Video Replay: Conscious Care for Those Who Seek Our Guidance (6/20/2022)

Thank you to all who joined our last online webinar event with hosts Dr. Katherine Lawson, Gerette Buglion, and Katherine Bell. The video replay will be available here soon.

Topic: Conscious Care for Those Who Seek Our Guidance
Hosts: Dr. Katherine Lawson, Gerette Buglion, and Katherine Bell
Date: June 20, 2022

Description: Those who seek spiritual guidance are deeply vulnerable to influence. A cornerstone of the ethical treatment of students and followers is to accept and support their own interpretations of their spiritual experiences. As conscious practitioners, it is important to recognize that our own histories and blindspots affect our students and followers. Staying vigilant with our own processes and reading clues from our bodies will help us keep sight of these vulnerabilities.

Ethical treatment of our seekers protects us as well as them. We have to learn to live with the uncertainty of never truly knowing what another’s experience means to them. As leaders, we need to understand the inherent power we hold in the teacher/student or leader/client relationship and strive for conscious attention to these dynamics.

Click on the Read More button for full details and the video replay.

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Video Replay: Money & Spirituality #2 (May 16, 2022)

Thank you to all who joined us Money & Spirituality – Part 2. The video replay is available at the end of this post.

Description:
This was the second in a two-part webinar series (previously three-part but now two) on the topic of money and spirituality. In our first webinar, we wanted to hear from everyone who wished to speak. We heard voices and opinions expressed for the first time from people whose faces are familiar from ASI zoom events. We have since analyzed what was shared and found that there were 38 contributions and each touched on one of three topics: Money in our profession (37%), Money and personal shadow (35%), and Culture of money (29%).

Money touches all our lives, daily. Our upcoming webinar offers an opportunity to engage in some personal work around our relationships with money. When we honestly examine our personal beliefs, conditioning, and attitudes we can bring greater awareness to how we approach money in our profession.

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No Replay: Secrecy is Toxic: Sexual Violation, Transparency, and Healing in American Buddhism (Dec 13, 2021)

Thank you to all who joined us for this event with our host, Ann Gleig! There will be no video replay available of this event, at the presenters request. Ann’s presentation deals with particularly sensitive subject matter and her material is also time-sensitive, due for wider publication next year.

Description: Since the 1980s, Western convert Buddhist communities have been the site of repeated cases of sexual violation and abuse. Cutting across Buddhist lineages, offenders have included many prominent first and second generation Asian and American teachers. This presentation will consider how practitioners are combining Buddhist and non-Buddhist frameworks to understand and respond to these crises. It will identify emerging forms of Buddhist community, leadership, and practice that have been generated in the wake of abuse.

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Video Replay: Critical Thinking and the Spiritual Importance of Discernment (10/24/2021)

Thank you to all who joined us for this discussion! The video replay is now available, along with the PPT presentation by Jules Evans.

Topic: Critical Thinking and the Spiritual Importance of Discernment
Hosts: Jules Evans and Dr. Dan Wilson
Date: Sunday, October 24, 2021
Cost: Free – donations are gratefully accepted (buttons are below)

Description:
The title “Paramahansa”, as in “Paramahansa Yogananda”, refers to a legendary swan that was said to have been able to separate milk from water. This symbolizes the yogi’s refined discriminative faculties, which enable him or her to discern the Real from the unreal – Truth from falsehood. Many spiritual traditions and teachers emphasize that developing these faculties is essential on the spiritual path, and caution that failing to do so can throw us off course.

Today, the importance of developing discernment, or critical thinking skills, is playing out on the world stage. As documentaries such as “The Social Dilemma” have portrayed, social media connect and inform us but can also distract and divide us.

One might think that spiritual leaders and aspirants would be somewhat immune to such manipulative agendas, but in fact, many of us may be susceptible. Has spirituality eroded our critical thinking skills or failed to encourage their development? Does knowing that spirituality can reveal deep, hidden truths incline some of us to believe dubious assertions, simply because they have allegedly been concealed? How can we tell if our critical thinking skills are deficient, and what can we do to strengthen them?

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ASI Members and Friends Meeting (Sept. 6, 2021) – no video replay

Thank you to all who join us for this ASI Members & Friends meeting on September 6, 2021. It was a lively meeting and some topics explored gave rise to some sharing of intimate and personal details. It was requested that we don’t post or repurpose the meeting recording. We respectfully have deleted the recording. See our Upcoming Events page for what’s coming next, and we look forward to seeing you soon.

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Video Replay Posted: The Spiritual Power of Being an Antiracist with Victoria Santos

Thank you to all who joined us for our online webinar event with host Victoria Santos. The video replay is available now.

Topic: The Spiritual Power of Being an Antiracist
Host: Victoria Santos
Date: Monday, July 26, 2021

Description: Tapping into the spiritual power of being an antiracist means that we draw on our deep inner resources in the work of cultivating a thriving, equitable and compassionate culture that accommodates the richness of our diversity. Racism has permeated our society and manifests itself in structural systems, cultures and individuals. We discussed some of the systemic barriers to social justice and racial equity and how they impact us, internally and externally, individually and collectively. How do our inner lives shape the way we engage with society? And we looked at how we can embrace actions and practices that mobilize our spiritual power in the work of making change. When we do this, we foster individual and collective growth, transform culture, and create lasting, meaningful impact.

Click the Read More button to watch the video replay.

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Video Replay “What Can We Do for Our World?” with Special Presenter Duane Elgin (June 14, 2021)

Thank you all for joining us for our online meeting event with our host, Duane Elgin. Click the “Read More” button below to access the video replay.

Nature has always been referred to as a teacher. What is the teaching community’s responsibility for the wellbeing of the ecosystem?

What can we do for the separative world we see?
What can we do for a separative world experiencing existential climate threats?
What is our role in a separative world experiencing existential threats?
How does spiritual leadership/teaching engage with a world experiencing existential threats?
How do we respond, individually and collectively?

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Video Replay: Towards Peer-to-Peer Support (March 22)

Thank you all who joined us for this online meeting event! Please click on the “Read More” button below to watch the video replay.

If you would like to participate in our pilot program or help us shape the initiative, please click Take the Survey on the video replay page.

Spiritual leadership can be a pretty complex and isolating role, and when things are challenging we often have few or no colleagues that we can lean on to share what is really going on for us, and get honest caring feedback. The ASI is looking into ways of supporting small groups of spiritual teachers who want to build peer support circles of collegial friendship working toward deep trust. If you already have experience with such groups, we would love to hear and learn from you. Also, in the same questionnaire /survey you can let us know if you are interested in being part of our peer support pilot program.

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Replay: Spirit + DIBE – Connecting the Spiritual to the Cultural and Political (Feb 8/21)

Thank you all for joining us for our online meeting event with our host, Rev. Dr. Kikanza Nuri-Robins. Please scroll down to watch the video replay.

In this ASI online meeting event we discussed our role as spiritual teachers in the context of a divided world.

  • Learn the current terms and meanings of acronyms like DIBE and BIPOC
  • Understand what it means to acknowledge tribal lands
  • Unpack the ramifications of connecting spiritual values with social values
  • Share best practices for leading meetings of people with disparate views
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