Meeting Minutes from Jan 8, 2009 at Hsi Lai Temple

Thank you to all who have made time to brainstorm on what we are going to do for 2009.

It was a very fruitful session.

In summary, please allow me to share with everyone the outcome of our meeting.

We agreed that we will now start to bring Humanistic Buddhism and Chinese Buddhism/culture into the community.

Perhaps the first thing we should do is to get to know and to find out the needs of the community.

Activities that we may plan for include starting a blog site, speaking engagements, working with other societies, and organizing events.

We have also agreed that we will not engage in any political or commercial undertakings.

In terms of speaking arrangements, we can work with interfaith groups, vegetarian restaurants, public libraries, and college campuses.

In terms of working with other societies, we spoke about Sierra Club and other interfaith associations.

We may also “expose” ourselves by taking public transportation, or organizing “Taste of China” booths.

Even a group of monastics and laity (with some uniform attire) cleaning the beach may be a photo and speaking opportunity.

As you can tell, there was no dearth of ideas and enthusiasm in terms of what we can do.

The next step is to start a blog site – Alex Amies has kindly volunteered his service.

I understand that there are some Fo Guang Shan guidelines – can Venerable Jue Huang please assist to enlighten us?

Bill Cunningham has volunteered to help with writing up some publicity materials for our group.

We have also lined up a schedule of responsible parties for the upcoming months:

February: Jacky (visit Sri Lankan temple – meditation practice and discussion/exchange)

March: Jue Wei (participate in interfaith session)

April: Jue Ji (outing to Arizona)

May: Alex

June: Bill

July: Chuan Jue

August: Wanjia

If you can volunteer to organize something for the months of September ~ December, please let Jacky or me know.

I believe that we are on to something meaningful and enterprising …

do keep the first Friday evening or Saturday day of each month reserved for us!

Please find attached an application form for presentation of your experience and practice of the Dharma.

What an opportuned start to our outreach program! I look forward to your participation.

With Metta,

Jue Wei