Join Us as We Say: Thank You to Dawn Haney!
Dear BPF community,
It is with deep appreciation and sadness that we announce Dawn Haney’s departure from Buddhist Peace Fellowship on August 16th. Dawn’s compassionate leadership, inspiring writing, and tireless efforts to bring wise action to our movement spaces have been instrumental not only in BPF’s radical rebirth, but also in reshaping the contemporary narrative of socially engaged Buddhism. In Dawn’s eight full years with BPF, she has
written about what it means to participate in meditation spaces as a sexual assault survivor,
worked with the team to establish a disability justice framework within our annual Block Build Be retreat, and
produced our most popular online course, U Mad? Wisdom for Rageful Times,
among many other highlights. Our gratitude for her service is immeasurable.
With Dawn’s departure, we will be engaging in a collective process with staff and community that will continue to open doors for new leadership at BPF, and will be sharing more on this in the coming months. In the meantime, we invite you to be in touch with Jess Benjamin, Board President (jess@bpf.org), with any questions. Dawn has also shared her personal reflections below, and we hope you take a moment to read them and reflect on Dawn’s time with BPF.
If you feel moved to share your reflections with us, we’d love to hear them!
We thank Dawn again for her invaluable service to our spiritual-political communities, and send her much metta for her continuing journey.
Warmly,
Jess Benjamin, on behalf of the BPF Board of Directors
Eight Years at BPF: Reflections from Outgoing Co-Director Dawn Haney
I started working for Buddhist Peace Fellowship in 2011, hired for a 3-month finance and operations gig.
"You might be able to stay longer than that, but we’re not sure," my interviewers Anchalee Kurutach and Sarah Weintraub said. “We need you to help us figure out if we can even keep our doors open past the end of this year.”
I could have run in terror, but instead I smiled big. Still fresh to the Bay Area after a move from rural Colorado, I was hungry to apply my powers as a midwife of organizational change to this place that brought together two of my deepest passions: dharma and social justice. I stayed a little longer than 3 months — just over 8 years! In early 2012, I moved into executive leadership and we soon hired Katie Loncke to join me as Co-Director. And this month, I’m transitioning out of my role as Co-Director, smiling big at opportunities for organizational change at BPF and for new adventures in my own life.
In 8 years of leadership, we not only kept the doors open. We changed the landscape of socially engaged Buddhism -- bringing together a new generation with more queer and disabled people, and more people of color. People ready to bring their Buddhist practice to front lines and Facebook fights, finding that paradoxical balance between accepting the world as it is while fighting like hell to change it. From our work with Occupy and Black Lives Matter, abolishing militarized police and borders, supporting Standing Rock’s protection of land, people, and precious water that is life -- this time at Buddhist Peace Fellowship has been one of tremendous building in social power, deep relationship, and new possibilities.My favorite memories are when I’ve had to ask myself "What does Buddhist action really look like here, in this context?"
Image: Ten facilitators from 2017 Block Build Be retreat, outside as the sun sets.
(Photo by Brooke Anderson)
At our annual Block Build Be residential retreat, my Buddhist action looked like careful caring for the group to connect with each other, and as a whole. As a community builder at heart, I found myself automatically scanning the group in our first night’s check-in. Whose heart is weary? Who is afraid they don’t belong? Who needs comfort to later show up in the complexities and conflicts of our time together? I would check-in to see if they wanted to talk, and the answer has always been yes. Trained in empathic listening from my years working crisis hotlines, I would ask curious questions, but mostly find quiet spaciousness for a person to find their own words and feelings. I am still amazed to watch people’s energy shift from overwhelm or grief to something more spacious, open, and possible. As people settled into spaciousness, our collective energy became more settled and intimate too. Our retreat could explore new embodiments of interdependent relationship together.
Image: (left) Dawn in a BPF tee teaching at Portland's #OccupyICE camp in 2018; (right) Paper reads "What helps you move OUT of your own DISTRESS ZONE?" with examples like "walk by the river; alone time; human touch; breathing."
(Photos by Kendall)
I was in the streets of Portland staring down ICE agents with guns and riot gear in summer 2018. Katie and I had scheduled a visit to Portland BPFers, who requested that we pivot our attention to the #OccupyICE camp that had sprung up in response to the border crisis. #OccupyICE had initially asked for a training about burnout, which seemed out of touch in response to this many guns. My Buddhist action in this context looked like reimagining our previously scheduled camp training to offer a new framework for resisting burnout. Because what does burnout mean when the state’s guns are pointed at you and your camp? Our training on burnout turned toward one on using mindfulness to observe and modulate our reactions (and our reactions to each others reactions!) to state repression, interpersonal conflict, and traumatic events. What happens in a world where we can inoculate ourselves to be more resilient? Where we can identify our rage at state repression and drive it right back to abolish the harmful source -- rather than taking it out on each other?
Image:
Dawn wears a BPF t-shirt and holds a printed sign saying "D.A. O'MALLEY: WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?" Graphic text on image says, "End the War on Black Lives; Faith Stands with the #BlackFriday14; #DropTheCharges; Dawn Haney, Co-Director, Buddhist Peace Fellowship
I’m excited to keep building on all the brilliance and lessons of Buddhist Peace Fellowship in my next adventures:
I’m still teaching at the intersections of Buddhism + social justice, like the recent Surviving & Thriving at the End of Capitalism: Embodying Regenerative Economies, at East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland, California; and a recent retreat on Facing Racism and White Privilege at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. I’m glad to share my experience as someone who continues to learn and live at these intersections.
I’m organizing with Fat Rose, a growing international team of fat people, building a more radical Fat Liberation movement in strong relationship with other social movements. Our recent San Francisco action was No Body is Disposable!Fat & Disability Communities Unite to CLOSE the Camps! on August 28 (with sibling actions popping up in Seattle, New York, Indiana, and online). As a co-instigator of this fledgling project, I’m excited to bring my training as a national organizer who leads and makes space for people to move into leadership next to me.
I’m writing about interdependence, political identity and egolessness, and reconditioning our heartminds. When I saw beloved elder and mentor Joanna Macy last month, she asked if I will be writing a book. I said, "Maybe!" and she responded, "I hope so!" I hope to find the right channels to share a more in-depth analysis of what 8 years of Buddhist action has taught me, grounded in the teachings of Joanna, Mushim Ikeda, Lama Rod Owens, Larry Yang, Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, Ruth King, and so, so many beloved BPFers.
I’d love to stay in touch, especially if you’d like to hear about these next adventures! >>>You can let me know here if you’d like to stay connected.<<<
I’m also now reachable at dawn@thechangemidwife.com
With gratitude for all we have done together,
and for all that will continue to flourish in this organization of Buddhists and activists,
Dawn Haney,
Outgoing Co-Director
Buddhist Peace Fellowship