NWDA News

NWDA 2015 Financial Activity

Northwest Dharma Association supports Buddhist teachings, practice and community. NWDA relies completely on donations from member groups and individual donors to pay for the website, directory, calendar, news, and all the events that NWDA sponsors. Modest stipends help to compensate four people who do most of the major organizing and maintain NWDA’s activities. The total donated in 2015 was $21,961. About a third of the donations came from our member groups. The other two thirds were individual donations, including one very generous donation of $5,000. The community thanks the donor for that. On the expense side, the website and the…

Compassionate Action

Cooking 100 Meals a Month for the Hungry;
A Template for Expanding the Work Broadly

100 Meals cooks in the zendo kitchen left to right, Dee Seishun Endleman, Anne Sendo Howells and Sally Zenka Metcalf

When a group of friends at Chobo-Ji Zen Practice Center heard about the nutritional shortcomings of food offered to homeless people, they decided to make a solid culinary difference for the hungry. Thus their 100 Meals Program was born. Since June of 2015, volunteers from Dai Bai Zan Cho Bo Zen Ji (a Rinzai Zen temple in the heart of Seattle), have been cooking nutritionally-complete vegan and gluten-free entrees twice monthly in their zendo kitchen The meals are then donated to programs that feed homeless neighbors. Polly Trout, founder and executive director of Patacara Community Services, picks up the packaged…

Dharma Healing, Arts

Artist’s Glass Buddhas Reveal the Light Within

A compassionate Buddha, created by Jill Whitmore of kiln-formed glass, sometimes in six layers

I am an artist. And one of the many things that truly inspires me is creating Buddhas. I work in glass and multi media, creating florals, nudes, landscapes, still life wine scenes, abstracts, wearable art, and large multimedia pieces in acrylic with glass overlays. I especially like making Buddhas. I started creating Buddhas in glass well over a decade ago. I love portraying this iconic figure as he has manifested through different traditions, and his female counterpart Kwan Yin. Their faces are portrayed so differently, according to the people who live and practice their teachings in different locales. I design…

Dharma Education

Seattle Buddhists Deepen Awareness of Racism

Ruby Phillips, right, reads to the people gathered at the White Awake group

About 20 Seattle Buddhist practitioners have been meeting over five weeks, learning to use mindfulness practice to bring more awareness to issues of racism. Each of the meetings is a focused exploration, with topics including: personal experience of race, four levels of racism, explicit bias, and white fragility. In our practice, we learn to sit with whatever arises rather than spiraling into reactivity, numbness or denial. We gradually learn to replace judgment with investigation and curiosity. Curiosity opens new doors to education and exploration that further deepens our understanding. All of these practices are extraordinarily useful in addressing racism. We will…

Sangha News

Old Gold Mine Hermitage Offers Rural Retreat Space
For Monastics, Dedicated Lay People, in Washington

The two primitive kutis share a beautiful view of the Kettle River Mountains

Ten years after its founding, Old Gold Mine Hermitage continues to provide isolated retreat space for individuals in the extreme northeast corner of Washington state. The name reflects the fact that there’s an old gold mine shaft on the 40-acre property, but more deeply points to the hope that retreatants staying here are mining for true gold, that which is to be found in the dhamma. Old Gold Mine Hermitage offers four solitary kutis (cabins), for monastic and lay retreats. The first of these is modern except there is no toilet. It has running hot and cold water, a shower,…