I've been involved in preparing these meetings in Dzamlinggar. Therefore it probably makes sense that I step in and provide some information here, to limit space for misinterpretation and false assumptions. For better clarity, I'll try to stick to facts and avoid my own interpretations as much as I can.
Vasana wrote:I wanted to highlight this initiative led by the Blue Gakyil of Dzmaling Gar.
This initiative has been led by people of Dzamlinggar but not exactly by the Gakyil. Some people who help prepare these meetings are members of the Gakyil, but most are not. This is just to highlight that this has developed not as a top-down initiative, but a bottom-up one. Like many other projects and initiatives that have been happening in Dzamlinggar during the last 2 years. Having said that, the Gakyil of Dzamlinggar supports the "Sangha Solutions" initiative, participates in these meetings, and uses the outcomes of the meetings in their (Gakyil's) decisions and planning.
Vasana wrote: If you are on the mail-list for Dzamling Gar, you may have received an email today (8th Feb 23) explaining how to vote for the next topic to be collaboratively discussed.
The information about the poll to choose the topic was distributed through the following communication channels: Dzamlinggar whatsapp chats, Dzamlinggar Facebook group, Dzamlinggar mailing list, Norbunet. This was the second step of choosing the topic. The first one was an open survey sent several weeks ago through the same channels where everyone could suggest their topic to be inluded in the poll.
This would be the fourth "Sangha Solutions" meeting in Dzamlinggar, the first three were run in 2022. The information about those past meetings was communicated through the same channels I mentioned above. Although maybe in some cases Norbunet wasn't used when the topics were more of local concern.
dharmafootsteps wrote:This is primarily a Dzamling Gar thing. For people who don't live there, regularly visit or have some special interest in DzG for some reason, most of the meetings probably aren't of much interest.
Most of the meetings are indeed primarily a Dzamlinggar thing. But not all of them. Among the three meetings we had last year, two were of local concern, and one was not. Among the 10 options listed for voting to choose the next topic, 7 are of local concern, and 3 are not.
It is possible to attend the meetings both offline and online. During the last meeting, for example, there were ~40 people on-site, and ~50 connections online. Out of those, 30+ people used the opportunity to share their thoughts by speaking or by sending their thoughts in a written form. The rest were simply listening, but everyone who wanted to speak was able to do so.
Vasana wrote:I get the impression that Sangha solutions is not widely known in the DC.
There are several reasons for that:
1. From the beginning, the goal of this format of meetings was to fill the gap in communication in Dzamlinggar. So our target audience were mostly people that have some interest in the life of Dzamlinggar.
2. This whole initiative is an experiment in action, and we've only started not so long time ago. We're constanly learning from past meetings and from the feedback we get from participants. If this format proves to be successfull (so far, the feedback is very positive), and if other Gars/Lings/individual members are interested to collaborate with us on this, we will be more than happy to do that. Probably, sometimes "to collaborate" will mean to share our experience so that other Gars/Lings can do something similar in their communities. And maybe sometimes it might mean that we invite other Gars/Lings to participate in one big meeting.
3. One of the main reasons why we don't try to scale up these meetings (at least not yet) is that we don't know yet how to manage them in a way that we provide everyone an opportunity to participate actively (not only by listening), and at the same time we can end the meeting in 2-3 hours. It is possible when we have <100 participants and 30-40 of them take the mic to speak. But how to do that if we have 2-5-10 times more participants, and half of them won't speak English? That's still an open question for us. Maybe at some point we come up with a solution.
Vasana wrote:Other than Sangha solutions approach - has anyone seen any better ideas for encouraging a platform for international collaboration and discussion?
In fact, one of the options in the poll is
International collaboration - to discuss the possibilities we have for that, what we can do, how we can grow our connections from different parts of the world. Based on the results of the voting so far, it's 4th most popular topic (37% of participants voted for it). So it's highly likely that one of the Sangha Solutions meetings along the summer will be dedicated to that.
Virgo wrote: Note that the name is "Sangha Solutions", not "Dzogchen Community Solutions" because the only solution for the DC overall is what I pointed out above.
The name is also an experiment. "Sangha solutions" sounded good enough, but we're open to change the name at some point if there is a better alternative.
Vasana wrote:(I won't share publically, because I don't know if the material is public, or meant for Dzamling Gar subscribers or DC members only)
The materials we share are surely not public. Some of them might contain sensitive information, such as personal details or information on some sensitive topics. We ask everyone not to share the links to the materials in public spaces like this forum. In case of doubt, you can always reach out to us via
[email protected]
treehuggingoctopus wrote:DC members need to be told about the initative, if it is serious. I had been convinced (and had done my research) that they are strictly offline. It turns out they are not. That said, if they are to make sense, they have to have some actual agency. I mean, talking that leads nowhere, or nowhere in particular, is a waste of time. How can the results of such meetings impact the DC policies? I am not being rhetorical here: I see no information about it whatsoever. Does what is agreed upon in their course have any effective power, or is it just mere talk?
Honestly, it's not easy to stick to facts replying to a comment written in such tone. But I'll try. Above, I've already explained how this initiative is related to Dzamlinggar versus larger DC, and what is our thinking process behind going more in the direction of larger DC.
To assist everyone interested in doing their research about Sangha Solutions, we had prepared extensive documentation that we've been sharing, I believe, in every our communication. Particularly, the email about the voting contains "
Click on the link if you would like to learn more about the Sangha Solution Meetings.". I don't put the link to the document here for the reason I stated above. That document which is called "Sangha Solutions overview" explains our general approach and contains links to other relevant documents - reports of the past meetings, feedback from the participants, results of past surveys, etc. That documentation might answer all/most/some of your questions.
And in case it doesn't answer some of them, you can always ask by writing to
[email protected]. To make sure that people know about this option, in every our communication we add something like this: "
If you have any questions or suggestions, please let us know via [email protected]"
You can also join one of the next meetings to get a better sense of what they are.