Dear editors,
Earleen Roumagoux and I are volunteering as the Wake Up Schools Coordinators here at our Plum Village office. We recently read your reply to Lennis Lyon’s letter [Summer 2015] and would like to let you know that the office team talked to Brother Phap Luu about your request. We agreed that the Wake Up Schools office might be able to coordinate a sort of column in the Mindfulness Bell. Every week we learn about initiatives that share Thay’s teachings with children and youth in varied and inspirational ways,
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Dear editors,
Earleen Roumagoux and I are volunteering as the Wake Up Schools Coordinators here at our Plum Village office. We recently read your reply to Lennis Lyon’s letter [Summer 2015] and would like to let you know that the office team talked to Brother Phap Luu about your request. We agreed that the Wake Up Schools office might be able to coordinate a sort of column in the Mindfulness Bell. Every week we learn about initiatives that share Thay’s teachings with children and youth in varied and inspirational ways, from Joe Reilly’s earth-friendly music and collaboration with biology teachers, to mindfulness days with “disruptive” Mexican teens in Chiapas, to Indonesian independent schools where Buddhist teachers are asking themselves what kind of Buddhism they want to trasmit to their students.
Do you think we could come up with a partnership between the Mindfulness Bell and the newly born Wake Up Schools? What would this contribution look like? Material about initiatives by teachers for kids? Kids talking to kids? Educators developing material for a young audience? What age range? Or a more family-oriented insert? Our worldwide Sangha has so many stories to share.
With a bow and a smile,
Yvonne Mazurek
Wake Up Schools
Plum Village
Editors’ note: We look forward to collaborating with Wake Up Schools, Lennis Lyon, and any other friends who may enjoy finding ways to offer teachings for children and teens in the Mindfulness Bell.
Dear editors,
You have once again put together what I think is an awesome issue of the Mindfulness Bell [Summer 2015]. Congratulations! I enjoyed all the articles, and in particular felt inspired as I read the letters to President Obama from eight-year-old Mateus Greenleaf. Also, the inclusion of the article “Shining Light on White” by Seattle Wake Up practitioner Vanna Waldron moved me greatly and I am happy to see that this article is available electronically as a PDF, along with other articles from this issue, at www.mindfulnessbell.org.
It occurs to me that if a Sangha, or two or three or more practitioners within a Sangha, or individual practitioners wished to continue or begin to establish awareness about racial privilege, a good starting point could be to read and discuss Vanna’s article. I am confident that from this engagement other forms of compassionate action would emerge.
Vanna’s article also provides an excellent follow-up for discussions at a five-day International Western Dharma Teachers Gathering last June at Omega Institute in New York State, which was attended by nine Dharma teachers from the Plum Village practice community. For a full day the gathering gave attention to the theme of race, power, and privilege in our Sanghas, with PowerPoint presentations and interactive exercises in the morning and an opportunity in the afternoon to share in smaller groups, including groups composed only of people of color and facilitated groups for white people exploring personal understanding of and experiences with white awareness and white privilege. This was the first time to my knowledge that this focus, as well as the focus for another full day on climate change, have been addressed in such a Buddhist gathering.
Again, much gratitude to you all and to our continuing practice together.
With love,
Lyn Fine
Berkeley, California
