Some Background for ya'll...
The name of this project comes from the Cornel West's quote: "Justice is what love looks like in public..." I turned this quote into a question to hold, explore, and contemplate: What does love in public look like?
As a dharma practitioner, I've spent a great deal of time contemplating love, compassion and liberation. All these things have become much bigger for me than the dictionary definitions we can find of them. Especially love. Love is too often spoken about in a conditioned way because that is too often how it is given. There is a sense that we must earn love, or that love is only possible through familial or romantic ties. But in the Buddhist context, and many spiritual contexts, love is limitless and all-encompassing.
A common phrase in many Buddhist practices is 'all beings'. As in, may all beings be free of suffering. May all beings know happiness and the root of happiness. May all beings dwell in the great equanimity, free from passion, aggression and prejudice.
Reciting such phrases regularly, incorporating them into my daily life, and contemplating the vastness of such aspirations, has had a profound effect on me. What does it truly mean to stretch our hearts so much that we can feel and offer unconditional care, appreciation and support for all beings?
To me, this is at the core of my response to the question of what love looks like in public. Love looks like the skillfull responses that come through me when I am residing in the limitless qualities of compassion, equanimity, and joy for the fortune of others. Love cuts through scarcity mentality to create a culture of abundance. Love interjects the biological myths our culture has taught us, allowing us to see all beings as worthy of love simply for existing, no matter what their embodiment. Love is also the wrathful thing that allows me to draw clear boundaries where I am able to acknowledge the benefit of such a boundary for both myself and the person who is causing harm.
But all this is a little abstract and I really like connecting with folks on a deep, grounded level of how we move through the world and the things we say and do, the choices we make on where to spend our money, and how we cultivate connections with folks we interact with on a daily basis.
I want to invite folks to connect and share with me in this practice of expressing love publicly.
As a dharma practitioner, I've spent a great deal of time contemplating love, compassion and liberation. All these things have become much bigger for me than the dictionary definitions we can find of them. Especially love. Love is too often spoken about in a conditioned way because that is too often how it is given. There is a sense that we must earn love, or that love is only possible through familial or romantic ties. But in the Buddhist context, and many spiritual contexts, love is limitless and all-encompassing.
A common phrase in many Buddhist practices is 'all beings'. As in, may all beings be free of suffering. May all beings know happiness and the root of happiness. May all beings dwell in the great equanimity, free from passion, aggression and prejudice.
Reciting such phrases regularly, incorporating them into my daily life, and contemplating the vastness of such aspirations, has had a profound effect on me. What does it truly mean to stretch our hearts so much that we can feel and offer unconditional care, appreciation and support for all beings?
To me, this is at the core of my response to the question of what love looks like in public. Love looks like the skillfull responses that come through me when I am residing in the limitless qualities of compassion, equanimity, and joy for the fortune of others. Love cuts through scarcity mentality to create a culture of abundance. Love interjects the biological myths our culture has taught us, allowing us to see all beings as worthy of love simply for existing, no matter what their embodiment. Love is also the wrathful thing that allows me to draw clear boundaries where I am able to acknowledge the benefit of such a boundary for both myself and the person who is causing harm.
But all this is a little abstract and I really like connecting with folks on a deep, grounded level of how we move through the world and the things we say and do, the choices we make on where to spend our money, and how we cultivate connections with folks we interact with on a daily basis.
I want to invite folks to connect and share with me in this practice of expressing love publicly.
How to participate
I'm looking for collaborators. I'm looking for folks who are doing or want to be doing things to express love in public. I want to know what love in public looks like for you, in your life, in your world. And I want to document it to help create a culture of abundance, to network and connect amazing folks doing wonderful work, to show how collective work matters and adds up to something a lot bigger.
As a collaborator, I'll send you a package with some fun stuff in it for inspiration and support, as part of creating community with this project. Once you have your package, your part of it will be to meditate on this question and see what you create, set-up or engage in as an expression of love in public. You will have all of 2019 to carry this question with you and make as many contributions as you like.
As a collaborator, I'll send you a package with some fun stuff in it for inspiration and support, as part of creating community with this project. Once you have your package, your part of it will be to meditate on this question and see what you create, set-up or engage in as an expression of love in public. You will have all of 2019 to carry this question with you and make as many contributions as you like.
What's the commitment?
How much time you give to this, how much you engage in, how you choose to express it—that's all up to you! The package I send will have seeds for ideas, but I want folks to run with this and be as creative as they want to be. The only thing I ask is that you express love in public in some way in 2019 and share that with me to share out into the wider world.
How do I become a collaborator?
To participate as a collaborator, subscribe the the mailing list below and tick the 'Being a Love in Public Collaborator' option. I'll be in touch to get your mailing address.
Are there other ways I can participate in this without being a collaborator?
YES!
My part of this project is to create a culture of abundance. I'm giving my time, energy and expertise to this project, as well as carrying out my own contributions for it. This is all in conjunction with the Chaplaincy training I'm embarking on over the next two years, and I'm doing everything I can to make participation in this and my own contributions, accessible. That means keeping costs at a minimum. Leaving me a tip or becoming a patron is one way you can contribute to this work. Funds are used to purchase supplies for offering packs for homeless folk, groceries for collective meal making and distribution, enabling participant from folks who don't have extra funds to spare, renting spaces for workshops so the workshops can be offered for free or on a sliding scale, covering operating costs for all the background tools needed to coordinate this stuff, like a website and web hosting (which is already SUPER inexpensive) and MORE!
You can also sign up with the mailing list below to keep informed about workshops I'm running and community engagement projects you can connect with. I'm looking for folks to volunteer with different groups doing really great work, and to form our own little posse in Seattle, Wa to support one another in homeless outreach work in response to the housing crisis.
You can also help be sharing this with people you know. Send this link to anyone you think would be a great collaborator, or who might be interested in learning more about this, or anyone who you think would be a great connection. And when it comes to the point where I'm sharing the many things folks are doing to express love publicly, share that too! Get it out there--let's show the world what love can do.
My part of this project is to create a culture of abundance. I'm giving my time, energy and expertise to this project, as well as carrying out my own contributions for it. This is all in conjunction with the Chaplaincy training I'm embarking on over the next two years, and I'm doing everything I can to make participation in this and my own contributions, accessible. That means keeping costs at a minimum. Leaving me a tip or becoming a patron is one way you can contribute to this work. Funds are used to purchase supplies for offering packs for homeless folk, groceries for collective meal making and distribution, enabling participant from folks who don't have extra funds to spare, renting spaces for workshops so the workshops can be offered for free or on a sliding scale, covering operating costs for all the background tools needed to coordinate this stuff, like a website and web hosting (which is already SUPER inexpensive) and MORE!
You can also sign up with the mailing list below to keep informed about workshops I'm running and community engagement projects you can connect with. I'm looking for folks to volunteer with different groups doing really great work, and to form our own little posse in Seattle, Wa to support one another in homeless outreach work in response to the housing crisis.
You can also help be sharing this with people you know. Send this link to anyone you think would be a great collaborator, or who might be interested in learning more about this, or anyone who you think would be a great connection. And when it comes to the point where I'm sharing the many things folks are doing to express love publicly, share that too! Get it out there--let's show the world what love can do.
