AZC WAKING UP – Winter 2021 Modules

WAKING UP Study Modules for Winter 2021

AZC’s WAKING UP to Racism and Undoing White Supremacy Study Group Presents:

Winter 2021 Study (3rd Module) begins January 17th, 2021

All are invited to join this continuing group in a peer-led study of personal & structural racism and bias through the lens of Dharma through discrete 2-month modules, meeting on alternate Sundays from 1-3pm. In the 3rd Winter 2021 module we will be studying two books, Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love and Liberation and The Way of Tenderness: Awakening Through Race, Sexuality and Gender. Join us as we explore the Dharma from unique perspectives related to race, sexuality and awakening. ALL are WELCOME!

~ REGISTER HERE ~

AZC invites you to join our 3rd Module from our WAKING UP – Uprooting Racism & White Supremacy group.  All are invited to join this continuing group in a peer-led study of the personal & structural racism and bias through the lens of Dharma.  This group has grown out of the WAIC Up! (White Awareness Insight Curriculum for Uprooting Privilege) curriculum that began meeting together this spring.  Our intention and hope is to continue this important work and self-study, and to widen the circle to include more of our community who wish to participate.  We have found it highly supportive to go through this process with one another, and to cultivate trusting relationships in which to share and explore these critical issues with. 

This group will maintain the meditative container and clear guidelines used during our WAIC-UP conversations, but with updated readings and some longer works for us to take a deeper dive together.  This new curriculum will be composed of a series of 2-month self-contained study modules focused on particular themes concerning the experience of racism in this country.  While long-term commitment to the group is not required, we ask that participants sign up for and commit to each 2-month module that interests you.  

The third 2-month curriculum and discussion module will focus on the teachings of teachers Rev. angel Kyodo williams, Lama Rod Owens and Rev. Zenju Earthlyn Manuel.

Winter 2021 Module  (Meets on alternate Sundays from 1-3pm: Jan.17, Jan. 31, Feb. 14, Feb. 28):

    Radical Dharma:Talking Race, Love and Liberation 

    by Rev. angel Kyodo williams, Lama Rod Owens, & Jasmine Syedullah williams, angel Kyodo, Owens, Lama Rod, Syedullah, Jasmine. Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love and Liberation. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2016. paperback ISBN-9781623170981, ebook ISBN-9781623170998 

Available in print, Kindle and audiobook formats: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1623170982/ref=cm_sw_su_dp?tag=nab04-20

From the publisher’s website- https://www.northatlanticbooks.com/shop/radical-dharma/:

“Rev. angel Kyodo williams, Lama Rod Owens, and Jasmine Syedullah represent a new voice in American Buddhism. Offering their own histories and experiences as illustrations of the types of challenges facing dharma practitioners and teachers who are different from those of the past five decades, they ask how teachings that transcend color, class, and caste are hindered by discrimination and the dynamics of power, shame, and ignorance. Their illuminating argument goes beyond a demand for the equality and inclusion of diverse populations to advancing a new dharma that deconstructs rather than amplifies systems of suffering and prepares us to weigh the shortcomings not only of our own minds but also of our communities. They forge a path toward reconciliation and self-liberation that rests on radical honesty, a common ground where we can drop our need for perfection and propriety and speak as souls. In a society where profit rules, people’s value is determined by the color of their skin, and many voices—including queer voices—are silenced, Radical Dharma recasts the concepts of engaged spirituality, social transformation, inclusiveness, and healing.”

The Way of Tenderness: Awakening Through Race, Sexuality and Gender 

by Rev. Zenju Earthlyn Manuel

Manuel, Zenju Earthlyn. The Way of Tenderness: Awakening Through Race, Sexuality, and Gender. Boston, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2015. paperback ISBN-9781614291251, ebook ISBN-9781614291497

Available in print, Kindle and audiobook formats: https://www.amazon.com/Way-Tenderness-Awakening-through-Sexuality/dp/161429125X

From the publisher’s website – https://wisdomexperience.org/product/way-tenderness/

“In The Way of Tenderness, Zen priest Zenju Earthlyn Manuel brings Buddhist philosophies of emptiness and appearance to bear on race, sexuality, and gender, using wisdom forged through personal experience and practice to rethink problems of identity and privilege. Manuel brings her own experiences as a lesbian black woman into conversation with Buddhism to square our ultimately empty nature with superficial perspectives of everyday life. Her hard-won insights reveal that dry wisdom alone is not sufficient to heal the wounds of the marginalized; an effective practice must embrace the tenderness found where conventional reality and emptiness intersect. Only warmth and compassion can cure hatred and heal the damage it wreaks within us. This is a book that will teach us all.”

  • Meetings will follow the WAIC-UP! format of following a script of mindful discussion in breakout groups of 3-5 people. In order to participate in the discussion, attendees will complete the reading assignment prior to each meeting.  The reading assignment for the first meeting of the module is the first two sections (half) of Radical Dharma.

About the formation of AZC’s WAKING UP Group: This group was designed by 10 sangha members who participated together in WAIC-UP! (White Awareness Insight Curriculum for Uprooting Privilege) – a peer-led study curriculum developed at Spirit Rock.  We wish to enlarge our group and to continue the momentum created by our WAIC-UP! experience by investigating a variety of important works.  Future modules will delve into works like My Grandmother’s Hands, and Me and White Supremacy.  We intend to offer these various study and discussion sessions in 2-month ‘modules’.  Each module requires sign-up.  We hope you will sign up for the literature that interests you. All are welcome!

WAKING UP Study Modules for Fall 2020

Update: Module 2 has been added, beginning November 8th. Please register below if you participated in Module 1 and would like to continue with Module 2. We also welcome newcomers to register who did not previously participate!

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AZC invites you to join our WAKING UP – Uprooting Racism & White Supremacy group.  All are invited to join this continuing group in a peer-led study of personal & structural racism and bias through the lens of Dharma.  This group has grown out of the WAIC Up! (White Awareness Insight Curriculum for Uprooting Privilege) Group that began meeting together this spring.  Our intention and hope is to continue this important work and self-study, and to widen the circle to include more of the community who wish to participate.  We have found it highly supportive to go through this process with one another, and to cultivate trusting relationships in which to share and explore these critical issues with. 

This group will maintain the meditative container and clear guidelines used during our WAIC-UP conversations, but with updated readings and some longer works for us to take a deeper dive together.  This curriculum will be composed of a series of 2-month self-contained study modules focused on particular themes concerning the experience of racism in this country.  While long-term commitment to the group is not required, we ask that participants sign up for and commit to each 2-month module that interests you.  

The first 2-month curriculum and discussion module focused on the black experience by studying two seminal essay/memoirs by two well-known black writers:

Fall 2020 MODULE 1  (Meets on alternate Sundays from 1-3pm: Sept 13, Sept 27, Oct 11, Oct 25):

 Meetings will follow the WAIC-UP! format of following a script of mindful discussion in breakout groups of 3-5 people. In order to participate in the discussion, please complete the reading assignments prior to each meeting.  The reading assignment for the first meeting (Sept 13) is the first chapter of Between the World and Me.

Here is a Reading Guide put out by the Fetzer Institute.

FALL 2020 MODULE 2 (Meets on alternate Sundays from 1-3pm: Nov. 8, Nov. 22, Dec. 6, & Dec. 20):

 In this 2nd FALL 2020 module we will be studying The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness, by Michelle Alexander.  At its core, America’s journey from slavery to Jim Crow to mass incarceration raises profound moral and spiritual questions about who we are, individually and collectively, who we aim to become, and what we are willing to do now. Join us as we explore these and other questions. ALL are WELCOME!

The assignment for the 1st meeting will be the following audio and video pieces which will give context for the book.  In addition, please read the Introduction to The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander.   

  • “Ten Years After “The New Jim Crow” New Yorker Interview of Michelle Alexander, January 17, 2020. Audio interview (14 min):

https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-new-yorker-interview/ten-years-after-the-new-jim-crow

  • How Did Angela Davis Inspire a Movement? (2:51 min)

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBNZo_joB-E

  • “An Open Letter to My Sister, Miss Angela Davis” by James Baldwin, New York Review, January 7, 1971, (12 min)

Text: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1971/01/07/an-openm/watch?v=Nch2qYof_Cw (12 min, 15:20-27:42)

  • Angela Davis, “The Shifting Concept of the Prison Industrial Complex” (3:50 min)

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3TU3QaarQE

  • The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, by Michelle Alexander

Part 1:

Introduction (20 print pages).

 

Register below for MODULE 2 to receive a Zoom link and additional information about the class. All are welcome!

About the formation of AZC’s WAKING UP Group: This group was designed by 10 sangha members who participated together in WAIC-UP! (White Awareness Insight Curriculum for Uprooting Privilege) – a peer-led study curriculum developed at Spirit Rock.  We wish to enlarge our group and to continue the momentum created by our WAIC-UP! experience by investigating a variety of important works.  Future modules will delve into works like The New Jim Crow, Radical Dharma, The Way of Tenderness, My Grandmother’s Hands, and Me and White Supremacy.  We intend to offer these various study and discussion sessions in 2-month ‘modules’.  Each module requires sign-up.  We hope you will sign up for the literature that interests you. All are welcome!

WAIC-UP!

(White Awareness Insight Curriculum for Uprooting Privilege)

 

As with all forms of suffering, the Dharma offers enormous gifts to meet the ongoing reality of racial suffering. This is no less true for members of the white majority who participate, often unconsciously, in racial harm. The white person’s version of racial suffering is complex and potentially difficult to name, bound as it is in denial, guilt, hatred (even self-hatred) and overwhelm. Dharma practice affords the opportunity to turn towards this suffering and with mindful, loving attention, investigate deeply, dispel our ignorance, allow our hearts to break, and learn to respond with wisdom and compassion.

Please contact Tim Kroll or Mako Voelkel if you are interested in participating in a bi-weekly dharma study group using the WAIC UP! curriculum developed at Sprit Rock. We will hold our first scheduling meeting in early 2020. We plan to meet approximately every other week for eight 2-hour sessions, with readings, talks, and homework in between each session:

Other reading: