Clear View Project is happy to accept financial donations. Your generosity directly aids our work: supporting those in need and covering our modest overhead.
Your financial donation to Clear View Project is tax deductible to the full extent of the law. Clear View is a fiscally sponsored project of Buddhist Peace Fellowship, a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization. Checks can be written to Clear View Project and mailed to the address below. We also appreciate donations of airline mileage and other gifts in kind. For more information on donating to Clear View, feel free to contact us at:
Clear View Project 1933 Russell Street,Berkeley CA,US,94703 Call:510-845-2215 Email:alan@clearviewproject.org
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AUTUMN 2010 FUNDRAISING LETTER
14 November 2010
Dear Friends,
We celebrate the release of Daw Aung Suu Kyi, and wait with both hope and anxiety for what will unfold next in Burma.
Clear View Project, born in the aftermath of Burma’s 2007 Saffron Revolution, is now completing our third year of work in the world. We are excited to share with you our accomplishments in this past year, and we ask for your sustained support so that we can continue our work in engaged Buddhism, both in the U.S. and in Asia. This has been only possible with your generosity and support. And with your support we will continue the quiet but necessary work we are doing in Asia and in the U.S. We need your help.
We have accomplished a lot this year.
Burma • Following Aung San Suu Kyi's release from 7½ years of house arrest, Alan drafted a blog piece for Shambhala Sun’s “Sun Space,” commenting on the release and our continuing responsibility to work for the release of all political prisoners, and freedom for Burma. This blog was reprinted widely inside Burma and the U.S. • On November 1, collaborating with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach, Clear View organized a letter from more than a hundred Western Buddhist teachers to President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton urging the U.S. to repudiate Burma’s sham elections and hold the junta responsible for grievous human rights violations. • Late last winter we organized a nonviolence training for Burmese monks on the Thai-Burma border. • In partnership with the International Burmese Monks Organization (IBMO) and the All Burma Monk Alliance, Margaret Howe and Alan have a training scheduled next month in New York for exiled monks dedicated to create strategies and events here in the U.S. in support of Burmese Democracy. • Our Adopt a Monk from the Saffron Revolution program continues to write letters and send funds in support of more than 300 monks and nuns in Burma’s prisons and in exile throughout the world. • Clear View works closely with exiled Burmese monks from different groupings inside the U.S. and in Asia. We support their efforts to raise awareness for Burma. As the only Buddhist-based organization in the U.S. directly working on Burma, we have sponsored appearances and speaking tours by activist monks teaching the dharma of social action. Their example continues to inspire people wherever they go.
India • Last March, after several years of discussion, Alan was able to visit the “ex-untouchable” Buddhists in India, followers of the great Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s liberation movement. Working with close friends in India’s Trailokya BauddhaBuddha Mahasangha Sahayaka Gana (TBMSG) Alan had an inspiring opportunity to witness, lecture, and teach in Mumbai, Pune, and at Nagaloka, their remarkable training center in Nagpur. He was deeply moved by their excellent work building community, developing resources, and practicing Dharma. • We have made a commitment to continue this work. Alan plans to go to teach at Nagaloka each winter, working with the young people there on the practice of engaged Buddhism. Clear View is also raising funds for direct support to students at Nagaloka. It costs roughly $300 for each student’s 10-month training . They return to their villages and towns as dharma teachers and community organizers, tied in to a national network of Buddhist activists. • Also, this coming in March, 2011, INEB’s Think Sangha, a diverse and intimate group of Buddhist social analysts — including David Loy, Santikaro, Anachalee Kurutach, Mangesh Dahiwale, Ouyporn Khuanchaew, Jon Watts, Alan, and others — are going to India to investigate, reflect, and write about the experience and vision of engaged Buddhist community. Community is essential for a sustainable movement. With Indian examples in mind, we hope we can deepen the work of engaged Buddhist community in own home countries and social environments. The U.S. • In late October, partnering with Buddhist Peace Fellowship and the Faithful Fools Street Ministry, Clear View co-sponsored “Working For Liberation,” the first in a semi-annual series of innovative retreats for activists that brings together local, engaged Buddhists and others together for mutual support, strategy sessions, and action. Along with vivid conversation, we had a day-long street retreat in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District and a “sit-in” against the repressive Prop L, a ballot initiative banning poor and homeless people from sitting or lying down on the sidewalk. • Clear View Project continues as the sponsoring organization for a meditation group at FCI-Dublin, a federal prison for women forty minutes from Berkeley. For thirteen years Alan has coordinated and been part of a team that meets weekly with a highly-diverse group of twenty-five women in the prison. With our help, we have seen lives change inside and outside the prison bars. • In August, at the Symposium for Western Socially Engaged Buddhism at Bernie Glassman’s Montague Peacemaker House, Alan was honored as a “pioneer” of engaged Buddhism in the U.S along with Joan Halifax, Paula Green, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Frank Ostaseski, and Peter Matthiessen. It was wonderful to receive this recognition, though a bit embarrassing in a room that was full of pioneers, people whose lives are dedicated to dharma and social change.
The Bodhisattva’s Embrace We are pleased to announce that Alan's new book of essays — The Bodhisattva’s Embrace: Dispatches From Engaged Buddhism’s Front Lines — has just been published by Clear View Press, an imprint Clear View has created for engaged Buddhist books by a variety of authors committed to social liberation. Joanna Macy says this about the book: For friends and followers of the Dharma, this collection illumines the promise of our practice and its relevance to our world today. Shorn of sentimentality and electric with caring, Alan Senauke is a trustworthy guide. His essays serve me both as reports from the field and inspirational reading.
You can purchase a copy for $15 (plus postage) from the home page Clear View website or from Amazon.com. We will gladly send a signed copy to any donor who sends Clear View a donation of $200 or more.
What We Need Please help us continue our work, which . has been only possible with your generosity and support. Our overhead and administrative costs are minimal. Our commitment to give to and work for those who are most oppressed at home and around the world…that commitment is limited only by our resources, time, and abilities.
Please put a check in the mail today, or click on the Paypal Donation button above. We are, of course, also able to accept gifts of stock or designated program funds from foundations. We can help you work out the details.
We are deeply grateful for your friendship. Let us know if you have any suggestions or questions. Stay in touch.
Warmly, in peace, Hozan Alan Senauke
Clear View Project is affiliated with and fiscally sponsored
by Buddhist Peace Fellowship, a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization. Your donations to Clear View Project are tax deductible to the full extent of the law.