I am one of the facilitators at our local Dharma Punx/Against the Stream group. We had our main people leave about 2 years ago and so a couple of us stepped into the roles. We have basically keeping the doors open for 2 years. It is good but I wanted to push a little bit. Then the election happened and all sorts of questions came up for me such as what is our role as Buddhists in a world that is getting more rude and mean, with some danger to our community members. I worked very hard on a dharma talk revolving around this. My message was basically that meditation practice is more than just a self help process or sleep aid, it is a way to actively engage in the world from a place of grounded center and practice. It is supposed to disrupt and rearrange ourselves in the goal of releasing ourselves from suffering. Sometimes that means taking care of ourselves, and yet it is not an excuse to 'bliss the f** out' in the name of everything is suffering. I even took a risk and recorded myself for my friend to give me some feedback and to get over some fear. It was short and I accidentally did not turn off the recording properly so it was on for all the discussion time as well.
So my friend listened to it, we have studied together deeply with the same nun for 4 years now and have practice in working this way. She said it was the best dharma talk she has heard from our group ever. She has been in the group 6+ years and good friends with our former leader who was good. Dang, I am sooo happy (non-attached of course). I am not happy in the sense that I am so cool and impressive but that I was able to use everything I have been working on to express myself well. To tell about our women's group is to tell this story. We had a new woman join us, the modules are self study, regular phone calls, and a live weekend. She came to the live weekend with a pretty strong background, she studied with the dharma punx teachers in California before this. We did one of our exercises, just going around the room and bouncing off each other, getting into deep topics and then dropping back into our bodies and emotions with total honesty. When the reflection got to her she said "You guys are not f*ing around!" it is now our motto, fierce dharma teaching by women who are not f*ing around.
Okay I have no idea how this translates on this type of sharing, maybe it makes sense and maybe it doesnt.
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