EXPLORING BUDDHISM AT EAST BAY MEDITATION CENTER

Exploring Buddhism At East Bay Meditation Center - January through May 2022

Are you new to meditation? Curious about Buddhism? Looking for a spiritual home?

EBMC offers a five-month suggested Core Curriculum for those seeking an introduction to the Buddha’s basic teachings. The curriculum also supports those looking to refresh their practice. It is not required that you take all of the class series offered below.

You may register for any of the class series that interest you when registration opens for those programs. However, if you register for a class series, please commit to attending all of the classes in that class series.

Registration for each class series opens around 4 to 6 weeks before the first class in a class series.

This five-month Core Curriculum will focus on the Theravada and Mahayana Buddhist traditions, while integrating aspects of other Buddhist lineages, and also embedding the teachings in a social justice perspective aligned with EBMC’s vision.

When you register, please keep in mind the overall intention of the half-year curriculum, since each program in this curriculum is intended to build on the previous programs in the curriculum. If you have questions, please email admin@eastbaymeditation.org. A list of recommended Buddhist reading appears here.

The classes in the five-month curriculum are on Wednesday evenings from 6:30 to 8:30 PM Pacific Time, and are as follows:

·      January 2022: Beginning a Meditation Practice – January 5, 12, 19 and 26 – Wednesdays 6:30-8:30PM  

· February 2022: Buddha’s 4 Big Truths (4 Noble Truths) – February 2, 9, 16 and 23 – Wednesdays 6:30-8:30PM

·      March 2022: Buddha’s “How to” Guide to a Life of Happiness and Well-being (Eightfold Path) -March 2, 9, 16, and 23 – Wednesdays 6:30-8:30PM

·      March & April 2022: Buddhist Love, Compassion, Joy & Equanimity (Brahmaviharas) – March 30 & April 6, 13, and 20 – Wednesdays 6:30-8:30PM

·      April & May 2022: Five Precepts: Buddhist Ethics – April 27 & May 4, 11, and 18 – Wednesdays 6:30-8:30PM

·      May 2022: Buddhist Curriculum Q&A – May 25 – Wednesday 6:30-8:30PM

Classes and Events
In addition to the Core Curriculum, EBMC regularly offers a wide range of classes appropriate for those new to meditation. Sign up for EBMC’s email updates to get our latest class listings.

For further information as registration opens up for each class series, you can click "Contact Us" at www.eastbaymeditation.org to ask any questions.

(On Patheos.com) Mushim's Buddhist Word Of The Day Is...

One of the people I consistently follow on Facebook is Mushim Patricia Ikeda. She’s a teacher with the East Bay Meditation Center and just an all around interesting and wonderful human.

One of the things [Mushim] does on her Facebook page is list a “Buddhist word of the day.” Today, she posted “mudita.” Which, interestingly, my spell check wants to make “nudity.” But, it is mudita from both the Pali and Sanskrit and literally means, if I understand correctly, “joy.”

To read the rest of the article, click here.

Dan Harris has a in-depth interview with Mushim on the Ten Percent Happier podcast

It’s live! Take a listen to Dan and Mushim talk about Buddhism and anger on the Ten Percent podcast here.

Show description:
When somebody wrongs you, what is the wise way to handle your anger? Is forgiveness possible? What about friendliness? My guest today has a lot of thoughts about how to handle anger and how to respond to people who mean you harm.

It might surprise you to hear from a Buddhist teacher who actually isn’t utterly disparaging of anger. In fact, she is proud (somewhat facetiously) of having been called “the original Angry Asian Buddhist.” Her name is Mushim Patricia Ikeda, and she is my kind of Buddhist. She self-describes as “snarky,” and, as you will hear, she loves to laugh. She has doable, down-to-earth strategies, and she makes a compelling, if counterintuitive, case for the pragmatism of sending goodwill to people who want to harm you. 

Mushim is a core teacher at the East Bay Meditation Center. She is a writer, activist, and diversity consultant. She has trained for decades as both a lay and monastic Buddhist. Aside from anger, we also discuss how to handle uncertainty, and what Mushim calls a “pandemic of self-loathing” in our culture. But we begin with some candid talk about the trauma of being an Asian-American during a time of rising violence against the AAPI community. 

This is the second in a two-part series on the uptick in anti-Asian violence -- a trend that should be particularly worrisome for this audience, given the Asian roots of meditation and many of the other happiness-producing modalities we talk about on this show. If you missed it, go check out Monday’s episode, where we explore the history of anti-Buddhist and anti-Asian violence in America (which started decades before the pandemic), and the hurt felt by many Asian-American Buddhists about how they can be overlooked by other American Buddhists, including, sometimes, me.

Mushim interviewed by Dan Harris!

On May 5th, Mushim is a featured guest on Dan Harris’ Ten Percent Happier podcast.

The podcast link will be here once it’s live!

Meditating and Healing in a Traumatized World

[Mushim] recently worked with Center for Healthy Minds collaborator Helen Weng and Center faculty member Larissa Duncan on a project to expand diversity throughout a neuroscience study on meditation. In this Q&A, Ikeda shares how mindfulness meditation can be both inclusive and exclusive, both healing and traumatizing – all depending on people’s lived experiences and how they’re met with care during meditation practice or in their community.

How might people's identities and life experiences affect their meditation practice and their well-being? 

Ikeda: It’s important to note that there are hundreds of kinds of meditations, which are techniques and activities we are doing with bodies and minds. Here I’ll talk about mindfulness meditation, which is the same as insight meditation and vipassana meditation in the Buddhist tradition. The specific technique of mindfulness meditation is a thoroughly embodied practice. And by that, I mean that we understand that mind and body are not a binary… And often, this practice is learned by the directed activity of another human being (a teacher), and therefore in terms of diversity, the instructional language that is used is very important if someone is starting out.

Read the rest of this wonderful Q&A here.

Path of the Bodhisattva, Fall Buddhist Core Curriculum online, East Bay Meditation Center

(ASL interpretation provided!) Are you fed up with this bullshit federal government? Looking for a spiritual foundation for a path of action? If you like, you can explore the Buddhist Path of the Bodhisattva with me, Mushim Patricia Ikeda, in this class series on four Wednesday evenings in October. After that, there's a second four class series in November (different material, not a repeat of the first class series). And if you get truly carried away, come witness (no commitment required) OR apply to receive the Bodhisattva vows and precepts (big commitment but we take it easy!) at East Bay Meditation Center at a special daylong retreat and celebration in December 2020! All safely on Zoom, of course. For more information and registration, click HERE.

[graphic design by Candi Martinez-Carthen]

Mushim interviewed by David Treleaven on The Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness Podcast

In this episode, David interviews Mushim Patricia Ikeda—a Buddhist teacher and social change activist based out of Oakland, California. In their conversation, David and Mushim talk about her inclusivity work at EBMC, the pandemic, and the relevance of trauma-informed practice within mindfulness and social change work.

David writes, “This month I was lucky to interview Mushim Patricia Ikeda—a poet, Buddhist teacher, and social change activist. Mushim teaches at the East Bay Meditation Center (EBMC) in Oakland, California, where she leads an award-winning yearlong mindfulness program called Practice in Transformative Action.

“Mushim is known for her down-to-earth, humorous, and penetrative approach to contemplative practice. In this conversation we talk about her inclusivity work at EBMC, the pandemic, and the relevance of trauma-informed practice within mindfulness and social change work.”

In this episode, David interviews Mushim Patricia Ikeda—a poet, Buddhist teacher, and social change activist. Mushim teaches at the East Bay Meditation Center (EBMC) in Oakland, California, where she leads an award-winning yearlong mindfulness program called Practice in Transformative Action. In their conversation, David and Mushim talk about her inclusivity work at EBMC, the pandemic, and the relevance of trauma-informed practice within mindfulness and social change work.

Omitting None: The Deep Practice of Community

Mushim was recently published in Lion’s Roar. You can read her words online here.

The practice of community, says Mushim Patricia Ikeda, is more than including beyond all people, even all beings. It mean including all thoughts, all emotions, all realities — the bad as well as the good.

I’ve spent my adult life in communities and helping to build communities. I’ve been part of artistic, spiritual, social justice, Buddhist, and public school communities, among others.

In a practical sense, I know a little about the patience, persistence, relationship building, and maintenance that are needed to create community, and the diversity and inclusivity tensions always present in community life. And then there is community in the broadest sense…

Read the rest of the post on Lion’s Roar here.

New podcast interview with Mushim on "The Lotus in the Fire" podcast series!

Listen on Apple Podcasts : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/momentum-to-seed-a-new-world/id1517616176?i=1000483352898

"Momentum to Seed a New World," podcast interview by Joseph Bobrow, with Mushim Ikeda.

See the podcast series: The Lotus in the Fire, Buddhism. July 7, 2020

":...If in your country, all hope is lost in the heat of summer / the snows in my country help you to get it back." —Rafael Alberti

Joseph Bobrow says:

Today I'm joined on the pod by my friend and Dharma sister Mushim Ikeda, socially engaged Buddhist teacher, social justice activist, author, and diversity and inclusion facilitator. In this personal and wide ranging dialogue, we explore resources for and challenges of transformation and change, inner and outer, during these trying times. Mushim also reads and discusses her beautiful poem, The Stowaway Seeds. For more, visit MushimIkeda.com and EastPointPeace.org

From WTF to Please Tell Me More: Skillful Speech in a Polarized World

From WTF to Please Tell Me More: Skillful Speech in a Polarized World

 Special invitation to BIPOC (Black Indigenous People of Color) and open to all.

With Mushim Patricia Ikeda, East Point Peace Academy's series of talks by guest speakers, "Where Do We Go from Here?" 

July 28, 2020 from 3:00 to 4:30 pm Pacific time on Zoom 

Hurling insults can feel great in the short-term, but long-term movement building across lines of difference requires mindfulness and skills. We don't have to agree with someone else's viewpoint in order to learn more about why they say and think and do what they do. "Can you please tell me more?" can even be seen as a strategic move to better understand the opposition -- and an even more strategic move to build bridges toward common goals. Let's talk about how we talk (and listen) to one another! Offered on a gift economics (donation) basis. To register, go to https://www.eastpointpeace.org/wdwgfhmushim

Mushim will be part of the upcoming Re-Awaken summit by Lion's Roar

Free of charge from Lion's Roar! Re-awaken your heart and mind in the midst of our collective crisis. I, Mushim Patricia Ikeda will be part of the teacher lineup along with 14 other wonderful teachers. The Re-Awaken summit invites you to discover your way forward in these difficult times. June 24-28, 2020.
5 inspiring days • 15 renowned teachers • 29 transformational talks, teachings, guided meditations, and practices

https://promo.lionsroar.com/re-awaken-summit-registration/

Buddhist Peace Fellowship, Get Out! Wisdom for Scary Times, a New Online Course online 4/17 - 5/22/20

If you’re drawn toward spirituality and social justice, you might have felt the ways that fear and anxiety can drain energy you could otherwise use for making change. Without wisdom, these energies cut us off from the clarity and creativity we need to address the very injustices that make the world a sometimes-scary place. Want to find out how you can use your fear and anxiety to help you wake up?

Join us for BPF's newest online course, Get Out! Wisdom for Scary Times. From April 17th to May 22nd, we'll release an audio interview + transcript each week, with supplemental study materials for you to peruse at your pleasure. Plus, you'll be invited to join 3 live video calls with teachers and community members seeking wisdom in scary times. 

A published pandemic poem! The Stowaway Seeds

The Stowaway Seeds

I am afraid to touch the shopping cart, the bright
cool hide of the fragrant orange, the wet sand on the beach.
This pandemic virus spreads RNA
where people pass too close to one another
and gather to buy food, or crowd the ocean’s edge.
“It cannot be killed because it isn’t alive,”
my scientist brother says.

But something unknown has always contained our death,
which is why we are respectful and delicate
as we lift teacups and snow
salt crystals on grilled asparagus and touch one other
and spoons and books and the surfaces of the earth
we will one day be pressed gently between,
like book pages on the fat stems of large leaves.

Such abundant offerings – these tiny crowns
and multiplying stars, the resplendent small burrs
I found in the rough striped blanket
we took to the woods before everything shut down.
They came home with me, to seed
a new world, in which
we aren’t the most important thing.

You can also read it here.

Beginning A Meditation Practice Class at EBMC

A four-class series with Mushim Patricia Ikeda open to all
Four Wednesdays, 6:30 - 8:30 pm starting January 8, 2020
Part of EBMC’s Core Buddhist Teachings – 6-month Curriculum
Offered on a gift economics basis (by donation, no fixed fees)

Register here: https://eastbaymeditation.org/ebmcreg/?event=jan20beginning

Are you looking for a way to start a mindfulness meditation practice, but don’t quite know how? These classes will give you the basics of stationary and walking/gentle movement meditation in the vipassana (insight) style, and metta (loving kindness or good will) meditation. Don’t worry about “getting it right” – if you can sit – on a folding chair, on floor cushions, in a wheelchair – or lie down – and breathe, you’re off to a good start! This series is for those seeking stress reduction, or it can be the gateway to those new to Buddhism. Meditation can help you, over time, to develop a sense of increased physical well-being, mental clarity, compassionate connection, and spiritual growth.

EBMC TEACHERS ARE NOT PAID BY THE CENTER. You are invited to offer a voluntary financial gift to them at the class. The East Bay Meditation Center operates using a generosity-based, gift economics model. This means we charge no set registration fees to attend our events and instead rely on the generous giving of our community. All classes at the Center do come with a financial cost. Class participants are offered an opportunity to make a voluntary gift to EBMC during the registration process or at an event itself. Please note that no one will be turned away for lack of funds. If you would like to explore any EBMC volunteer positions, please send an email expressing your interest to admin@eastbaymeditation.org.

In order to protect the health of community members with environmental illness, please do not wear fragranced products (including natural fragrances) or clothes laundered in fragranced products to EBMC.

East Bay Meditation Center strives to be as accessible as possible. For the safety of our teachers, staff, volunteers and participants, we cannot provide assistance for personal needs such as transferring into and out of chairs, walking, eating, or using the restroom. If you require such assistance, you must bring a personal care assistant with you when you come to any event at EBMC.

About the Teacher:
Mushim (Patricia Y. Ikeda) is a core teacher at EBMC. She is recipient of an honorary doctor of sacred theology degree from Starr King School for the Ministry, and she is the teacher of EBMC’s yearlong PiTA program, training social justice activists in mindfulness. Her Buddhist training has included both monastic and lay experience in North America and Asia since 1982, and she is also an author, mother, and diversity consultant.

https://www.facebook.com/events/781660988938740/?active_tab=about

Doubt, Faith & Mystery - A sermon at Lyndale UCC, Minneapolis, April 28, 2019

Doubt, Faith & Mystery

Sermon at Lyndale UCC, Minneapolis, April 28, 2019

To hear the talk, click here: http://www.lyndaleucc.org/sermons/doubt-faith-mystery/ 

What is the relationship between Doubt and Faith in this time of Fake News, the rise of white supremacist groups, and climate change?  Mushim offers a socially-engaged Zen Buddhist take on the topic, bringing the Gospel of John and the story of "Doubting Thomas" into dialogue with case 19 in the Mumonkan, in which Chao-chu (Joshu) asks his teacher, "What is the Tao?"

The first part of the sermon was not recorded -- it consisted of inviting the congregation to join me in reciting a verse from Shantideva's "Guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva" and in my reading aloud part of the Gospel of John text assigned for that Sunday, ffrom the Gospel of John, Chapter 20, Verse 29:

Jesus said to him (Thomas), "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."

In this story, it seems that the disciple Thomas, called “doubting Thomas” by some, had boldly said he would not believe in the resurrected Christ until he had not only seen him with his own eyes, but had touched Jesus’s body; had not only touched Jesus’s body, but had penetrated with his hand into Jesus’s wounds –

And I relate to this very deeply from my own original spiritual tradition, Zen Buddhism, in which the goal of our path, our practice, sometimes called Enlightenment, perhaps better called Awakening, is in Zen very simply and touchingly and powerfully called: Intimacy.

And just as intimacy is the restoration of the world and self to wholeness and union, doubt is separation. Who among us, whether we call ourselves persons of religion or not, of spiritual faith or not, has not experienced the sometimes overwhelming anxiety, the cutting and fearful nature of Doubt?

When, inevitably, we have experienced or witnessed the slow or swift collapse of a dominant paradigm in our own belief systems and/or in society -- when we have experienced betrayal by one we had trusted, when we have doubted our own goodness, our own potential to love and be loved, to respect and to be respected?

How do we prove to ourselves that what we believe is Truth, is Justice, is Beauty, is indeed such? Where is the proof, today, April 28, 2019, in this country and world of fake news, of a government of lies and the viral spread of white supremacy --

Where is the proof, if we believe it, for what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, -- and he was quoting others who had come before him:

“Evil may so shape events that Caesar will occupy a palace and Christ a cross, but that same Christ arose and split history into A.D. and B.C., so that even the life of Caesar must be dated by his name. Yes, ‘the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.’”

[source: In 1958 an article by Martin Luther King, Jr. was printed in “The Gospel Messenger” periodical. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/11/15/arc-of-universe/]

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

That, I believe, is a statement of faith... Do I doubt that the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice? I do. The social ills, the violence of racialized capitalism and climate change, bring despair much closer to me than I like, much more often than I would prefer. [Listen to the rest of the talk here:http://www.lyndaleucc.org/sermons/doubt-faith-mystery/ ]

Get it now! LIBERATE -- the only meditation app by and for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color.

Listen in to Mushim's guided meditation on microaggressions, and other meditations by teachers of color on a wide range of topics.

For Apple iPhones and Android phones. Brought to us by Julio Rivera. https://liberatemeditation.com/

[Photo by DESIGNECOLOGIST on Unsplash]

Mushim in the inaugural class of Colorlines 20x20!

Introducing the Colorlines 20 x 20

In 1998, a group of dope individuals created Colorlines with the goal of popularizing narratives that center racial justice and the people of color who fight for it. Twenty years—and a slew of clones later—we’re still going strong, highlighting the advocacy and lived experiences of folks who are typically pushed to the margins.

Now, we announce the inaugural class of the Colorlines 20 x 20, a group of transformative leaders who—in the spirit of our mission—use a narrative shift strategy to reimagine what it means to advance racial justice in areas as varied as environmental justice, gender rights, labor, education and religion. This year’s honorees remind us that no matter how dark the tunnel gets, we can always create our own light.

6: “The Healer” Mushim Ikeda

Mindfulness asks that a person turn their awareness to the now, that their internal focus go to the sounds and stimuli of the moment. Activists are often thinking in the past (what wrongs have transpired) and the future (what actions can be taken to right these grievances). Mushim Ikeda believes that this organizing and activism must embrace the present tense if it is to truly bring about societal transformation. And so the Buddhist teacher instructs people of color, social justice activists and women in mindfulness and meditation.

Read the rest of the photo essay here and check out the other wonderful leaders in this inaugural class.

Facing Life's Challenges by Mushim for Lion's Roar

Mushim Patricia Ikeda, one of three teachers leading this year’s Lion’s Roar Retreat, “Facing Life’s Challenges,” on finding your way through tiny successes, step-by-step.

After my husband had suffered through a deep depression for over a year, he announced that he wanted a divorce and moved out. This was in 2008, when the U.S. economy was in recession, so I was immediately in crisis on every level, including financially. I was operating at a base survival level.

I went into treatment for situational depression, and my therapist, a tough older woman whose office was decorated with drawings of cowboy boots, placed me in a crisis support group that she led along with another equally fierce woman.

Read the full post here: https://www.lionsroar.com/its-all-workable/?mc_cid=cdd06470af&mc_eid=0fed23da72

ZEN TRAINING IN THE U.S.: TRADITION, MODERNITY, AND TRAUMA.

Asian Medicine Zone Moderator’s note: Many practitioners of Asian medicine and Asian-based health modalities are grappling with questions concerning the historical roots and cultural status of their disciplines today as never before. In response, Asian Medicine Zone is launching a new series of practitioner essays exploring how changing conceptions of “tradition” and “modernity” are impacting their practice and field in the 21st century (these are organized under the tag “tradition/modernity”). If you’re interested in contributing to this series, please email a short description of your proposed essay to the moderators. Here, we’re pleased to share our first offering, which artfully explores the encounter between traditional patriarchal authority and contemporary social justice commitments in the author’s life, practice, and community.

Having spent over 30 years of my adult life as a Buddhist practitioner in the U.S., I’m certain of only one thing, which is this: in the process of spiritual maturation, the path is not always clear and straightforward. In my personal experience as a practitioner, there’s been a lot of both/and – a particular experience can be abusive and traumatic, and it can lead to insight and breakthrough. Necessary spiritual surrender can mix potently with what Western psychology calls poor boundaries. And, it seems to me, some people will always be drawn to take paths of greater risk in varying degrees, up to so-called crazy wisdom. Others will develop by staying true to conventional mores with quiet patience.

In 1984, I was living as a renunciant under a vow of complete poverty in a Buddhist community in the United States.

Read the rest here: http://www.asianmedicinezone.com/global/zen-tradition-modernity-trauma/