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Grant-Making Activity 2003-2008
Since inception of its grant-making activity, the Foundation has funded
or is committed to funding approximately $3,811,000 in grants, and is
discussing the funding of an additional $1,274,000. The Foundation is
pleased to report on its historical, current and prospective grant-making
programs as follows:
1.
Friends of Zen, Inc.
P.O. Box 326
East Brookfield, MA 01515
Telephone: (508) 333-6099
Website: www.hollowbones.org
Attn: Jun Po Denis Kelly, Rev. Dai En Hi Fu George Burch
The Foundation provided an initial grant in the amount of $78,000 for
the purpose of establishing a pilot project ("Peace on the Street")
to open a combination martial arts and community Zen meditation center
aimed at disadvantaged youths in New York's Manhattan area of Spanish
Harlem. This program is directed by Rev. Hui Neng Stan Koehler (www.peaceonthestreet.com;
1950 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10029; telephone (212) 978-8776). A major
goal of the program is to work with inner city youth to reduce violence
and anger in their lives and in that of their community, using Frederick
Lenz' approach to meditation and life success. Friends of Zen provides
formal weeklong Zen retreats which have been attended by a large number
of Peace on the Street students. Since launching the pilot project, Peace
on the Street has received support from other foundations and the encouragement
of Congressman Charles Rangel. Peace on the Street was featured as the
cover story in the Winter 2008 edition of Tricycle:
The Buddhist Review. With its ongoing success, expansion plans
are under consideration.
During 2006, the Foundation made a further grant to Friends of Zen in
the sum of $85,000 to construct and furnish a Zendo on the campus of the
United States Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs, Colorado. As part
of the Academy’s religious diversity efforts, the Zendo was dedicated
on October 29, 2007. One of the founders and a director of the Friends
of Zen, Rev. Dai En Hi Fu George Burch, was part of the Academy’s
first graduating class, and has organized this important effort through
the Air Force Academy’s alumni support group, the Association of
Graduates.
The Foundation has also funded a Friends of Zen training center for Zen
Buddhist teachers and programs designed to inspire business leaders to
incorporate into their corporate culture, Buddhist values and principles.
Part of the mission is to utilize this center for the benefit of inner
city youth, following the example of Peace on the Street. Friends of Zen
has been granted $300,000 to create a model center as a basis for expansion
into American cities.
2.
Big Mind, Inc./Kanzeon Zen Center
1274 E. South Temple
Salt Lake City, UT 84102
Telephone: (801) 593-1771
Website: www.bigmind.org; www.kzci.org
Attn: Dennis Genpo Merzel Roshi
In the 2003-2004 period, the Foundation funded a $165,000 grant to support
Kanzeon’s "Big Mind" program. This was supplemented in
2005-2006 with another grant of $200,000, and a further grant of $100,000
in 2008. These grants have been used to jump start an expansion of the
"Big Mind" program, including the publishing of the book, "Big
Mind-Big Heart/Finding your Way" along with DVD teaching devices
on the same subject – both available on the Foundation’s Storefront.
The "Big Mind Process" is an innovative technique developed
by Genpo Merzel Roshi, who heads the Salt Lake City Zen Center. The process
is designed to fast track participants towards achieving self-realization.
The innovative and accessible approach taught through this process allows
participants to awaken to a universal mind consciousness, creating a major
shift in perspective: from a self-centered view of the world to one where
all beings are seen as connected with one another. The Foundation’s
grant has permitted Big Mind to train teachers and to offer the program
in ever-expanding parts of the United States via "Big Mind-Big Heart"
and the creation of the DVD teaching tool. The meditative process fostered
by "Big Mind" represents a unique Western contribution to the
traditional Zen foundations upon which this new practice is based. Genpo
Roshi has been using Frederick Lenz’ writings to inspire his Dharma
talks and teachings in the "Big Mind" workshops, and has integrated
the Foundation’s musical offerings into this program. The "Big
Mind" process was developed by Zen Master Dennis Genpo Merzel after
30 years of formal Zen training and 25 years of Zen teaching and counseling.
The technique comes out of both the Western psychotherapy tradition and
the Eastern Zen tradition, a 2600-year-old teaching of self-realization
and actualization. The "Big Mind" technique is a very simple
yet powerful and rapid way to help a person shift perspective and realize
the wisdom that may take a meditator more than 15 or 20 years to accomplish.
3.
Great Mountain Zen Center
1110 Sparta Drive
Lafayette, CO 80026
Telephone: (720) 890-1800
Website: www.gmzc.org
Attn: Gerry Shishin Wick, Roshi, Spiritual Director
The Foundation has provided grants in the cumulative sum of $61,250 to
the Great Mountain Zen Center to support its program to develop for publication
new teaching materials uniquely suited to train Zen practitioners and
other meditators in an American context. By training new teachers and
by writing and distributing books about its teaching process, the Great
Mountain Zen Center hopes to attract new interest to Zen practice, including
interest from those in the health, education and mental health fields.
The grant has been used to author a book written by Zen teachers Ilia
Shinko Perez and Gerry Shishin Wick with materials drawn from their years
of experience with small groups of advanced students. Central to developing
these new materials is to recognize and address unwholesome and unhealthy
attitudes and behavior and to dispel them. The training program teaches
meditation and nonjudgmental awareness, and from that experience students
are taught how to dissolve negativity and bring about, through meditation
and Zen principles, a thorough transformation of their lives in modern
American society. The book has been published, and is now offered on the
Foundation’s Storefront website.
4.
Osel Dorje Nyingpo
1630A 30th Street, #240
Boulder, CO 80301
Telephone: (303) 417-1718, ext. 216
Website: www.odn-usa.org
Attn: Dana Schwartz, President
The Foundation made a grant to this organization ("ODN") in
the sum of $56,000 for the purpose of financing a pilot project which
sought, in a scholarly manner, to reconcile modern American Buddhist and
meditation practice with ancient Tantric Vajrayana Buddhism. The late
esteemed Buddhist scholar and teacher Khempo Yurmed Tinly Rinpoche led
a project to translate ancient Buddhist writings and analyze their contents
with modern forms of American Buddhism, as represented by the works of
Frederick Lenz. Upon Khempo’s passing, ODN determined that there
were sufficient completed materials authored by Khempo to produce a single
volume suitable for publication. Accordingly, the Foundation has made
an additional $30,600 grant to complete the project. In 1997, Khempo was
appointed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama to the post of Abbot of the Zilnon
Kagyeling Monastery. In August of 2000, Khempo Rinpoche attended the United
Nations Millennium World Peace Summit in New York City as one of a delegation
of four senior religious leaders sent by the Dalai Lama. This capped an
illustrious career as a teacher since receiving his Master’s Degree
in 1975 from Sanskrit University in Benares, U.P., India. Since 1994 until
his passing, Khempo had taught primarily in the United States, and was
instrumental in forming Buddhist centers in Mount Shasta, California,
and Boulder, Colorado.
In 2004-2005, the Foundation also provided seed money in the amount of
$5,000, and made a $100,000 interest-free loan (now repaid), to present
a successful four-day teaching event at Miami, Florida, conducted by His
Holiness, the Dalai Lama.
5.
Naropa University
2130 Arapahoe Avenue
Boulder, CO 80302
Telephone: (303) 444-0202
Website: www.naropa.edu
Attn: Dana Lobell, Corporate and Foundation Relations Manager
The Foundation has established a permanent endowment fund and expendable
scholarship program with Naropa University, a Buddhist-inspired, ecumenical,
and non-sectarian university in Boulder, Colorado. Naropa’s Religious
Studies Department has among its functions the training of Buddhist scholars
and activists. The Foundation initially established a permanent endowment
of $200,000 and an annual grant of $30,000 for three years for the purpose
of supporting those students on an undergraduate and graduate level who
will engage in scholarship or provide Buddhist-inspired leadership in
communities throughout the United States. In 2006, and effective for the
year 2007, the Foundation renewed this program for an additional three
years, increased the annual grant to $45,000, and opened the undergraduate
scholarship to students in all majors. In addition, the Foundation has
established a student loan repayment scholarship with potential benefits
of $20,000 per year. Naropa University has agreed to match funds for certain
of the scholarship programs. Altogether, and from all sources (to wit,
the Foundation’s annual payment, the Foundation’s endowed
funds, and the University’s matching funds), there should be available
annually to students, scholarship funds up to $95,000 per year. For further
details concerning these scholarships and how to apply for them, visit
Naropa University's website at www.naropa.edu and click on "Admissions
& Financial Aid."
In addition to the scholarship programs funded by the Foundation, we
have also funded a three-year, $145,428 grant to establish a faculty seminar
on "Contemplative Practices in Higher Education." The object
of the program is to support Naropa’s Center for the Advancement
of Contemplative Education in the development and implementation of a
summer institute on contemplative education for faculty from other colleges
and universities who are inclined to incorporate contemplative techniques
and practices into their own curriculum. The first two such institute
programs were successfully implemented during the summers of 2007 and
2008 with 15 participants in the first program and 21 in the second. The
program will be offered again in summer 2009. Applications are being accepted
until April 1st. For more information, see www.naropa.edu/cace/seminar.cfm.
The goal is to enable the program to become self-sustaining.
The Foundation has also funded a pilot program for the creation of a
Naropa Fellowship Program in Buddhist Studies and American Culture and
Values, together with a related Distinguished Guest Lecture Series, which
will also afford Naropa students with course credit. This program will
enable scholars from a variety of academic disciplines to reside in Boulder
and affiliate with Naropa during their sabbatical or other professional
leave, and to complete a research, social action or curriculum development
project on some aspect of Buddhism’s contributions to American education
and society. Participants will immerse themselves in the University’s
various curricular and community offerings, including their own contribution
to the Naropa community by way of public lectures in the area of their
expertise. The program will also feature the presentation of distinguished
American Buddhist academic scholars from the Zen and other traditions
for a lecture series or a semester of classes. Both programs are designed
to enlighten and diversify the Naropa experience and to establish Naropa
as a beacon for Buddhist thought and action in contemporary American culture
– all drawn from a broad spectrum of American Buddhist practice.
The Foundation has funded this program with a $62,500 annual grant plus
start-up costs of $20,000. It is contemplated that the program will continue
for at least three years, with an eye toward endowing this program with
a permanent grant of $1,250,000. It is the Foundation’s goal to
enlist support for this program from the American Buddhist community at
large so that $250,000 or more of the permanent grant will be funded from
sources outside the Foundation, and to raise additional funds through
use of this initiative as a "lead grant" to establish a broader,
deeper and even more well-funded program.
6.
Tricycle Foundation
92 Vandam Street
New York, NY 10013
Telephone: (212) 645-1143
Website: www.tricycle.com
Attn: James Shaheen, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Tricycle: The
Buddhist Review
The Foundation has entered into a long-term partnership with a well-known
magazine, Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, which services the broad needs
of American Buddhism and the American Buddhist community. Through Tricycle,
the Foundation has donated in the past several years approximately $80,000
for distribution of meditation materials to prison inmates and to the
confined elderly/disabled, and has funded approximately $154,000 for Tricycle’s
annual "Change Your Mind Day" program. Change Your Mind Day
is a national event, designed and implemented by the Tricycle Foundation
for the purpose of providing members of the Buddhist community throughout
America to join in sharing their wisdom and experience with those who
might benefit from a change in their direction, with all the tools that
the American Buddhist community has to offer in its collective wisdom.
In 2007, Tricycle revamped these programs to provide online support for
both projects, and received an additional $60,000 grant.
In addition, Tricycle requested and the Foundation granted the sum of
$23,600 to further develop its website. The object is to provide a uniquely
independent public forum for exploring contemporary and traditional Buddhist
ideas and their integration with Western disciplines. The goal is to provide
an online home for Buddhists of different traditions, who are given an
opportunity to come together and find a voice in the dialogue between
Buddhism and the broader American culture. Following Tricycle’s
initial successful online expansion, the Foundation granted Tricycle a
further $100,000 to develop the Ning Project, which will enable the magazine
to launch an open-ended online social network where it can post "Tricycle
Talks," podcasts, videocasts, blogs, and other interactive features
in various media formats.
To view the Foundation’s advertisement in Tricycle’s May
2005 edition of its magazine, click
here. To view the Foundation’s advertisement in Tricycle’s
August 2007 edition of its magazine promoting its association with its
grant partners (including Tricycle Foundation), click
here.
7.
Peacemaker Circle International
177 Ripley Road
Montague, MA 01351-9541
Telephone: (413) 367-2048
Website: www.peacemakercircle.org
Attn: Roshi Bernie Glassman
Since 2006, the Foundation has made grants and loans to Peacemaker Circle
in the cumulative sum of $825,000 to support its operations, with another
$40,000 in potential grant fulfillment on the horizon.
The founder and Spiritual Director of the Zen Peacemakers, Roshi Bernie
Glassman, is internationally recognized as a pioneer of the Zen Buddhist
movement in America and is one of the founders of socially engaged Buddhism
and social entrepreneurship. He has based his life’s work on a commitment
to service, born from his practice and mastery of the 2500-year-old tradition
of Buddhist compassion and wisdom.
Bernie created the Zen Peacemakers in 1980 to embody this commitment in
a global network of 60 centers, affiliated with the Mother House in Montague,
Massachusetts. What characterizes the socially engaged practices of Zen
Peacemakers is how they extend Dharma practice from the meditation hall
to the worlds of business, social service, conflict resolution, and environmental
stewardship. Zen Peacemakers practice socially engaged Buddhism to transform
individuals and communities, and have responded to some of the most difficult
problems of our time – poverty, AIDS, homelessness, and a lack of
skills necessary for employment.
Today the central project of the Zen Peacemakers is establishing Zen Houses:
residential Dharma centers devoted to providing social services to underserved
and impoverished peoples around the world. To support this effort, the
Maezumi Institute, the study and training center of the Zen Peacemakers,
offers a Residential Ministry Program for Leadership in Socially Engaged
Buddhism to provide leaders and staff to run these Zen Houses.
In October, 2007, the Foundation held its first Buddhist Leadership Conference
at the Zen Peacemakers’ Maezumi Institute’s study and training
center at the Mother House in Montague, Massachusetts.
8.
Ashoka, the eDharma university
Open Mind Foundation
303 Snyder Pond Road
Copake, NY 12516
Telephone: (646) 335-2674
Website: www.ashokaedu.net
Attn: Stuart Carduner, Director
The Foundation has made two grants totaling $96,000 to the Open Mind
Foundation, doing business as Ashoka, the eDharma university, in support
of the establishment of an online "meditation in action" curriculum,
which is part of Ashoka’s web-based study center. Ashoka acquired
DharmaNet International (www.dharmanet.org) and is in the process of redesigning
this first of its kind Buddhist web portal, which now serves 50,000 visitors
a month. Ashoka envisions this new Ashoka/DharmaNet combination as the
foundation upon which to establish a premiere nonsectarian Buddhist informational
and educational web portal that respects Buddhist traditions and yet is
thoroughly modern in its approach.
9.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center
P.O. Box 169
5000 Sir Francis Drake Blvd.
Woodacre, CA 94973
Telephone: (415) 488-0164, ext. 224
Website: www.spiritrock.org
Attn: Jack Kornfield and Evan Kavanagh
The Foundation has funded a $15,000 grant to benefit the "Path of
Engagement" program at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, located in
Northern California. This two-year training program is designed to cultivate
greater wisdom and compassion in community and business leaders, service
providers and activists, in an effort to help them develop the capacity
to sustain momentum and involvement in the important issues of our day.
Structured around a series of silent meditation retreats, the program
worked to illuminate the connection between individual, relational and
social transformation; providing a bridge between the secular perspective
on outer change and more traditional Buddhist teachings focusing on inner
change. Emphasis has been on developing an approach to and understanding
of the world’s problems in a manner that maintains connection rather
than the belief that we are alone in our efforts.
10.
Vast Sky Institute, Inc.
1268 East South Temple
Salt Lake City, UT 84102
Telephone: (801) 328-8414
Website: www.vastsky.org
Attn: Dennis Genpo Merzel Roshi
Vast Sky brings together the principals from Big Mind (Dennis Genpo Merzel
Roshi), Integral Institute (Ken Wilber) and Peacemaker Circle (Roshi Bernie
Glassman) in a joint effort to ". . . use the wisdom of the Buddhadharma,
combined with the most effective technology available, to advance every
conceivable area of our society towards a more awakened approach to life."
It is the object of Vast Sky to change the way America views spirituality
so as to affect and impact the way society views religion, educates its
children, approaches politics, conducts its business, and cares for the
elderly, the homeless and the poor, as well as the way Americans relate
to other nations, especially those which are different from our nation.
By impacting the level of consciousness of America’s public officials
and public servants, the Vast Sky project seeks a transformation through
the instruments of technology and mass media in the way Americans view
these important matters critical to our nation’s well being. The
Foundation has made a seed money grant of $150,000 to create a program
for the implementation of the project’s vision and to raise funds
substantially in excess of the initial grant so that this vision may be
realized.
11.
The Bodhidharma Foundation of America, Inc.
16530 Ventura Blvd., Suite 205
Encino, CA 91436
Telephone: (818) 501-4224, ext. 1
Attn: Harold J. Stanton, President
The Foundation made an $85,000 grant to finance the development and distribution
of a film documentary known as "The Legend of Bodhidharma,"
which explains the origin and spread of Zen Buddhism to America and the
benefits that Zen meditation brings to America. The documentary is approximately
30 minutes in length and is in distribution. It debuted at the Foundation’s
Buddhist Leadership Conference held on October 4-7, 2007, at the Maezumi
Institute in Montague, Massachusetts. The documentary will be made available
to Zen centers around the country to promote education and Zen center
membership, and will also be available as a general purpose teaching device.
The DVD also contains bonus teaching elements. The DVD will be available
on the Foundation’s Storefront website (in addition to such mass
media distribution as The Bodhidharma Foundation of America is successful
in securing).
12.
Light of Berotsana
1500 Kalmia Avenue
Boulder, CO 80304
Telephone: (303) 443-4541
Website: www.berotsana.org
Attn: Jessie Friedman, Executive Director
The Foundation has funded a grant in the amount of approximately $73,000
for the purpose of enabling Jules B. Levinson to translate two Buddhist
treatises composed by the 19th Century teacher, Jamgon Mipam, known as
"The Lion’s Roar: Empty of Other" which explicates the
Buddha’s fundamental and utterly central presentation of emptiness,
and "The Lion’s Roar: Extensive Explanation of the Matrix of
the One Gone to Bliss," which explicates the framework necessary
for the revelation of the basic, clear light nature of mind. Taken together,
these two treatises elucidate the deepest insights brought forward in
the Mahayana traditions of Buddhadharma. It is anticipated that these
translations will become an important addition to the libraries of American
Buddhist scholars, including that of Naropa University, where these translations
are eagerly awaited for use in its course studies. It is further anticipated
that the translations will be published and made available to the public.
Jules B. Levinson holds a BA in English from Princeton University and
a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of Virginia. He has been
a member of the faculty in the Department of Religion at Stanford University,
Hamline University and the University of Virginia, and has served as a
translator for many renowned Tibetan teachers. He also provides oral translation
for a variety of Buddhist teachers, and teaches on diverse aspects of
Buddhadharma.
13.
The Tides Center (The Lineage Project)
P.O. Box 4668 #8375
New York, NY 10163-4668
Telephone/Fax: (781) 408-1492
Website: www.lineageproject.org
Attn: Beth Navon, Executive Director
The Lineage Project is designed to support at-risk and incarcerated youth,
their families and communities, by offering yoga, meditation and other
awareness-based practices. Those who staff The Lineage Project stress
the importance of working with at-risk populations and the value of bringing
yoga and meditation practices to nontraditional environments. Mayor Rudolf
Guiliani in 2000 awarded the project the "Mayor’s Voluntary
Action Award"; and it has been featured in the documentary, "The
Fire of Yoga." By building awareness and uniting the body and mind
through physical activity, at-risk youth can learn to consciously manage
stress, pain, illness, and the demands of everyday life. Increasing self-awareness
among young people helps them to cultivate passion and commit to nonviolent
engagement with their communities. The Lineage Project operates under
the umbrella of The Tides Center, which manages the tax and legal aspects
of many 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organizations and extends oversight to
each project. This project was initiated under the sponsorship and leadership
of Dina Scalone-Romero, who served as Lineage’s executive director.
Ms. Scalone-Romero is an adjunct faculty member at Metropolitan College’s
Audrey Cohen School of Human Services, holds an MBA, and is licensed as
a New York state mental health counselor, as well as a certified prana
yoga instructor. The Foundation has made a grant in the sum of $97,650
to support this project.
14.
Center for Contemplative Mind in Society
199 Main Street, Suite 3
Northhampton, MA 01060
Telephone: (413) 582-0071, ext. 13
Website: www.contemplativemind.org
Attn: Philip Snyder, Executive Director
The Foundation made grants totaling $130,000 to assist in organization,
promotion, tuition and travel support in connection with "the Wise
Action Program," a series of five very successful meditation retreats
for American leaders, including those in higher education, law, and social
justice activism, which were held from November 2007 through Fall 2008.
The retreats offered training in personal contemplative practices as well
as contemplative methods adapted for the classroom, featuring Buddhist
meditation as the central practice. In addition, the Foundation’s
grant funds were also used to sponsor the Fall 2008 Meditation Retreat
for Academics in Higher Education, attended by 29 professors with a wide
range of experience in contemplative practice, some of whom are currently
teaching courses with a contemplative component and some who are exploring
it for the future. The retreat continued to cultivate the Center’s
newly formed Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education.
15.
Prison Dharma Network
P.O. Box 4623
Boulder, CO 80306-4623
Telephone: (303) 544-5923
Website: www.prisondharmanetwork.org
Attn: Fleet Maull
The Foundation made a grant for the work of Fleet Maull’s Prison
Dharma Network in an amount up to $225,000 between 2008 and 2012, of which
$75,000 has been disbursed. The Prison Dharma Network was founded in 1989
by Fleet Maull, a Buddhist then serving a 14.5 year mandatory minimum
sentence in federal prison for drug trafficking. Through Buddhist meditation
practices and spiritual teachings of various Buddhist teachings, Mr. Maull
rehabilitated himself and dedicated his organization to provide meditation-based
and/or contemplative prison ministry programs and outreach projects through
a network which has over 70 organizational members and over 700 individual
members. The purpose is to assure that every prisoner who is inclined
toward employing meditation, contemplative spirituality and other transformative
practices has access to the teachings and resources they need to realize
their aspirations. The Prison Dharma Network works directly with prison
chaplains and other corrections staff to assist them in understanding
and providing for healing, educational and spiritual needs of the prisoners
of their institutions in the context of a restorative and transformative
approach to corrections. Prison Dharma Network supports prisoners in the
practice of contemplative disciplines, with an emphasis on sitting meditation
practice and the practice and study of Buddhist teachings and other wisdom
traditions. It promotes these paths of wakefulness and nonaggression as
ideal vehicles for self-rehabilitation and personal transformation.
In order to realize the full benefits of the grant, Prison Dharma Network
is required to raise in new funds the sum of $150,000.
16.
Upaya Zen Center
1404 Cerro Gordo Road
Santa Fe, NM 87501
Telephone: (505) 986-8518
Website: www.upaya.org
Attn: Roshi Joan Halifax
The Foundation has agreed to donate $10,000 in grant funds to Upaya’s
2009 "Project on Being with Dying." This includes the professional
training program in contemplative end-of-life care, the Metta Refuge Program
supporting those who have catastrophic illness, Compassionate Friends,
who serve those who are dying, and the training of local and national
professional and family caregivers, including training health care professionals
as educators in Upaya’s methods. Its programs include service and
training for clinicians and training in various medical settings. The
Foundation looks forward to renewing this grant in coming years and, subject
to its economic capacities, expanding its commitment.
OTHER GRANTS
The Foundation has instituted a Small Grants Program which generally involves
funding of single projects up to a maximum of $10,000. The first such
grant was made to EarthNest Institute (1706 Sonora Road, Sangre de Cristo
Ranches, Box 521, Fort Garland, CO 81133; telephone 719-588-4109; website:
www.meditate08.org; Attn: Nicole
V. Langley, Director) for the purpose of filming a documentary entitled
"Meditate ‘08," which took place in Denver, Colorado,
during the Democratic National Convention in August of 2008. The documentary
will concentrate on the speakers, teachers, guides, participants and events
surrounding a meditation retreat which took place in the midst of the
Democratic National Convention, and focuses upon the potential impact
which Buddhism and meditation can have upon society. The object is to
create a documentary that focuses on the intersection of thoughtful inward
guidance on the one hand, and the often more one-sided or entrenched perspectives
that tend to occur in today’s high pressured daily life, as expressed,
for example, in politics and the public media.
A further grant in the sum of $10,000 was made by the Small Grants Committee
to Zen Hospice Project (273 Page Street, San Francisco, CA 94102-5616;
telephone: 415-863-2910; website: www.zenhospice.org; Attn: Chris Panos,
co-President) to support its Volunteer Caregiver Program. This program
is designed to bring essential support to low income and underserved populations
that face socioeconomic barriers to care, such as the poor, underinsured
and uninsured, as well as those lacking education or facing language barriers.
For over two decades, Zen Hospice Project has pioneered an internationally
recognized best practice model of end-of-life care and education that
is based on Zen Buddhist principles of compassion, mindfulness and loving
kindness. The Volunteer Caregiver Program integrates spiritual practice
and end-of-life care training with service to the dying to embrace each
moment of life and death as a pathway to self-realization and harmony.
Finally, the Foundation expended $5,000 for a study group based at Naropa
to recommend a grant program to establish a virtual online library dedicated
to collecting and publishing American Buddhist teachings. The group’s
report is in hand, and it is the Foundation’s desire to enlist the
support of the broader American Buddhist community to implement the study
group’s recommendations.
GRANTS UNDER DISCUSSION
The Foundation is engaged in discussions with Brown University
to support ongoing and planned contemplative educational programs, and
is considering a grant request from Insight Meditation Society
to support its "People of Color and Young Adult Retreats." The
Foundation is also in dialogues with U.C. Berkeley to eventually support
its Buddhist Studies program.
Since first preparing this report, these two grants have been completed
and funded along with grants to Faithful Fools in San
Francisco, which operates a Buddhist street practice, Soji Zen
Center in Philadelphia, and Youth Yoga Dharma
in Daly City, CA.
Brown University
Providence, RI 02912
Telephone: (401) 863-1000
Website: www.brown.edu
Insight Meditation Society
Barre, MA 01005
Website: www.dharma.org
Faithful Fools
234 Hyde Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
Telephone: (415) 474-0508
Website: www.faithfulfools.org
Soji Zen Center
2325 West Marshall Road
Lansdowne, PA 19050
Website: www.sojizencenter.com
Youth Yoga Dharma
PO BOX 3452
Daly City, CA 94015
Telephone: (650) 992-9642
Website: www.youthyogadharma.org
The Foundation receives many requests for grant funding from a number
of qualified and worthy organizations; however, the Foundation’s
limited resources in these challenging economic times constrain the Foundation’s
inclination to be generous. Accordingly, not all worthy funding requests
can be satisfied.
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"
Whenever you do something for yourself exclusively you're not happy. Whenever you give to others with no motivation for self-happiness, not even subconsciously, then you become free.
"
Rama
Dr. Frederick Lenz
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