An exploratory programme, reapproaching the teaching of the Eightfold path in a way that complements our common engagement in the human predicament with our plural engagements in current socio-economic-historical predicaments.
A pattern
A quite powerful yet simple pattern would be to take one element of the path per session, and ask ourselves, each of us, what kind of difficulty we have with this piece of the path:
a) In our relationships with our objects of engaged concern (quite probably, different objects for each of us), and
b) In our relationships with other Buddhists (eg within the college Sangha, or more broadly, in the sources that we draw upon, aiming to inform our evolution)?
Seems like a combination of: personal focus (exploring our own Buddha mind?), dhamma focus and sangha focus? Thus, the Three Refuges are tacitly there too.
Probably it would be good to move backwards and forwards through the conventional sequence, rather than just walk ‘from first to eighth’.
The learning from this enquiry - a personal journal, say - could be interesting, perhaps also to others? But certainly, fairly well structured and potentially shareable?
Practical notes regarding ‘bandwidth’
To provide enough speaking space (depending on the size of the group) we perhaps will want to go into breakouts.
To enable topical personal matters to be brought into the space - “Right now I’m up against this’ - alongside the scheduled topic, we might want to think about two weeks per topic.
Existing Community Groups have some relevant experience around such things.