Introduction

This document is still an early draft.

Building a group for exploring the practice of engaged Buddhism brings with it several risks: to us as individuals and to the group “us” that emerges from dialogue. After sketching some of these risks, we consider ways of managing the group as a container that goes towards mitigating them. It is unrealistic to assume that all problems can be avoided, and in fact we need to be careful not to unduly constrain discussion and exploration. However, acknowledging problems and dealing with them in a considerate and kind way can be regarded as part of the practice.

Risks

Risks for the practitioner

Here, we focus on issues that are likely to arise from participating in the group:

• Taking our own perspective as “the right one” and the clinging, defensiveness and opposition that are intermingled with that.
• Dealing unwisely with our own reactivity — anger, grief, indignation, judgement — and that of others.

Risks for the group

Success for this group would mean an increase in its diversity. The challenge here is to avoid the group tending to fracture along various dimensions and for some participants to end up feeling marginal. The kinds of dimension that we are thinking of include:

• Different levels of engagement or activism
• Gender, ethnicity, nationality, neurodiversity — and correlated states of relative privilege in economic status and “time abundance”.

Protocols for the group

To help mitigate these risks, we will advocate some shared protocols for group conduct, covering issues like facilitation and forms of speaking.

Facilitation

Two of us have experience of helping run online groups within the Bodhi College framework and find that facilitation is a useful component in managing the group container. Depending on the make-up of the group, the facilitation role can be rotated between all group members or else adopted by a couple of people who feel comfortable with the role. In the early stages of group formation, facilitation is particularly important in setting expectations and generating a sense of cohesiveness and inclusion. Rotating the facilitation role could help promote the feeling that all participants are central and capable.

Guidelines for group conduct

We will draw on the guidelines and principles that were established for Bodhi College online Community Groups in 2020.¹

1. All participants are equally able to contribute.
2. No interruptions (except if there is a time constraint).
3. No criticism, or personal comments — although a response is OK if its relevant.
4. Pause before speaking — to provide a space for ideas to become embodied.

To facilitate this, the Facilitator

5. may remind participants of the Guidelines; and
6. calls on participants to speak, if they wish to contribute

Not mentioned above, but important, is the principle of confidentiality — nothing discussed within the group should be shared outside it.

Bohmian Dialogue

To put these guidelines in effect requires buy-in from all participants – from the whole Group. We can do this via Bohmian Dialogue. These are based on principles laid down by David Bohm, a theoretical physicist (b. 1917), associate of J. Krishnamurti and A. Einstein, and advisor to the Dalai Lama.

Principles of Bohmian Dialogue

1. Suspending assumptions and judgement.
2. Not trying to convince others.
3. Opening to the whole experience — the whole is greater than the sum of the contributions.
4. Contributions aren’t driven by fear of censure or judgement, or by desire for “success”.

Insight Dialogue

Another approach, complementary but similar in spirit, derives from Insight Dialogue, which was developed as a form of interpersonal Buddhist meditation by Gregory Kramer.²

• Pause: Stepping out of habitual mental reactions to anchor in the present moment.
• Relax: Softening physical and mental tension with acceptance.
• Open: Expanding internal mindfulness to include the presence of another person and the wider environment.
• Attune to Emergence: Yielding to change and not-knowing, letting impermanence guide the interaction.
• Listen Deeply: Listening with a receptive, whole-body awareness.
• Speak the Truth: Articulating subjective present-moment experience with care and discernment.

Discussion Topics

We are considering two approaches to how to focus discussion in the group. We are not dogmatic about this but feel that it may help to have something concrete to explore with group participants.

1. The group collects a list of issues that they would like to discuss, and we choose randomly from the list for each group meeting.
2. We draw topics from a contemporary reframing of the Eightfold enobling path: see Proposal — An eightfold path of engagement.

In addition, we will allow space for people to share what is currently uppermost for them, perhaps in the form of an initial check-in segment. It might be useful also for the facilitator to keep track of shared or recurring themes that emerge from this.

Other practicalities

Digital platforms

We need to strike a balance between using digital tools that don’t create barriers to participation, on the one hand, and staying mindful of the ethical deficiencies of “big tech”, on the other. As a starting point we suggest:

1. The Bodhi College Discourse Forum as the default medium for group announcements and for written discussion by group participants.
2. Zoom for online meetings.
3. Signal as a lightweight platform for incidental or just-in-time communications, and as a medium for people who find the Discourse Forum difficult to navigate.

Schedule

Scheduling will need further consideration. We envisage that meetings will last 90 minutes and occur either monthly or every two weeks. Time of day needs to take into account people’s time zones and work commitments — there is no perfect solution for this.