We talk publicly about our race and gender. But social class? That’s off-limits. Income? That’s private. Family class background? That’s personal. Perhaps we flinch from talking about class because it means admitting our complicity in a crushingly ruthless economic system.

So let’s talk about it. As people on a spiritual path, let’s get this difficult subject out in the open.

Social class in America shapes our identities and affects everything we do -- yet we’re told that we live in a country free of rigid class restrictions. How can people called to lives of ministry and public service navigate issues of class? What are the deep injuries of class in America and how can we heal them? How do we process complicated emotions about class -- pride, guilt, shame, resentment, anger, envy, grief -- that emerge in ourselves and others? How do we connect with our ancestors and their experiences of social class? How do we move past stereotypes of people in particular classes? How are the voices of the underclass and working-class people routinely silenced in dominant media culture? How do experiences of class intersect with and complicate experiences of race and gender? What is it like to live as a member of the underclass, the working class, the vanishing middle class, or the privileged class -- or to live as an outsider, between two worlds of contrasting social classes? In a culture that promotes not only class but rampant secular materialism, how can we create a life of the sacred? Or how do we find our way among conflicting traditions of poverty and wealth in diverse spiritualities? Ultimately, in a society of huge economic disparities, how can we bridge class divisions with open minds, open hearts, and open spirits?

Join us for a day of lively teachings, group discussions, journaling, quiet reflection, and provocative exercises as we explore these questions and more, facilitated by Rev. Steve Kanji Ruhl, an ordained Zen Buddhist minister and author of the award-winning, critically acclaimed memoir Appalachian Zen: Journeys in Search of True Home, from the American Heartland to the Buddha Dharma.

Biography

Rev. Steve Kanji Ruhl, M.Div. grew up in the working-class region of the Appalachian Mountains of central Pennsylvania and is the first person in his family’s seven generations of indentured servants, farmers, soldiers, and factory workers to graduate from college. He now lives in the affluent region around Amherst, Massachusetts. He received his BA in Religious Studies, with high honors, from the Schreyer Honors College of Penn State University, where he did intensive study of Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Islam as well as Buddhism, and also pursued research in Taoism, Goddess spirituality, and Native American spirituality. He received his Master of Divinity degree from Harvard University. An innovative Zen Buddhist minister ordained in the Zen Peacemaker Order, he now teaches independently through his Touch the Earth cyber-sangha, and is a spiritual life adviser at Deerfield Academy, a Buddhist adviser at Yale University, and a faculty member of the Shogaku Zen Institute. He has been a workshop facilitator or guest teacher at the Harvard Center for World Religions, Yale Divinity School, the Omega Center, and elsewhere, and is the author of Appalachian Zen and also of Enlightened Contemporaries: Francis, Dogen, and Rumi: Three Great Mystics of the Thirteenth Century and Why They Matter Today, as well as two books of poems.

www.stevekanjiruhl.com

Aldous Huxley believed that if we look across the world's mystical traditions, we find not only differences of experience but also similarities, including the shared experience of what he called the "unitive knowledge." This is the experience of feeling that one has somehow merged with the Sacred or become one with God or the universe, and Huxley believed the experience is the "highest common factor" of all mystical experience, affording insights into the nature of reality that have definite value for everyday living.

Huxley's enthusiasm for this cross-cultural insight, which occasions a sense that one has an aspect of their being which transcends their individuality, was shared by his friend and student Huston Smith, the renowned scholar of world religions. This enthusiasm was also shared by Alan Watts, Ram Dass, Frances Vaughan, and others, and today it's the primary position of Andrew Harvey, MIrabai Starr, Deepak Chopra, Stanislav Grof, Richard Rohr, Rabbi Rami Shapiro, and many other advocates of the unitive mystical experience.

Known as the Perennial Philosophy, what does Huxley’s insight have to offer spiritual seekers today?

What is the proposed value of having this mystical experience of oneness?

What methods have people used over time to achieve this state?

Is it possible, as all these authors have maintained, to have the unitive mystical experience while under the influence of psychedelic drugs?

What is the history of psychedelic drug use by students and teachers of the Perennial Philosophy?

What questions of spiritual preparation and readiness should we consider in light of the current wave of psychedelic use in psychological, medical and recreational applications?

In this workshop, these and other questions will be answered in the context of lectures, videos, and group discussions.

Biography

Dana Sawyer

Dana Sawyer is professor emeritus of philosophy and world religions at the Maine College of Art & Design and author of biographies of both Aldous Huxley and Huston Smith. His primary expertise is in Hinduism and Buddhism but for more than twenty years, his work has focused on comparative mysticism, theories of the “perennial philosophy,” and the value of psychedelic experiences in the study of mysticism. Most recently, he has published an assessment of Aldous Huxley’s theory of psychedelic mysticism for the Centre of Aldous Huxley Studies (2019) and an essay in the Journal of Humanistic Psychology (2021) on four common errors in scholarly critiques of the perennial philosophy, including assessments of how psychedelic studies may help clarify such issues. His most recent book is an analysis of the Transcendental Meditation Movement for Cambridge University Press (2023).

Facilitated by Pat Cannon - More information to come!

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Meeting ID: 899 0243 2210

Make Shift Coffee House

(NO FEE)

Craig Freshley 

Facilitated by Val Beebe Lovelace