Liberación Dharma

Liberación Dharma is an initiative to engage local white (Caucasian descendant) Buddhist communities in Colorado in decolonization work and active participation in reparations.

This year-long cohort is designed for individuals who recognize that they have received material benefits from systems of colonization, and who are also aware of the profound costs—both to the communities dispossessed and to their own sense of connection and belonging in the world.

While Liberación Dharma primarily centers white (Caucasian descendant), financially stable, English-speaking Americans, it is open to anyone who acknowledges their benefit from colonial systems and is committed to working toward their dismantling.

  • There is a $150 registration fee designed to secure your commitment to the program. You can either pay the $150, or you can volunteer with Campesino Commons for 5 hours to cover the cost.

  • We will begin on the land. At the heart of everything that Campesino Commons does is our relationship to Land Spirit. The program will begin with a day-long retreat where we will quiet our individual internal noise through meditation, allowing us to learn to listen and attune to Land Spirit. We will explore how building a relationship with Land Spirit can integrate with Buddhism and Dharma practice. At the heart of this, we will begin to reclaim our natural belonging to the world as our birthright.

    From this foundation, we will explore, with great self compassion, how we have been trained by our families, our schools, our communities to perceive different cultures and races as ‘other’. We will explore how we have come to adopt perceptions of white supremacy, white savior mentality, racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, and other views of entitlement and exceptionalism that we may be completely unaware of. As we visit these places in ourselves, we will do so with a gentle hand and a loving heart. It is said that true healing is not about fixing the broken parts of ourselves, but about loving them.

    Once we have truly begun the work of healing, we will reach out to our counterpart circles. The Teotecacinte Cohort has two counterpart circles in small rural communities in Northern Nicaragua: Gualacatu and El Guineo. Those communities are also participating in the same circle process that we are. However, their purpose of circle is to develop greater self-empowerment, and they are designing projects that we will fund and help build. One could say that, metaphorically, we will be washing their feet. We will offer simple, humble acts of love and care, while following their leadership, coming to know their wisdom, and learning from them, as they have access to ways of connecting and belonging that we do not.

    During the second half of our year together we will begin traveling to Nicaragua in groups of five. We will meet the members of our counterpart circles in person, and we will take time to work for them according to their wishes.

    Next summer we will come together for a weekend camping retreat. We will meditate, reconnect with Land Spirit, and reflect on what we have learned from the Nicaragua circles, who will have become family to us.

    Throughout our year together, we will be actively fundraising to pay for our travel to Nicaragua, to fund the projects that they develop, and to support Campesino Commons operating expenses. We will also be practicing regular meditation together, deepening our capacity to integrate into our hearts the work that we are doing.

  • Campesino Commons uses Restorative Justice Circle process that is primarily grounded in ancient indigenous traditions from around the world. At the heart of this process is the notion that no one is either above or below, in front of or behind anyone else. Every voice is equal and everybody belongs.

    In circle, we hold individual agency as sacred, ensuring that everybody who participates in the circle truly wishes to be there, and only speaks if they feel they want to. This agency creates a foundation of safety for all, as there are no hidden agendas or covert manipulations. If you don’t want to be there, you don’t have to. If you don’t want to share, you don’t have to.

    Our circle also holds the talking piece as deeply sacred. The person holding the talking piece is invited to share. The people who are not holding the talking piece are invited to listen. This means that individual sharing is not timed, and the direction of conversation is not dictated by any individual. Leadership belongs to the entire circle, which allows for wisdom to arise that is far greater than anything that can be offered by a single person. We move into a more ancient sense of time, not segmented by second, minutes or hours, but rather something that flows, grounded in a sense that we are not trying to get somewhere other than where we already are.

    People who participate in this kind of circle report an experience of becoming part of a larger whole in an intimate and integrated way– something that is far too rare in our western culture.

  • Each cohort will participate in one day-long and one camping retreat in the Rocky Mountains (exact location TBD). The day-long retreat will begin at 8:00 am, and end at 6:30pm MT. The camping retreat will be two nights, beginning at 12:00pm on a Friday, and ending at 3:00pm on that Sunday.