fwbo strategy

fwbo strategy

three days of meetings at madhyamaloka to discuss strategy in the fwbo. this is a new meeting. it comes from the 'separation of powers' set in motion a couple of years ago, when the preceptors college and council took a step back, and we suggested 'the movement should run the movement'. it's taken some time for the chairmen's meeting to build the structures to do that effectively, but this year lokabandhu and vajragupta became the two full time development workers, and at the summmer chairmen's meeting at taraloka, this group was formed to start to discuss longer term strategy.

we met for three days. the idea of thrashing out a strategy for the fwbo might sound daunting. but the meeting, facilitated by amarketu, started out in the most personal way possible: we were asked to reflect on two questions:

when did you feel most effective, most connected, most alive?

what, in your direct experience, is good about the f/wbo?

from those very simple experiential seeds (mine involved a moment of meditation and a serious argument with someone) we managed to spin three days of discussion. the meeting will report back to the full chairmens meeting in germany in january, but the priorities that ememrged from our discussion included:

practice

A LAM RIM

widely shared & taught progressive framework of practice

pathways to depth

organising our embarrassment of riches

training processes

balance of understanding and practice

common path with individual diversity?

a perspective on dharma

giving central, non-dogmatic place to bhante

including new areas of study

emphasis on primary sources