rod and Lama Justin, and the vibrant and diverse sangha that has formed to practice together in this space.

We are excited to announce, then, that we will be hiring a Teacher-Student Liaison to take on this work for the year ahead! Please follow the link below for more information about the position:

Bhumisparsha Student-Teacher Liaison

To apply, please submit a resume and cover letter to General Coordinator Alex Rodríguez at alex@bhumisparsha.org by Wednesday, August 4. Related inquiries may also be directed to him at that address.

Bhumisparsha is Officially a Thing

As the year comes to a close this month, Bhumisparsha’s organizing team has been taking stock of the remarkable changes we’ve seen in our community since this time last year, when we were preparing to host our first “Touching the Earth” weekend retreat in Atlanta, USA. Since then, we have grown into a vibrant translocal sangha gathering regularly online and doing all kinds of things together—from the Moon Cycle in April to the Kumbha Mela 24-hour practice extravaganza in August and our Community Day gatherings this fall, alongside vibrant self-organized spaces for facilitators, tech hosting, ancestor work, antiracist affinity groups, and regular ongoing practice offerings.

Bhumisparsha’s organizing team has also undergone some significant shifts in recent months, especially since our official incorporation in September as a Religious Nonprofit Organization registered in the US Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Last month, the six individuals who had been meeting as the Core Organizers—Brenda Collins, Rod Owens, Leigh Rosenberg, Alex Rodriguez, Repa Trinlay, and Justin von Bujdoss—adopted bylaws for the organization and set into motion a shift towards a Sociocratic model of organizing our internal work, dividing into a “Mission Circle” (which serves as the organization’s Board of Directors and is responsible for the biggest-picture decisions that affect the organization) and a “General Circle” (which sets policy that impacts the community’s day-to-day activities). Alex and Brenda serve in both circles, with Justin, Leigh and Rod rounding out the Mission Circle and Repa Trinlay in the General Circle. After this “cell division”, the General Circle also invited Karen Nelson and Jessie Rothkuo to join and support its work for the remainder of this year.

If you’d like to learn more about Sociocracy, the governance and facilitation framework behind this shift, the good people at Sociocracy for All have created this useful short introductory video:

In the year ahead, one of the General Circle’s priorities will be to establish “Department Circles,” small groups to whom responsibility for different areas of organization are delegated, each linked to the General Circle through two shared members. Our initial aspiration, shown in the diagram below, will create three additional circles to tend to Practice and Action, Community Care, and Resources:

An aspiration for Bhumisparsha’s next organizational structure, inspired by the Five Wisdom Dakinis. Diagram by Alex Rodriguez and Ari El Yehudit.

And in the meantime, of course, Bhumisparsha will continue as an ongoing experiment, with sangha members encouraged to self-organize around meeting our needs and tending to our inspiration as we deepen in the practices. Our hope is that this new emerging structure will continue to build itself up to meet the inspired organizing that is already taking place, allowing for a better flow of communication, trust, and resources as we continue to grow. We welcome any questions or suggestions you may have about where to go from here. And if you’d like to be a part of one of these circles as we expand next year—or know someone who would be a great fit—we’d love to hear from you. To reach out, simply send us an email at info@bhumisparsha.org

Authenticity in Troubled Times: our first Touching the Earth retreat in Atlanta, Georgia

Bhumisparsha is excited to announce that our Founding Teachers will lead our first weekend nonresidential retreat, “Touching the Earth: Authenticity in Troubled Times,” from December 20-21, 2019. Lama Rod Owens, co-author of Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation, and Lama Justin von Bujdoss, author of Modern Tantric Buddhism: Embodiment and Authenticity in Dharma Practice, are eager to continue to the work that began last year at Bhumisparsha's inaugural retreat, "Healing the Heart of the South through the Practice of Chod" held in Thomasville, North Carolina in December, 2018.

To apply, please fill out this form and one of our Core Organizers will get back to you shortly. For more information, see the workshop page or contact Brenda Collins at bcollins12@hotmail.com.

December 2018 Healing the Heart of the South Chod Retreat

From December 13th to the 16th Lama Rod and Lama Justin and 21 participants gathered at the Thomasville Buddhist Center in Thomasville, NC for a 4 day Chod retreat. The retreat was a powerful way to explore working with racism, whiteness, patriarchy, identity and the ghosts (many still very much present) of the the way racism still haunts not just the South, but American culture in general. Engaging in the practice of chod, Medicine Buddha and various contemplation practices including visiting a local cemetery, practice went deep.

A special thanks to Bushi and Christine and their family for hosting us at Thomasville Buddhist Center, and gratitude for Repa Trinley (Harrison Holmes) for serving as chant master and offering a mentor role to fellow retreatants, and to Eric Busse for his work as organizer and smoother-of-rough-edges around a retreat laden with a tremendous amount of stirred energy and emotion. A heartfelt thanks also goes out to Stephanie Barnes, who played an instrumental role in helping to ready the space.

This inaugural retreat was an appropriate way to launch Bhumisparsha. It was clear that a new kind of sangha was being co-created - aspects of the retreat felt as if new ground was being touched upon. We look forward to the way the seeds of clear intention planted during this retreat will bear fruit.