communicating the Dharma in the Triratna Buddhist Community
Life is no “brief candle� to me it is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations
George Bernard Shaw discussing Macbeth Brighton 1907
Summer 2011
Lighting the Flame
Improve your centre publicity Do let the key people involved in your centre’s publicity know about this event. It’s a rare opportunity to learn from Dhammarati's considerable experience in visual communication. This will be held at Madhyamaloka, 30 Chantry Road, Birmingham on Saturday 8th October 2011 from 10.00am to 5.00pm: a day exploring how to make your design look and work better. Bring along a sample of your work for discussion. Learn from other designers in the movement how your work could improve. No booking fee. Donations welcome on the day. For further information and to book, please email jnanarakshita[at]triratnadevelopment.org For those who are unable to attend on 8th October, we’ve put together a guide with some advice about producing publicity online and on paper. A bullet-point summary is printed inside the back cover of this newsletter.
The full version of the guide to producing publicity can be downloaded from triratna-centre-support.org/lightingtheflame/summer-2011
Dharma Training Course for mitras We get a lot of feedback about how good this course is, and what a difference it has made. There will also be improvements and revisions that we'll want to make over time. We had this in mind as the course was rolled-out, and a review process was also put in place. There is a forum where mitra group leaders can post comments and suggestions about the different modules of the course. Then, once the course has been in use for a few years and been properly tested, we'll undertake a substantial review. We are therefore really keen to collect your perceptions of
leading the course as you go along, when the experience is fresh in your mind. To join the forum, contact vajrashura[at]gmail.com who will issue you with a password and link. It is very easy to use and feedback will allow us to make revisions and improvements when the time comes. If you have bigger comments and concerns, or if you are one of the course designers and want to make changes to your module, then please contact vajragupta[at]triratnadevelopment.org
Life with Full Attention mindfulness course Most of you will know Maitreyabandhu's book Life With Full Attention. We wanted to promote its use in your teaching at Centres, particularly using the book to run courses for complete newcomers.
Maitreyabandhu has now run three such introductory courses at the LBC, there have been similar courses elsewhere (e.g. Stockholm). They tend to be fully booked and to be very effective at introducing people to Buddhist practice. Why?
Firstly, the very idea of ‘life with full attention’ is positive, attractive, and speaks to the wider society’s current interest in mindfulness. Secondly, Maitreyabandhu has found the course a more effective way to get people meditating, than a ‘typical’ introduction to meditation course. This is because Life With Full Attention teaches day-to-day mindfulness first. As he explains: "A lot of people on the courses could do the breathing space, or mindful moment, or walking meditation, but found sitting meditation difficult. But at least they could do something. We weren't teaching them only one thing which they found very difficult to do." The course is structured so that it starts with mindfulness, and then deepens into meditation. Sitting meditation only comes in week three, by which time people have more context in which to understand what they are doing in meditation. The course (with its practice diaries, daily suggestions for how to meditate, etc.) also gives a higher level of support, all designed to
counter the tendency for people to think: "I never get to count up to ten, so that means I can't meditate". Another aim of the book and the course for Maitreyabandhu was to bring together Sangharakshita's teaching on mindfulness and some of the techniques and teaching of the mindfulness-based cognitive therapy world (MBCT). "I wanted to honour the breadth of Bhante's approach, but bring in my experience of teaching MBCT. Bhante emphasises breadth – awareness of environment, art, reality, and the ethical dimension to mindfulness. The MBCT world has some intelligent, specific, techniques and applications of mindfulness." Maitreyabandhu has kindly made his teachers’ notes available. The notes provide guidance on how to run the course and make best use of the book, since there is more in the book than can be taught in a weekly class. (see overleaf for details)
Lighting the Flame
Summer 2011
Buddhism and the big questions in Manchester At the time of writing, Manchester's Buddhist Centre is half-way through a series of talks on Buddhism and the Big Questions. They've had up to 70 people attend each talk, with the series generating a definite buzz. Suryaka, who organised the series, explains how it works: "I wanted to see something more happen at the weekends, and get some new energy flowing around the centre. Getting the speakers wasn't that hard… I was amazed to have so many quick and positive replies from those I asked. The Saturday 2-3pm slot works well; lots of the regular sangha have come as well as new people. “I've seen it as a sangha project; asking folk to put up posters/flyers in local libraries and cafes, and also having a team of folk who set up the room, make tea, and welcome people. As we've gone along things have just developed. We now laminate lots of posters to tie to the railings outside the centre about 2-3 weeks before the talk.
“I just try to make folk very welcome, and create a very relaxed, informal atmosphere. I think there is an art to giving a good public talk. Having experienced speakers and Dharma teachers has made a big difference. The audience need to feel engaged with, not lots of new terms, but language that they can understand and relate to and something new to their ears too! I want people to get an experience of something new or something being stirred in them. I have seen that happen and it has happened to me too!" Speakers and topics have included Ratnaguna on Stop buying stuff and learn how to be happy instead, Kavyasiddhi on All in this together — is it time for a Buddhist economics?, Mahasraddha on Searching for truth: accelerators, telescopes and Buddhism, Vidyamala on Can Buddhism survive and thrive in a consumerist, materialist world?, and more. Still to come are talks on Buddhism and sexuality, climate change, and the entertainments industry.
Life with Full Attention course materials * Maitreyabandhu’s course notes can be downloaded from triratna-centre-support.org/lightingtheflame/summer-2011 * The book is available from Windhorse Publications. All royalties go to the LBC.
* Maitreyabandhu's talks for the course are available from www.lbc.org.uk/talks2.htm (You'll probably prefer to give your own presentations, these are mainly for reference.)
* A sample poster for an introductory Life With Full Attention course is available from www.triratnadevelopment.org/quote/publicity
Bullet-point guide to designing publicity * Clarify your vision, identify your target audience, then get into practical design details (in that order). Vision * Are you communicating your vision fully? Be sure to give out the message “this centre bases itself on the Buddha's Dharma; the other things that happen here are peripheral or supportive” (not the other way around). * Check to see if Dharma activities (rather than yoga, t'ai chi, alternative therapies, NVC activities, MBSR courses, etc) are what are most dominant and immediately obvious on your notice boards, programmes, website, etc. * Remember to mention the aspect of the Dharma that is attempting to transform society and to make the world a better place. * Think about what your choice of images communicates – what will they say to the people looking at them? Is what they evoke congruent with the spiritual qualities you hope they will inspire? Are they bold and daring, or safe and tame? Over-the-top or out of balance?
Audience * Will the images you choose appeal to the audience you want to attract? * Think about what attracts people (including younger people) who are looking for something heroic, dynamic, challenging or radical. * Try using words like courageous, selfless, resilient, fearless, confident (and images that communicate those qualities). * The three most common ways people get to know about Triratna activities are internet, word of mouth, and centres having a fairly visible 'on-street' presence (in that order). Spending lots of money on flyers may not be that effective.
Design * Don't be afraid to keep it simple. Remember the poster that simply showed an egg, along with the caption: “Break out – meditate”? * The more bland and generic an image is, the more people are likely to ignore it. As much as possible, use real images of real situations and real people in your locality. * Work with the main lines of the composition of an image and use them to inform your choice of where to add text. * Respect the spaces. Don't overcrowd them with too much text. * Aim to use a maximum of two fonts in a maximum of three point sizes, or even better, just two of the same font family. * Check out the sample posters, web images and flyers at www.triratnadevelopment.org/quote/publicity
communicating the Dharma in the Triratna Buddhist Community
Summer 2011
Lighting the Flame Subscribe A very warm welcome to the first edition of Lighting the Flame, a new resource for vibrant and effective communication about the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. We aim to stimulate, inspire, and share ideas and developments in how Triratna projects go about publicity, teaching, sangha building, communicating our ‘path of practice’, and so on.
Produced by the Triratna Development Team, and coming out twice a year, this newsletter will contain brief articles with links to where you can find out more. We're open to contributions from you. If you'd like to subscribe and receive each issue by e-mail, please contact jnanarakshita[at]triratnadevelopment.org
Kula for fundraisers relaunched! Sue Sušnik, our Development Team Fundraising Strategist, has been rekindling the embers of the Fundraisers' Kula. If you're involved in fundraising, or just want to know how to communicate more effectively about money, dana and fundraising appeals, you can join the kula's Google group where we share ideas,experience, projects and progress.
If you have a Google account already, click on ‘Sign in and apply for membership’. Otherwise register with Google and then join the group. You can contact Sue directly at sue[at]triratnadevelopment.org
To join in, simply go to https://groups.google.com/group/triratna-fundraisers
How do you talk about dana? Sue has also been looking into how European Centres talk about dana on their websites. (An implication being that they quite probably talk about it in a similar vein on notice boards and during class announcements etc.) She found that many Centres' requests for financial support are rather boring, pitched as for ‘covering running costs’, rather than inspiring messages like ‘making the Dharma available to more people’. A lot of the websites make references to dana economy or the principle of generosity, but without explaining what that means, or giving a bigger context. But Sue says: "Nottingham's text seems exemplary in this respect, conveying the higher dimension of the priceless nature of
the teachings." The Centre offers something that is priceless - the teachings of the Buddha - which should not be bought or sold. So rather than charge for classes, we give them freely, asking only for donations. Our aim is to inspire a culture of generosity that will pervade the community. Through giving we learn to transcend ourselves and respond to the needs of others. If you value what is offered, you will hopefully be inspired to help us to offer that gift to others. Nottingham centre website, 04/2011 What we've written up here is just a taster. Sue's report looks into a whole range of issues in connection with how to pitch the dana economy.
For the full report, go to triratna-centre-support.org/lightingtheflame/summer-2011