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

" 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