Book Group: TIME TO STAND UP by Thanissara

Registration is via EVENTBRITE. Click here to register.

Join the author to read and discuss in a community this leading feminist Dharma-eco-climate book by Thanissara, "Time to Stand Up, An Engaged Buddhist Manifesto for Our Earth"

Wednesday's, 5 pm - 6 pm PT, Online April, 5,12,19,26, & May 3

Meetings hosted by Thanissara and Charity Kahn

Donation-based

ABOUT Time To Stand Up

Dharma culture often encourages looking inwardly to work with our internal suffering so we can transform and heal ourselves. In this book, Thanissara encourages us to look outwardly with her at a burnt and tortured Earth with its polluted rivers, dying oceans, razed forests, devastated wastelands, and its litany of extinct species through the frame of the Four Noble Truths.

However difficult this reality, the Buddha encouraged in his teaching of the First Noble Truth that it’s better to face the truth of our precarious situation rather than avoid it. In doing so we can explore the causes of suffering and realize solutions, as in the Second and Third Truths. We can also cultivate resilience while engaging in an effective response, as in the Fourth Truth with its Right Action informed by wisdom, insight, mindfulness, focus, compassion, and authentic response.

Generally speaking, unlike the historical Buddha, who brought about radical systemic change within the society in which he lived, the institution of present-day Buddhism tends to be a conservative force, which primarily seeks a transcendent, inner path rather than one of outward engagement. But these days, everything is changing very fast. Our personal journeys are intersecting with a global evolutionary arc of colossal proportions. The reality of catastrophic climate change and environmental destruction and its underlying causes awakens the need for a deeper understanding of what has led us to where we are.

While difficult things are important to name, this book does so, not to inflame blame, which can easily abdicate us from ownership of our individual and collective shadows; but instead, to widen the scope of our Dharma practice to include all beings who are abused and marginalized, within and around us while finding our belonging in service of the heart's own impulse to love, uplift, and support the welfare of all.

Andrew Harvey, who, along with North Atlantic Books commissioned this book as part of Andrew's Sacred Activism Series published in 2015. While this book is nearly seven years old, it's actually more timely for where we are now.

Registration is via EVENTBRITE. Click here to register.

Praise for Time to Stand Up

“Bold and authentic, passionately benevolent to the feminine, Thanissara offers profound insights into the alarming global conditions of our time, and mature understanding from a deeply Dharmic lens of the impact of our collective creation and how we secure a livable future. This brave book offers wise, radical, and practical approaches that realign universal inequities and inspire integrity, intimacy, healing, and respect for the life-giving energy of the great mother. An urgent call we can answer.”  —Ruth King, insight meditation teacher, author of Healing Rage: Women Making Inner Peace Possible and Mindful of Race: A Stimulus for Social Healing and Leadership Retreat

“Love for the Earth. This is the spiritual virtue that this excellent book by engaged Buddhist leader Thanissara urges us to cultivate. For the sake of our tortured planet, for the sake of our own awakening to life, she urges us to learn a new way to love. And she is right on target.”—Reverend Fletcher Harper, executive director of nonprofit GreenFaith, Interfaith Partners for the Environment and project lead of Our Voices: Bringing Faith to the Climate Talks initiative

“For those who long to find in Buddhism a path dedicated to compassion-in-action … there is now a book that can illuminate the way. With clarity and deeply penetrating insight, Thanissara follows the contours of the Buddha’s awakening and emergence, both as a catalyst for the evolution of consciousness, and, inextricably related, as a caring agent of human and social transformation. She calls on us to reclaim and empower the feminine archetype, shining a light on the enlightened qualities desperately needed to counterbalance the shadow masculinity that has dominated world affairs. Please read this powerful, energizing, frightening and hopeful book, and share it with all who want to hold hands and serve the healing of our world.”—Tara Brach, PhD, author of Radical Acceptance and True Refuge

“This book is a passionate clarion call to all Buddhist seekers and activists to unify profound spiritual and urgent radical action. An essential original work of fierce wisdom and deep heart.”—Andrew Harvey, author of Radical Passion

Registration is via EVENTBRITE. Click here to register.

About Thanissara: Thanissara is a long-time Dharma practitioner and teacher. She trained for 12 years in the Thai Forest monastic tradition of Ajahn Chah, has led meditation retreats internationally for the last 30 years and has an MA in Mindfulness-Based Psychotherapy Practice. With her partner, Kittisaro co-founded Dharmagiri Sacred Mountain Retreat Centre in South Africa, and the Non-Profit Sacred Mountain Sangha in the US. She is author of Time To Stand Up, An Engaged Buddhist Manifesto for Our Earth and a member of the Spirit Rock Teacher Council. For more info, visit www.sacredmountainsangha.org

About Charity Kahn: Charity Kahn is a musician, teaching artist, Certified Mindfulness Meditation Instructor, and Certified Qigong Instructor based in San Francisco, CA. She has released seven albums of award-winning music for families and a collection of guided meditations for kids with her band Charity and the JAMband. She is the founder of The JAM Experience, sharing music, movement and mindfulness with families around the Bay Area and beyond through her beloved classes, camps and concerts since 2001. Charity also combines mindfulness and a passion for social and environmental justice in concerts and recordings for grown-ups with her band The Invisible Bee, and through her Vegan Journey and PAEAN courses and events. For more info, visit www.jamjamjam.com and www.charitykahn.com .