Being the Change

A Day of Meditation, Dialogue, Exploration, and Community-building

With Marisa Handler and Donald Rothberg

Co-sponsored by the Buddhist Peace Fellowship and the Metta Center for Nonviolence Education

Sunday, July 27, 2008

9:30 am – 5 pm

Berkeley Zen Center

1929 Russell Street, Berkeley

This daylong retreat will focus on the connection between inner work and our service and action in the world.  We will explore how to build a new culture of change and how to meet the challenges of this young century, including its darkness and crises, with wisdom, compassion, and courage.  Both of the facilitators have recently come out with books exploring these issues.  The day will include perspectives and practices from their diverse work as well as sitting and walking meditation, dialogue and discussion, and interactive exercises.

Cost: The teaching is being offered on a dana (“generosity” in the Pali language) basis. There will be an opportunity to offer a donation to the teachers.

Registration: $20 (covers actual costs). Partial or full scholarships are available upon request.

To register: please contact Aline Prentice at 510-283-3464 or metta@gmx.com.

Directions to Berkeley Zen Center: The center is at 1929 Russell St. in Berkeley, off Martin Luther King, one light from Ashby; it is also near the Ashby BART station. Directions are also available on the web at http://www.berkeleyzencenter.org/location.shtml.

Marisa Handler—activist, writer, speaker, Buddhist practitioner, and singer-songwriter—is the author of Loyal to the Sky: Notes from an Activist, which recently won the Nautilus Award for 2007 for books that are changing the world. A journalist whose work has appeared in the SF Chronicle, Tikkun, and many other venues, Marisa organizes in the global justice and peace movements, and speaks and sings about visionary social change all over the country. Her album, Dark Spoke, was released last year. For more information, go to www.marisahandler.com.

Donald Rothberg, a member of the Spirit Rock Teachers Council and the Executive Faculty at Saybrook Graduate School, writes and teaches classes, groups, and retreats on meditation, daily life practice, and socially engaged Buddhism. He directs “The Path of Engagement,” a two-year Spirit Rock training program, co-sponsored by BPF, connecting inner and outer transformation, and is the author of The Engaged Spiritual Life: A Buddhist Approach to Transforming Ourselves and the World, named one of the best spiritual books of 2006 by Spirituality and Practice.