June was Buddhist Action Month (BAM) and it’s over. A festival of pan-Buddhist social action started by the Network of Buddhist Organisations UK, it focuses largely on global warming and environmental sustainability; this year it’s gone increasingly international and in Triratna we had three themes, to inspire a wider range of activities: Sustainability; Awakening our Money Sense; and Caring for Others
2015 is BAM’s third year (having started in 2012 with a mere BAD– Buddhist Action Day!) Though for various reasons other Buddhist traditions were less active this year, it’s been the best yet for Triratna, with activities across Britain and also in Ireland, France, Germany and the USA.
- If you took part, how was it for you? We’d welcome your mokshini.work [at] gmail.com (feedback.)
- Don’t want to stop? Make 2015 a Buddhist Action Year!+ Follow our year-round Compassion in Action spaceon The Buddhist Centre Online.
A particular success this year has been the increased reporting of events on the dedicated BAM space on The Buddhist Centre Online, and on the pan-Buddhist Facebook page, thanks to the network of local BAM reps set up by Mokshini. Via repostings to Facebook and Twitter, some of these TBCO posts reached very large numbers of people within Triratna and in the wider Buddhist world: Vaddhaka-related posts top the bill at over 1,500 views! Well done, everyone!
A trawl through the well over 100 posts made to the BAM page on TBCO, shows that activities mostly focussed on the environment, including:
- the Sustainable Centre Accreditation scheme
- street meditations
- a live-streamed talk by Parami (from America), on Triratna’s radical history and progressive vision, and Dhammadinna’s interview with her too, on how Buddhists can help promote change in the world
- Sahajatara gave a talk to the UK and Ireland women’s Area Order Weekend, ‘Tara and the Tears of Avalokiteshvara’
- Kamalashila’s Metta Bhavana for BAM, and his talk, ‘The Buddha in Nature’, given at Aryaloka in New Hampshire, USA, where the community took on special BAM precepts for living simply
- Dublin Buddhist Centre’s Wheels of Life bicycle repair event
- Screenings of the film ‘Planetary’ in London,Southampton andSheffield
- Amala’s notes on Climate Change from Bhikkhu Bodhi’s talk to the Dharma Teachers’ Gathering in upstate New York, USA.
- plenty of encouragement to go vegan - for June or for life - and if you need support to maintain this practice, the TBCO vegan page is waiting to welcome you.
- Candradasa’s link to this moving website on endangered species
The Eco Dharma Centre in Spain gave over the entire month to a retreat for campaigners and activists from four continents.
On the theme of money, there was
- Vaddhaka, seemingly everywhere, talking about the themes of his new book, The Buddha on Wall Street. Catch his various talks on video.
- Fundraiser and ex-City trader Amalavajra’s ‘Awakening Money’ speaking tour taking him to Essen, Osnabrück, Amsterdam and Cambridge.
Under the theme of benefiting others:
- Karuna’s two BAM door-knocking appeals in Glasgow and Edinburgh raised GBP14,000 per month!
- Birmingham Buddhist Centre held an evening celebrating its Carers’ Project, which supports those caring for elderly or ill family members to live healthier and happier lives.
Taraloka encouraged us all to register our Centres as Fair Trade Temples and ran a retreat entitled Transforming World and Self and is currently running a two-week project with 11 volunteers from round Europe, with Voluntary Action for Peace.
Thank you!
- to all the BAM representatives and organisers of events
- to every single person who took part, whether in person or online, and
- to the organising/media teams in the background: Mokshini, Dhammadassin, Nandavajra and Munisha for the European Chairs’ Assembly’s Development Team, without whom much less would have happened; and The Buddhist Centre Online team, without whom anything that did happen would be largely unknown to the wider world.
May all beings be well and happy!
Send feedback to mokshini.work [at] gmail.com (Mokshini.)
Visit BAMon The Buddhist Centre Online.
Visit the BAM 2015 Facebook page.
Make 2015 a Buddhist Action Year! + Follow our year-round Compassion in Acttion space on The Buddhist Centre Online.
