Virginia Beach (USA) - Advice Sought!

[Konchog AlTorres]

Greeting to all ~ As each day passes I feel very fortunate to have the awareness of my Buddhist Precepts. I have been sharing my time at a local Pure Land Zen Center
(http://www.buddhistedu.org/en/) in order to have the ability to share my practice with like minded persons. They are extraordinary persons that are kind and loving and very welcoming.
Nonetheless, my tendencies lay in the direction of what is presented here at the AMIDA TRUST and its associated work. My Question would be to seek advice from others as to how I could help develop a local work of the TRUST. Any suggestions are welcome.
By the way, I will be traveling to New York City next month to meet the Dalai Lama along with members of the local Vietnamese Community from the Virginia Beach Buddhist Education Center - I will post some photos when I return.

[Kaspalita]

Hi there-

Sorry to take so long to reply to this, no excuse really. I really appreciate your question, especially after hearing Dharmavidya speak about the web of the Dharma, and how to forge links with people who are geographically distant.

Dharmavidya and Prasada will be travelling to the East Coast of the US in the New Year, teaching and running workshops. I'll post the schedule on .ning very soon. I don't think they will be in VA, but perhaps they'll be close enough that you can travel and meet them in person.

In terms of developing local work - what's your interest? I know you've been involved in community work in the past, I wonder if you want to bring this kind of social enterprise and your Buddhism together - you talk about helping people, help each other, which is great - I guess it brings to mind, what do people want?

All of our projects have been through what Dharmavidya calls the 'Friendship model' - getting to know people, learning from them as much as we offer them, working by invitation. It makes me think that a good place to begin is by talking to people in your area, what's already happening? Is there someone you can work along side? is there something that's lacking in the local commmunity?

And thinking about the phrase 'Culturally Engaged Buddhism' is there something about the way that I do this that can act as a a catalyst to change culture? Where is the point of most leverage.

Another important question is what skills do you have already that you can offer in the service of the Dharma? For example one .ning member has started transcribing talks, another is using his expertise in the arts to offer some intellectual input. Those examples are things unbound by geography but there may be something in your community you can do to bring the Dharma.

I hope that you are still interested, and that we can work something out - it's crucial to this world, to be able to offer the Dharma in a spirit of love. To transform and create Purelands