Starving for meaning in New York

Ashley Wells, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly; Bhikkhu Bodhi (Buddhist Global Relief)

New York City: Reaching Youth Starved for Meaning (buddhistglobalrelief)

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Bhante

The Reciprocity Foundation was established in 2006 to address the plight of homeless youth in New York City.

 

[Two years ago] in 2012, when they found that the homeless students were arriving hungry and unable to focus, the RF team started a vegetarian meal program  called “Starved for Meaning.” 

 

We won't stand for sexism, racism (FEMEN)

Meals, prepared collectively and served “family-style,” with a moment of gratitude before the meal, fulfilled the students’ hunger for community, dialogue, and meaning.

 

Last year, with the help of Buddhist Global Relief funds, the number of meals doubled and there was an increase in the number of youth coming to the center for food.

 

Bombarded with propaganda from the NY Times

In a questionnaire about the program, 100 percent of the youth said that their life improved as a result of the meals, they felt a greater sense of belonging, and they felt more optimistic about their life.

[This is June 2014 and] over the next year, BGR funding will help the Reciprocity Foundation increase the capacity of the vegetarian meal program for homeless youth in NYC and expand the food program to reach young people living on the streets. This and the next in the Bronx are annually renewable projects:

Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist Global Relief Charity (BuddhistGlobalRelief.wordpress.com)

New York City: Community Garden Plots in the Bronx (Fiscal BGR Projects)

 

Occupy Wall Street (Carolyn Cole/latimes.com)

The Urban Community Food Project (UCFP) was started in 2011 as an initiative of the Urban Rebuilding Initiative. Its mission is to build a sustainable food system throughout New York in order to fight poverty and resultant food insecurity.

 

UCFP’s farms are located in the 16th Congressional District of the US, an area that has the lowest median income and the highest rates of unemployment and [police state mass] incarceration in the nation. UCFP works with at-risk youth, young adults, and formerly incarcerated men in local neighborhoods to convert urban spaces into food production sites. The food grown on these sites is donated to neighborhood food pantries and homeless shelters. The BGR grant will help UCFP fulfill its goals for 2014-15, which include:

1. Developing four inner-city farms that will produce 5,000 pounds of produce for local food pantries and soup kitchens;
2. introducing a new fitness program called “good food and fitness go hand in hand”; and
3. offering regular workshops on sustainability, urban farming, green technology, and civic action.
   

Without a Doubt – It’s Time to Get to Work on Climate Change

Ven. Santussika Bhikkhuni (BGR, March 31, 2014) 

Ayya

The American Association for the Advancement of Science has issued a report to dispel the fog of disinformation about the reality of climate change to impress on us the urgency of taking action. What we need to know is what we can do about it. 

 

One day when I was talking about the importance of taking immediate action on climate change, a good friend of mine said, “I just wish the scientists would get together and tell us whether they think climate change is happening.”

 

Well, my friend, there is a paper I want you to see. More

 

Our Quest for Meaning

Bhikkhu Bodhi (accesstoinsight.org); Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

The stupas of Pagan, Burma, the ancient "City of Pagodas" (Platongkohphoto/flickr)

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You hungry for meaning? Eat Chinese food!

However much the modern world may pride itself on its triumphs over the foolishness of the past, the progress we credit ourselves with has been bought at a steep price.

The price is so steep that it throws into question the worth of our achievements. This price has been the shared conviction we've lost that our lives are endowed with any ultimate meaning.

Even though in earlier ages humans lived in a space populated largely by figments of the collective imagination, they could still claim a precious asset we sorely lack: a firm belief that their everyday lives had enduring significance stemming from a transcendent goal.
 

"NYPD is a layoff away from joining us!"

Present-day attitudes -- molded by scientific reductionism and technocratic audacity -- have combined forces to sweep away from our minds even the faint suspicion that our lives may possess any deeper meaning than material prosperity and techie innovations.

For many people today the consequence of this militancy is a pervasive sense of meaninglessness. Cut loose from our living spiritual traditions, we drift on a sea of confusion where all values seem arbitrary and relative. We float aimlessly along the waves without any supreme purpose to serve as the polestar for our ideals or inspiration for our thoughts and actions.
 

When in the Bronx, go back to Nature!

Nature does not tolerate a vacuum, and humankind does not tolerate a loss of meaning. So to escape the plunge into the abyss of meaninglessness, we grasp after distractions.
 
We pursue pleasure and power, wealth and status, surround ourselves with contraptions, invest our hopes in emotional relationships that only conceal our own inner poverty.
 
At the same time as we become absorbed in distractions to cope with our psychological void, we stifle a deeper and more insistent need -- the longing for a peace and freedom that does not depend on externals.
 
The Buddha's solution

Calm and insight bring inner-light (flickr.com)

One of the great blessings of the Buddha's teaching is the remedy it can offer for the problem of meaninglessness so widespread in human life today.
 
The Dharma can serve as a source of meaning because it provides us with the two requisites of a meaningful life -- an ultimate goal in life and a clearcut and flexible set of instructions to advance toward that goal from wherever we are now [even if it's in Jay Z and Alicia Keys' overcrowded, concrete megalopolis of New York City]. More