The Burlington Dharma Collective follows the Bhumisparsha Guidelines created from their Vision and Values that are informed by Adrienne Maree Brown’s work on emergent strategy, the East Bay Meditation Center’s Agreements, The Wilds Beyond Climate Justice Participant Guidelines for live sessions, and Agreements from the Gratitude Network.
Confidentiality: What is said here stays here. Feel free to take the wisdom, but leave the personal details! We honor this space by keeping the details of a person and their story private.
Take space/Make space: Share the speaking time and allow for silence. Whenever possible, we do not talk over or interrupt one another. We exercise awareness and consideration of other members. We leave room for those who have not had the chance to speak by allowing silence to exist in this space. We challenge ourselves to take up space and practice using our voices if we’re used to remaining quiet.
Practice Mindful/Active Listening: We listen carefully and do our best to practice curiosity and bear witness to what others are saying, even when in disagreement. We try to avoid planning what we’ll say as we listen to others and refrain from interrupting or speaking over others.
Practice Self-Focus: We attend to and speak about our own experiences and responses, using “I” statements. And refrain from speaking for a whole group or expressing assumptions about the experience of others. Please share openly and honestly while trying to stay connected with heart, mind, body, and spirit.
Compassionate Presence: We exercise nonjudgmental compassion toward ourselves and others. We honor and respect our experience as our own & honor and respect others’ experiences as their own. We practice vulnerability and avoid criticizing the way others and ourselves show up.
Acknowledging Power and Difference: We make room to notice our differences, the ones we were born with and the ones that human society has constructed. And we aim to be reflective of and sensitive to the differences in our social contexts, our legacies, our lands, and our material conditions. As we come from many different parts of the globe, we work to cultivate openness and curiosity about each other’s worlds and the social, spiritual, political, environmental, economic, and historical forces that shape it.
Tending to Self: Take responsibility for yourself, your well-being, and your boundaries. And please take exquisite care of yourself and exercise caution and discernment if you feel unsafe or hurt. It is more than okay to step back, redirect your attention, or even to decide that a gathering is not suitable for you. If you have experienced harm in our space, please contact us. If you’d like to speak to a third-party, we can connect you to someone else in the community.
Synthesized into this form by DL Grant Approved by Bhumisparsha Core Organizers on July 8, 2020