NW Dharma News

Around the region Sanghas adapted to the COVID-19 lockdown, and the shift to virtual Dharma, in creative and varied ways. For instance Seattle Betsuin, one of the region’s oldest Sanghas at 117 years, developed multiple digital channels such as this one

Summer 2020, Volume 33, #1

NW Dharma News

NWDA’s New Website Group and Event Listings!

The new group member directory will include simpler and more comprehensive searches, an easier registration process, and linkage with Google Maps

Your Northwest Dharma Association (NWDA) website is getting a 2020 technology boost that will make it easier for group leaders to list events, and for Sangha members and anyone else to utilize the site. For Dharma groups: Dharma group members will find the new system far easier for building and editing profiles of their groups, and for sharing lineages, practice schedules, and contact information. Leaders will be able to more easily enter and edit calendar listings, with less confusion and fewer problems needing solutions from NWDA volunteer staff. Groups will find it easier to promote their practice schedules and events…

Dharma Education

Pariyatti Books Expanded During the Pandemic

Pariyatti’s efforts to respond to the growing pandemic started when a pilgrim felt dizzy climbing Vulture Peak, shown. Luckily, she didn’t have COVID-19

For Pariyatti the COVID-19 era began with a 5 a.m. distress phone call. It was January 27, and 16 pilgrims were one week into their three-week pilgrimage through India and Nepal. Calling from India, the Pariyatti team member said one of the pilgrims had become dizzy while climbing to Vulture’s Peak, one of the Buddha’s favorite places to meditate. She said, “Could it be the novel coronavirus?” Washington-based Pariyatti, the nation’s largest distributor of Theravada books and materials, organizes several pilgrimages each year for vipassana meditators in the tradition of S.N. Goenka. This journey catered specifically to Chinese-speaking participants. Luckily…

Dharma in Canada

Children Learning to Notice what They Notice:Introducing Mindfulness at the Art Gallery

Margo McLoughlin telling a story with musical accompaniment

Between October of last year and the middle of March, more than 700 children came to the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria to participate in a new program called “The Art and Heart of Mindfulness: Discovering the Gift of Perception.” The gallery sits at the top of Moss Street, a short drive from downtown Victoria in British Columbia. Surrounded by Garry oak and Douglas fir, the original building is a Victorian house, beautifully trimmed in grey-green and burgundy. Beside it stands a low structure of post-modern concrete. Art galleries are all about looking and seeing, which makes them perfect sites…

Compassionate Action

Breathing with the Disagreeable

Selfie at the Lynching Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama

The Deep Time Liberation Retreat, for descendants of the African diaspora, was cancelled due to the pandemic. Ancestral healing would have to wait. Visiting slave plantations with the support of Black practitioners and teachers was not going to happen. Now I had two weeks of unplanned time off from the hospital. I was sad to miss this retreat, and yet grateful for the respite from the current healthcare grind. I decided to get up early every morning and walk around parts of my Seattle Maple Leaf neighborhood that I had not yet explored. In that process I discovered Kingfisher Natural…

Dharma Healing, Arts

Sue Tomita: A Deep River of Loving Compassion

As a co-founder of Asian Counseling and Referral Services, Sue remained active, here in 2017 May Day March

Whether family or friend, to be with Susan Kiyoko Tomita was to bask in her warmth and care, rooted in her deep meditation practice. As Sue passed away Sunday evening, May 10, 2020, at 74 years old from pancreatic cancer, she was serene throughout. With great forethought Sue wrote her own memorial, understanding the reality of her diagnosis, which she shared with her mother who had died years before. In her memorial Sue wrote only of her family, her love of her partner Gregory, of her sons Jason and Mizuho, and of her beautiful grandsons, Max and Julian. She…

Sangha News

Seattle Betsuin Taps its People to go Digital

Rinban Kusunoki chanting a sutra during one of the online Sunday services Seattle Betsuin has been offering since late March

In early March, the Seattle Betsuin Buddhist temple closed its doors to visitors and temple members in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. But since March the temple has been re-opening through innovative uses of online technology, a transformational step for a traditional organization that offered its first service 119 years ago. Seattle Betsuin is the oldest Buddhist group in the city. The March closure was significant for temple members, because it meant cancelling the annual salmon dinner fundraiser, numerous classes, social programs, and perhaps most impactful, the Seattle Seafair-sanctioned Seattle Bon Odori Festival normally held in July. While the doors…

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Featured Events

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What's Happening

A Helping Hand by Sally ZenKa Metcalf

There are many voices in the world calling for help. It can be hard to know what to do. Yet in this Pandemic, so many, like the horse therapist, are finding ways, great and small, to help others. Gradually, we may discover that, together, we ARE the countless arms of the Bodhisattva of Compassion, seven billion strong, reaching out to connect, to care, to lend a hand, or to offer something useful such as a handy tool, some garden-fresh tomatoes, or a Covid test.

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Shambhala Meditation Center of Seattle seeks a Communications & Marketing Coordinator

The Shambhala Meditation Center of Seattle is looking for a Communications and Marketing Coordinator to join a dedicated team of staff and volunteers supporting our organization, our programming, and our community. This person would be responsible for creating and implementing marketing strategies and supporting leadership in fundraising and membership campaigns. The ideal candidate is organized, collaborative, has marketing experience, especially in inclusive and culturally appropriate outreach to diverse communities, and has an interest in meditation and what our center has to offer.

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Dharma Relief: Let’s get medical supplies to where they’re needed!

Several Buddhist groups are organizing a charity relief program to help deliver medical supplies to where they are needed. You can help by donating and by coordinating supplies. Visit DharmaRelief.org

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Group Members

Portland Buddhist Center

Transform Self and World in Portland, Oregon Practicing Buddhism enables us to open to new and creative experiences and break old patterns that keep us trapped. The Portland Buddhist Center was created to encourage and support Buddhist practice in our current time and culture through opportunities to meditate, study, and develop friendships.

Tradition: Triratna || Location: Portland, OR

EcoSangha Seattle

EcoSangha is a Zen practice group grounded in Zen practice as an inherently ecological perspective. We are open to all people who would like to practice with us.

Tradition: Zen || Location: Seattle, WA

Sorig Khang Portland

Portland, Oregon branch of Sorig Khang International (www.sorig.net): to support the study and practice of Traditional Tibetan Medicine and the Yuthok Nyingthig spiritual tradition under the guidance of our teacher, Dr Nida Chenagtsang

Tradition: Vajrayana Buddhism || Location: Portland, OR

Cloud Mountain Retreat Center

Cloud Mountain Retreat Center is a non-sectarian Buddhist center hosting residential retreats year round. Our mission is to provide opportunities for all individuals to hear and practice Buddhist teachings with qualified teachers in a forest refuge that combines simplicity, comfort and a supportive container for spiritual transformation.

Tradition: Non-sectarian || Location: Castle Rock, WA

Friends of Lama Samten

We are an informal group of dharma practitioners who enjoy inviting Lama Samten to turn the wheel of dharma in the Seattle area. Lama Samten has been visiting Seattle since the early 2000s. About Lama Karma Samten Venerable Lama Samten was born in West Tibet in 1944. He fled his homeland with his brothers, sisters and parents in 1959 when the Communist Chinese invaded Tibet. His entire family of 13 members died crossing the Himalayas, only Lama Samten survived. He took his ordination in exile in India with the Very Venerable Khyabje Kalu Rinpoche and completed 10 years of solitary...

Tradition: Karma Kagyu || Location: Vashon, WA

Dharmata Portland

In the Nyingma tradition, affiliate of the Dharmata Foundation located in Point Richmond, Ca.

Tradition: Tibetan/Non-sectarian || Location: Portland, OR

Mountain Lamp Community

Mountain Lamp is a rural practice center located on 115 acres of meadow, lake, and forest lands nestled in the foothills of the North Cascade Mountains about 45 minutes east of Bellingham, near Deming. It is a place of serenity and refuge which embraces the path of an engaged Buddhist practice in the Plum Village tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh and Diamond Sangha tradition of Robert Aitken, Roshi. We offer day events, group and individual retreats and hold a year-round daily practice schedule.

Tradition: Zen (Thich Nhat Hanh), Zen (Robert Aitken) || Location: Deming, WA

Tibetan Nuns Project

The Tibetan Nuns Project provides education and humanitarian aid to refugee nuns from Tibet and to nuns from the Himalayan regions of India. It is a registered charity founded in 1987 and supports over 700 Tibetan Buddhist nuns and 7 nunneries in India. Donations help provide facilities and programs to educate, empower, and improve the status of ordained Tibetan women.

Tradition: Tibetan || Location: Seattle, WA

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