Season of Gratitude: Tania Triana
We invite you to join in our Season of Gratitude at EBMC! As we close out 2019 we are sharing stories from our Sangha about how EBMC has positively impacted them and asking our Sangha to collectively raise $25,000 to keep EBMC sustainable and accessible for the benefit of so many.
We are tremendously grateful to a generous Sangha member who has given a matching grant and so all gifts to EBMC between now and the end of the year will be matched dollar to dollar, up to $10,000! Please support the center today at the highest level you can and help us meet our end of year goal!
From Tania:
When I arrived at the East Bay Meditation Center (EBMC) years ago, I was in a place of profound grief and loss. A succession of endings that I experienced as failures had hung over me for years. Though surrounded by hundreds of people daily, I felt lonely. Community seemed like a distant notion, though I longed for it, especially with queer folk and people of color. When an advisor suggested attending a practice group as an antidote to loneliness, I was skeptical. I had skewed ideas about meditation and the dharma because of the ways I had seen it appropriated and it didn’t seem like the place for me. But spirit is wiser than consciousness. I went. After kind, brown faces welcomed me to the POC practice group, I settled into my seat.
I had no idea then that I would come to find my spiritual home here, inspired by the compassion, resilience, and solidarity of our Sangha. Since my first visit to EBMC, I was moved by its commitment to access and social justice, from the agreements for multicultural interactions, to access-focused class registration policies, and the “all or none” philosophy that informs the scent-free commitment and microphone directives. I am reminded of Dr. Cornel West’s statement that “justice is what love looks like in public.” EBMC makes visible how fierce our compassion can be when we act on the knowledge that our liberations are bound up with one another.
EBMC has grounded me during my toughest times and shown me what generosity, radical inclusivity, and beloved community truly look like. Since my first visit five years ago, the beloved community at EBMC has inspired deep healing, insight, and compassion in my own life. I now serve on the Leadership Sangha to help sustain this special place of refuge and transformative practice that our world so needs right now. I am grateful to have found a home here, where liberation practice and spiritual community are one.
With metta,
Tania Triana
