Honey Locust Sangha
Omaha Community of Mindful Living
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Honey Locust Sangha Caretaking Council
Minutes from Sunday, November 15, 2020
Present: Patrice Watson (Facilitator), Gina Matkin, Jim Cox, Juanita Rice, Mark Watson
Unavailable:  Dave Watt, Mike McMahon

AGENDA
1. Venmo setup and “Dana” facilitation
2. December online Day of Mindfulness with Sister Terry Cortes-Vega and BK
    Friday evening, and Saturday  9 to 2, December 11-12.
3. “Inclusiveness Enrichment” committee directive
4. Connection with Plum Village Mahasangha (our worldwide community including monasteries, 
     retreat centers, Institutes and online/technology offerings).
5. Spring Retreat Online with Brother Michael Ciborski, weekend of May 13-16.
6. Internal affairs –December meeting and new CTC member plans

The care-taking council (or CTC) began with a meditation prayer and meditation to remind us CTC is a spiritual practice, and then individual check-in.

1.  The CTC in the past decided to add Venmo, an online app connected to Paypal, for direct transfer of donations to the sangha. Gina will work directly with our Treasurer Randy Reinhart to make it operational.  When it is ready Juanita will connect with Randy to send  out an email about how Venmo works and to clarify what dana is (a Sanskrit/Pali word for generosity) and the three ways to give financial dana: we already have a Paypal button on the Website or can set up a way to mail checks. We re-emphasize that no one should feel pressure to donate money to Honey Locust Sangha: the sangha is rooted in and flourishes on the lives we share and the happiness or suffering each person brings: that is our practice--to generate interbeing.

2. Winter Digital Retreat/Day of Mindfulness Dec. 11-12, 2020. Evening TBA and Morning 9-2 pm. 
Friday evening Dec 11 you are invited to a Zoom session with Sister Terry and Brother BK. The theme for the retreat is “Cultivating Connectedness in a Separated World.” In addition to the Dharma talk we will be suggesting several practices for connectedness.
A. Perhaps we can do the 3 Earth Touchings, maybe with chants by BK.
B. We will propose Acts of Random Kindness (Connection) by email or phone or posting to the
website, contacting individuals of the sangha with love and good. In these personal acts of outreach,
you may express your own need for connection in suffering, offer the practice of metta -- good wishes--
or perhaps just an inquiry of someone you realize you have not seen or heard in this long isolation. 
These emails or postings or phone calls might be considered Winter Holiday Dana.
C. "Vigil"- a continuous meditation through the night Friday. We will invite people to sign up for time 
slots from the hour the Evening meeting ends until the morning hour when we meet again. At the
 beginning of your hour you will receive either a text or an email to "tag" you to take over.  
 D. Mark will make the necessary arrangements with Sister Terry and BK, and will work out the logistics 
of our All-Night Vigil. 

3. Inclusiveness Resources. Juanita and Gina will meet once the Fall semester is over at UNL, to sort out how to offer resources on the website for enriching our predominantly white middle-class view of the world.  Our mission is to make it possible for all of us to move outside the stratifications that normally circumscribe our familiarity with what we can call "others"—social perspectives from the margins of our usually narrow perspectives.  We may suggest poetry and art and novels and nonfiction which speaks movingly from perspectives we long to include in our lives and minds. Whether the restrictions are related to race, class, ethnicity,  nationality, or gender issues, we want to provide introductions to the rich resources so that we  hear these "Othered" voices and see through new eyes.  Whether that is via the ARISE sangha's contemplations on the Five Mindfulness Trainings, or events like the online interview with  Larry Ward and Kaira Jewel Lingo, multicultural Buddhist teachers and authors, or recommending the novels of Toni Morrison, the poetry of Joy Harjo, the poetic monuments of Audre Lord and Adrienne Rich: we want to share our loved acquaintance with the richly varied stories of those who can help us appreciate lives we may not touch very often.

4. Our larger community. During our physical isolation from each other, we can't benefit from going physically to retreats or days of mindfulness around us. In that absence we want to recommend the rich jewels of our Mahasangha -our brothers and sisters in Thich Nhat Hanh's Plum Village tradition. The resources of the Mahasangha have long been made available through digital technology, and they can deepen and enrich each of us.  Online websites and links can bring someone face to (onscreen) face with recorded retreats with Thay, dharma talks by our the splendid nuns and monks of the various monasteries, Youtube recordings and interactive connections…such as the online sangha for those who are physically not near a sangha.  
And relative to these wonderful practice "aids," we encourage everyone to be aware that especially during this pandemic and its limitations there are monasteries, orphanages and foundations that have lost their usual income, which came from sponsoring residential retreats and days of mindfulness.  We encourage anyone with ample financial resources to donate money to support our beloved teachers.  Links and suggested ideas of where we can best help will soon be shared. In the meantime you can look on the Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation (tnhf.org) to determine where you might direct your support.  

5. Spring Retreat with Brother Michael Ciborski. The CTC considered ways and means to have some kind of physical gathering for a spring retreat but regretfully concluded that the virus spread means we cannot assume that by May we will be free to mingle, in or outdoors, masked or not.  Creighton Retreat  Center had already cancelled our reservation and we had cancelled our engagement of Michael Ciborski.  We decided we need something to look forward to and that we have a longing for Brother Michael's teachings.  Therefore:
Mark will ask Brother Michael if he is able and willing to do some kind of online retreat or teaching in mid-May, maybe the dates we had originally planned: May 13-16. He will report back to us, including what kind of fee it might entail and we will use evaluation of the December online experience to help plan the details for Spring.  We will solicit constructive evaluation of the Winter Retreat to help us plan the Spring event. If, as is not expected, spring looks like we could gather safely, perhaps at Pony Creek for a day, we will entertain that possibility.

6.  CTC Internal.
 a.  There will be no CTC meeting on the third Sunday of December.  
 b.  We also want to review the revised By-Laws to know if and when we should invite new CTC participation.

Our meeting was adjourned.
The Honey Locust Sangha / Omaha Community of Mindful Living is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. All funds donated help to fulfill the mission of practicing and raising awareness of the mindfulness practice in the Thich Nhat Hanh / Plum Village tradition.

​You can donate (provide Dana) using the PayPal link at the left (you do not need a PayPal account) or send via Venmo to @HoneyLocust. Please indicate General Dana or specific event (December DoM, for example) in the text via Venmo.