09/30/2021
The 2021 International Western Dharma Teacher Gathering is right around the corner and we wanted to give you a few updates about our program and Keynote/Plenary Session lineup. This year, we are offering two tracks:
Full access to Keynote/Plenary and Workshop sessions for Buddhist teachers of 5+ years of experience ($200)*
Keynote/Plenary sessions only for newer teachers or general practitioners ($97)
*Full scholarships are available for those in need. Women, monastics and members of the BIPOC and/or LGBTQ communities are strongly encouraged to apply! Apply here.
We are excited to share the details of our Keynote/Plenary sessions below -- with a couple more to be announced in the coming week. To view our 30+ workshop sessions, please visit our schedule online here.
Deep bows,
The Steering Committee
Myokei Caine-Barrett, Shonin
Dharmacharini Vimalasara
Dr. Ven. Pannavati Bhikkhuni
Lama Dawa Tarchin Phillips
dharmateachergathering.org
Keynote/Plenary Session Line Up
Keynote/Plenary Speakers
1st Row: Larry Ward, Duncan Ryuken Williams, Lama Willa Miller, Lama Rod Owens, Chenxing Han
2nd Row: Chozen Bays, Ven. Pannavati Bhikkhuni, Scott Edelstein, Myokei Caine-Barrett Shonin, Sharon Salzberg
3rd Row: Lama Dawa Tarchin Phillips, Tova Green, Dharmacharini Vimalasara, Bhikkhu Bodhi, Munisha
4th Row: Funie Hsu, Brenna Artinger, Rebecca Li, Ann Gleig, Kristin Barker
Wednesday, October 20, 2021
7:30 AM (Pacific)
The Role of the Mahasangha
Speakers: Lama Rod Owens, Tova Green, Myokei Caine-Barrett Shonin, Lama Dawa Tarchin Phillips, Dharmacharini Vimalasara
We will explore the role of the Maha sangha during times of uncertainty, and conflict in our communities. We will also look at the legacies we are leaving behind us and what we hope to pass onto the next generation.
1:30 PM (Pacific)
What does it mean to live the Dharma?
Speaker: Rebecca Li
Living the Dharma is to learn from the Buddha’s example in living our lives? How do we go about doing so in the twenty-first century in our globalized and technology-driven world? In this talk, we will explore what it means to live the Dharma as we fulfill our responsibilities to each other in our various roles in the family, the workplace, the Buddhist sangha, and our communities at the local, national and global levels.
Thursday, October 21, 2021
7:30 AM (Pacific)
Bodhisattva at East in Majestic Virtue
Speaker: Larry Ward
This brief talk will illuminate the teachings of this Bodhisattva’s most relevant to making a new world out of our encounters with suffering.
1:30 PM (Pacific)
Preventing Harm in Buddhist Communities and Addressing It When It Happens
Speakers: Munisha (Moderator), Lama Willa Miller, Chozen Bays, Scott Edelstein
Munisha is a member of the Triratna Buddhist Order and works as Triratna's European Safeguarding officer advising Triratna Buddhist centres on policies and procedures for preventing harm in Triratna. From her five years’ experience in this work, as well as many more years’ work in Buddhist umbrella groups such as the European Buddhist Union, she, along with the panelists, will share their thoughts about the kinds of challenges arising in many sanghas, what works well, what doesn't and what we can all learn.
Friday, October 22, 2021
7:30 AM (Pacific)
For the Welfare of Many: Rediscovering the Quest for the Common Good
Speaker: Bhikkhu Bodhi
Humankind faces two momentous challenges in the coming decades. One is to establish the social and economic conditions essential for everyone on this planet to live a life of dignity and purpose. The other is to safeguard the natural environment on which we depend from irreversible damage, especially through climate destabilization. Buddhism too faces a major challenge: to expand its radical vision and moral compass wide enough to contribute toward our efforts to meet these two goals. In this talk, Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi will explore the ways in which Buddhism—and Buddhists—might face these critical demands and apply its insights toward promoting the common good.
1:30 PM (Pacific)
The Foundation of Faith in Buddhist Practice
Speaker: Sharon Salzberg
The talk will center on three aspects of faith in the Buddhist tradition: bright faith, verified faith, and abiding faith. We will explore the importance of the correct kind of doubt (e.g. questioning in contrast to cynicism), and look at how despair is actually the opposite of faith.
Saturday, October 23, 2021
8:00 AM (Pacific)
Culture Wars in Buddhism
Speakers: Ann Gleig and Brenna Artinger
While often associated with a liberal demographic, the increasing online visibility of conservative rhetoric such as—”snowflakes,” “politically correct,” “postmodern identity politics,” and “cultural Marxism,” –demonstrates the presence of right-wing sentiments and populations in American convert Buddhism. Our research situates these sentiments largely as a reaction to the development of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in these communities. We chart this backlash across a broad right-wing spectrum that spans from “reactionary centrism” to the alt-right. In conclusion, we locate these reactionary right-wing forms of American Buddhism in relationship to modern and postmodern forms of global Buddhism.
Sunday, October 24, 2021
10:00 AM (Pacific)
May We Gather: Reflections on a National Buddhist Memorial Ceremony for Asian American Ancestors
Speakers: Rev. Duncan Ryuken Williams, Funie Hsu, Chenxing Han
The co-organizers of “May We Gather” – the first national Buddhist memorial service in response to anti-Asian violence held forty-nine days after the 2021 Atlanta-area shootings – will reflect on the historic gathering that called attention to the long history of violence and exclusion of Asian American Buddhists. We believe that in the face of nearly two centuries of xenophobia and systemic violence, Asian American Buddhists have long joined together to rebuild our communities. Piece by broken piece, we sutured the jagged edges of altars, statues, incense burners, and our very bodies and minds back together. This mending is part of our Buddhist practice in America. Each act of rejoining reveals how compassion can arise out of racial suffering, how fragments are inseparable from wholeness. We mend them as a declaration of our interconnectedness, as an expression of gratitude to our ancestors, and as a way to cultivate the karmic conditions for American Buddhism’s continued flourishing.
11:45 PM (Pacific)
Pandemic Ceremony + Closing Meditation
Speakers: Dharmacharini Vimalasara, Lama Dawa Tarchin Phillips, Myokei Caine-Barrett Shonin and Dr. Ven. Pannavati Bhikkhuni
Let us gather together to honor the lives of those lost to the COVID-19 pandemic. We will engage in ceremony and celebration from various traditions to transfer merit and transport these souls to the other shore.
Register Now
Register Now!Program starts Wednesday, October 20, 2021 and ends Sunday, October 24, 2021. Register Now Who is it for?Like you, this gathering is for those teaching Dharma, as a significant life and time commitment, to westerners and/or to immigrant communities in the west (English competency necess...
