A community conversation featuring prominent Tongva (Kizh, Gabrieleno) tribal members will take place on April 23, 2025, to foster understanding and solidarity with indigenous communities in Altadena, a burned-out community in the foothills of Los Angeles County.
Panel was live streamed, but event is not listed in the Altadena Library Calendar of Events; it will be posted if available.
The “Let’s Talk, Let’s Listen Community Series: Conversation with Tongva Women” event will bring together indigenous leaders to discuss tribal history, land rights, and recovery efforts following the Eaton Fire.
The dialogue is on Wednesday, April 23, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Altadena Library, located at 600 E. Mariposa St. in Altadena. It is free to attend.
The event features two distinguished panelists from the Gabrieleno Tongva San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians, daughter Samantha MJ Yang, an indigenous scientist and cultural preservationist, and mother Kimberly Morales Johnson, tribal secretary and Los Angeles City/County Native American Indian commissioner.
John Williams, executive director of The Center for Restorative Justice (formerly the Center for Racial Reconciliation), moderates the discussion. Williams brings decades of experience creating what he describes as “a soft place for hard conversations” where individuals and communities can explore “the multifaceted and destructive narratives of race and racism within the American context with the hope of authentic reconciliation.” More:
This conversation continues the work of addressing historical injustices while building more equitable futures for indigenous communities in Southern California, particularly in light of recent challenges like the Eaton Fire. More
Altadena Revealed: Reflections of People & Place (#2 The History and Legacy of Altadena's Black Community with speakers Steven McCall, Carrie Chasteen, and Veronica Jones, Friday, April 25, 7:00-9:00 pm, Altadena Main Library, 600 E. Mariposa St., $10 donation requested)
The commune was packed with a very diverse crowd characteristic of Altadena and Pasadena. There was less shade than prior years because the old trees burned during the Eaton Fire. But the main structure (the historic Solvang House) was safe, the grass was green, and the free vegan food line was moving.
Soul Force music was provided by Rhythms of the Village, whose annual Spring Festival is not going to be ruined by the fire even though the store burned down. It will be held on May 24, 2025, on the grounds of Muir High School in Pasadena. Ameca and Onochie kept the rhythm going with many artists on stage, lots of percussion, Alma Cielo on violin, Paul Livingstone on stand-up bass, and a chorus of singers.
Brooke Robbins of the Altadena Pasadena Sierra Madre Community Resource Hub (APS-CRH) was present to build community and get the word out about an important upcoming Public Awareness Presentation on Friday, April 25, 2025, at 5:00 pm by the Erin Brockovich supported lafirejustice.com firm. Then Cielo brought out the guest of honor, Oh Happy Day owner John Hopkins for a round of hugs and a few nice words. Leigh Adams and her rainbow hair made it to the stage then Sam Lau of Plant Based Treaty until the music took over again for jazz improv.
Come celebrate a FREE, family-friendly event with live music, plant-based vegan foods, and speakers honoring vegan restauranteur and Altadena legend John Hopkins of O' Happy Days Vegan Cafe.
ABOUT: Earth Day Altadena with guest of honor: John Hopkins, Oh Happy Day Vegan Cafe, hosted by Soul Force Project, UNA, and Plant Based Treaty with performances by: EarthSeed Band, Baba Onochie, Rhythm of the Village, Paul Livingstone, Alma Cielo: REGISTER (luma)
Dhr. Seven, Kalyana Mitta based on BethUpton.com, Ashley Wells (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly
Buddhist retreats are the way of attainment for modern Americans with no time to ordain and play the role of monastic -- stressing and fussing, trying to follow endless rules and learning a foreign etiquette. One might sign up to many in search of a great and accomplished teacher.
That's no easy feat, to find a suitable teacher, to carve out the time in our busy lives, and to calm down to make the most of it instead of overdoing it and exhausting oneself, ending up only with frustration and confusion as to what was missing from one's practice.
Wisdom Quarterly made it possible to follow in my successful friend's footsteps to apply for a spot with a better teacher, a successful Western student of the Great Asian Teacher, who's not always easy to understand and has a limited number of ways of explaining things.
This Western teacher was able to find endless ways of explaining things, from the Buddha's examples to modern Western examples one could easily relate to.
So the wilderness was the desert in Southern California, springtime with everything in bloom, windy and cool most of the time, dry and flowering.
After I left Asia, I was still a nun in Europe.
The teacher was Londoner Beth Upton (formerly Sayalay Anutara, a ten precept nun in the forests of Burma).
The lesson was "simple but not easy," to balance my sense of urgency with contentment. Why would I want to reduce my urgency? My sense of urgency brings me to my mat. Ah, I learned, but it's my contentment that keeps me there.
Lesson 1: Let your sense of urgency bring you to the mat. Let your contentment keep you there.
The training was gradual. But, Beth, I'm in a hurry! I've only got a short time to make an end of all time, aka, samsara. "Nirvana is already here," I heard my Mahayana friends whispering in my head. It isn't, but it sure is good to see it that way, because then one is able to relax and exhale (let go).
Then the practice became joyful. I didn't know it was supposed to be joyful. "Love my object"? Who ever heard of such a thing. Did the Buddha say that? Show me the sutra. The "naturals" who take to meditation with the ease a fish takes to water or a bird to the sky know this without knowing. They just do it without all that mediation of thought, debate, doubt, skeptical inquiry, or arguing. Of course it's this way.
Lesson 3: Radically accept it. Love it.
I was meditating on my in-and-out breath. I had been for years. It's a drudge. It's work in exchange for liberation; I've been trying to buy my way out with the "penance" of suffering on the mat, the harder the better. This was all wrong. When I learned to love my object, I didn't need to whip and berate the mind (attention) to stay on it. Focus was easy, as if to say effortless. My mind wanted to go there as it got subtler and subtler.
Lesson 4: The meditation object must be an increasingly subtle one, leaving behind the coarser.
There's a sutra (MN 20, "The Removal of Distracting Thoughts") in which the Buddha gives the meditators pursuing the "higher mind" five pieces of advice on letting go of distractions.
Give attention to something what is wholesome to remove unwholesome thoughts.
Examine the danger of unwholesome thoughts (and then the mind naturally pulls away and averts them without extra effort).
Forget those thoughts and don't give any attention to them.
Give attention to stilling the thought-formation of those thoughts.
Constrain those thoughts by force. (DON'T do this except in extreme cases, as when one is about to commit a defeat offense or engage in really bad karma).
It's the fourth piece of advice that is the key here. Who knows what a thought-formation (sankhara) is? It's not important. What's important is the simile the Buddha gives on HOW to do this:
Coarse or subtle?
Perception gets subtler and subtler
"Just as a person walking quickly might consider, 'Why am I walking quickly? What if I walk slowly? ' and one might walk slowly. Then one might consider, 'Why am I walking slowly?' What if I stand?' and one would stand. Then one might consider, 'Why am I standing? What if I sit?' and one would sit. Then one might consider, 'Why am I sitting? What if I lie down?' and one would lie down. By doing so one would SUBSTITUTE for each coarser/grosser posture a subtler one.
"So, too, when a meditator gives attention to stilling the thought-formation of those thoughts...one's mind becomes steadied internally, quieted, brought to singleness [unity, one-pointedness], and stilled [concentrated, unified, made coherent]."
Lesson 5: Go more and more subtle by leaving the coarse behind.
If we listen sooner, we'll get there sooner.
Therefore, if one is trying to forget, ignore, overcome, or not allow to arise thoughts connected with craving, aversion, or delusion, one should give attention to still the thought-formation of those thoughts" in this way. It's great advice.
Let's replace the coarse with the subtle, the efforting with the ease, breathing in with breathing out, all the while paying attention to the subtle thing before us. This is the way of progress because increasingly subtle things will come up on the Path. And that's the desirable thing to have happen, seemingly effortlessly, not by laziness but by BALANCED effort or "right ease."
Lesson 6: Stay with the pointer or, to be exact, what it's pointing at.
Harry Nilson sings, "Me and My Arrow." What's his point? His point is his pointer, his arrow. In this case, I have my experienced teacher who points the way to what she herself has not only learned but personally experienced. She's the initial pointer.
Lesson 7: Stick with it to the final goal (nirvana in this very life) which, if Mahayana is correct, will be right here.
After that, my own nose is the pointer pointing at my meditation object -- my increasingly subtle breath brought on by my increasingly subtle mind able to remain with my object as it calms and slows and becomes almost imperceptible. Then it becomes light (the threefold nimitta). I ignore it, as instructed. It will strengthen and eventually replace my object (the in-and-out breath) with something even more subtle, all while I keep my attention on exactly the same place, that area right under my nose.
Me and My Arrow
Harry Nilson's original song from the animated 1977 film The Point
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