Interested in the support of fellow Sangha members as you live out your bodhisattva vows and engage in compassionate action in a world that’s on fire?
We meet monthly on the second Thursday of the month in the main Zoom room. View the calendar here for upcoming meetings.
Our Focus
The focus of the Bodhisattva Action Circle (BAC) is to provide mutual support of participants who are intent on living out their bodhisattva vows to free all beings by taking compassionate action in ways that take practitioners outside the home and into interactions with other people. This is a peer-facilitated program.
About the Bodhisattva Action Circle
- Participants in BAC commit to engage in at least one activity per month that takes them out of the house and interacting with other people to relieve suffering in the world (obviously, participants can choose to do more).
- There’s a monthly Zoom meeting (2nd Thursdays, 5:30-7pm PT, in the main room). This functions as a gathering for all BAC participants (both Dirt and Cloud) to share their activities along with their struggles with making sense of these activities and the state of the world, from the perspective of embodying the bodhisattva path. The goal is to provide mutual support by bearing witness to the challenges, successes, and insights that arise for each participant. Anyone interested in living out their bodhisattva commitments is welcome to join this meeting. Facilitators rotate from session to session.
- With the framework of “one Sangha, two Zendos,” Cloud participants can do their actions wherever they are, Dirt participants can join together for local activities (with a separate email list to coordinate those activities), and both Cloud and Dirt participants can come together in the monthly Zoom meeting for deeper discussion. The regular monthly Zoom is a place for Sangha members to go in order to discuss how they are embodying, and struggling with, their bodhisattva vows in engagement with the world. Similarly, the email group is a place BAC participants can go to discuss topics about how their practice of Buddhism relates to the ways we shape our lives in community with all beings.
- Sharing activities. Beyond the monthly meetings, there is also a dedicated email group where participants can share their experiences, challenges, insights, and resources. You can sign up for the email group using this form. The email group can be especially important for anyone who can’t make the usual monthly Zoom meeting time. Also, it can be a place to focus discussion of how participants understand and embody engaged Buddhism when the world is being set ablaze. In the past with BWZ’s Buddhist Mobilization Project (BuMP), participants used a tracking sheet to share activities and resources. If participants find it useful, there could be a similar document for BAC.
- BAC will be an ongoing program as part of BWZ’s standing commitment to engaged Buddhism. In this way, people will know there’s a place where they can always show up to get active and talk with others about how they are engaging in compassionate action in the world. Anyone committed to living their bodhisattva vows is welcome to join in, no matter where it is in the course of the year.