2007 Grant-Making Activity

Since inception of its grant-making activity, the Foundation has funded approximately $2,412,000 in grants, and is either committed to funding or is discussing the funding of an additional $2,330,000. 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. With its ongoing success, expansion plans in East Oakland, California, 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 will be dedicated on October 30th, 2007. One of the founders and a director of the Friends of Zen, Rev. Dai En Hi Fu George Burch, was part of the Air Force 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 is also in discussion with the Friends of Zen to establish a training center for Zen Buddhist teachers in Denver, Colorado, and to develop programs designed to inspire business leaders to incorporate into their corporate culture, Buddhist values and principles. Part of the mission is to also utilize this center for the benefit of inner city youth, following the example of Peace on the Street. Friends of Zen seeks $300,000 to create a model center in Denver as a basis for expansion into other 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. 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 a DVD teaching device 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 deigned 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 $46,250 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 grants have 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 and from sessions 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 it. 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 text will be available in January 2007, and will be 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 June, 2004, the Foundation provided seed money in the amount of $5,000, and in 2005 helped to finance, with a $100,000 interest-free loan (now repaid), the presentation of 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, Administrative Coordinator

The Foundation has established a combination 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 committed to a three-year, $145,000 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 such institute program was successfully implemented during the summer of 2007 with 15 participants. Fifty qualified applicants sought admission to the program. The program will continue and the goal will be enable the program to become self-sustaining.

The Foundation has also agreed in principle to establish 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 will commit $62,500 a year in grant funds for three years plus $20,000 in start-up costs, 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 at least $250,000 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" Magazine

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.

To view the Foundation’s advertisement in Tricycle’s May 2005 edition of its magazine, 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

Through 2006, the Foundation had made grants in the cumulative sum of $375,000 to Peacemaker Circle International. In addition to using grant funds to support Peacemaker's general operations, the Foundation's grants have been used to support the creation of a Buddhist community leadership conference entitled "Zen and Civic Leadership: Government, Business and Civil Society," designed to introduce Zen teaching and practices to leaders in government, business and not-for-profit organizations. In addition, Foundation funds have been used to undertake research for the development of a residential education/treatment school for at-risk homeless and/or academically-challenged youths, using Dharma-based training and practices. Peacemaker Circle consists of Zen-based individuals, groups and organizations dedicated to realizing and actualizing the interconnectedness of life. The effects of Zen practice promoted by Peacemaker are intended to unfold in the meditation halls, at work, within families and within community. Over the course of the past 25 years, "Peacemakers have been developing new forms, methods and structures . . . of peacemaking, social enterprise and Zen practice, emphasizing the transformation of the individual and society."

During 2007, the Foundation made an additional grant to Peacemaker in the sum of $250,000 to support the development of increased capacity, both in terms of staffing and operations at its Maezumi Institute as well as for the newly-formed Path Maker Partnership, which represents a strategic partnership with the Hampden County Sheriff's Department and the Gasoline Alley Foundation to solve growing problems of crime, poverty, joblessness, homelessness, and environmental degradation in Springfield, Massachusetts, by application of Buddhist principles to social action and social enterprise. The Maezumi Institute is a place where people contribute their insight, experience and aspirations, and are in turn inspired and energized to effect change in their personal and social spheres by bringing Zen Dharma practice and teachings into their life paths.

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 40,000 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: Kate Frankfurt and Jack Kornfield

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 will work 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 will be 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
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 bodhi dharma, 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 with an eye toward creating a program to implement the project's vision and to raising 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 had 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. It is anticipated that the documentary will be approximately 30 minutes in length and should be ready for distribution in early 2008 with a debut 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 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
Attn: Jessie Friedman, Executive Director

The Foundation intends to fund 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 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)
165 Clinton Ave, Suite 5F
Brooklyn, NY 11205
Telephone: (917) 992-7381
Website: www.lineageproject.org
Attn: Dina Scalone-Romero, 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 Rudolph Giuliani 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 is under the sponsorship and leadership of Dina Scalone-Romero, who is the executive director and an adjunct faculty member at Metropolitan College's Audrey Cohen School of Human Services, and is supported by Cyndi Lee, a practicing yoga teacher. Ms. Scalone-Romero holds an MBA and is a New York State licensed mental health counselor as well as a certified prana yoga instructor. In principle, the Foundation has agreed to make a grant in the sum of $97,650 to support this project.

14.
The 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: Mirabai Bush, Executive Director

The Foundation has agreed to fund a $100,000 grant to support "the Wise Action Program," which sponsors meditation retreats for American leaders, including those in higher education, law, and social justice activism. Meditation retreats featuring Buddhist meditation as the central practice will be offered.

" 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