DJATD 2025-6 Welcome

Laura relaxing in Mountain Brook pose.

Welcome to Disability Justice and the Dharma!

I’m honored you are planning to participate in this first offering of Sangha Is All. Because community is the entire spiritual life (just quoting Shakyamuni Buddha), I’m offering this space to help us be together as we prepare to practice together starting September 7, 2025. How do we cultivate community when we are not in the same physical space? I don’t pretend to know some sort of magic answer. At the same time, I’d like to suggest that we do what we can and that, as long as we show up, participate, and share with authenticity, awareness, and love, doing what we can is a step toward creating what we need.

This interactive blog space is cultivated just for Disability Justice and the Dharma participants. Also, please be aware, this is not really a private blog. While I am not linking these posts to navigation in the Sangha Is All website and only participants of Disability Justice and the Dharma will have the link, this content exists on the internet and is searchable/discoverable. At this time, I do not have resources to make a more private forum available to us. I am encouraging you to be as open and authentic as you feel is right for you under these circumstances. Please use this space to share thoughts, questions, and needs at any time and to reflect upon your learnings and wonderings as we evolve together throughout this offering.

Both before DJATD starts and at any time during our time together, please tend to your needs. All DJAT events will offer closed captioning and participants are requested to go off camera if activity that might cause disorientation in others is present in you or your environment. If you have specific access needs, please contact me directly at laura@SanghaIsAll.org so we can work on meeting them together.

Before you arrive and throughout our time together, consider how you are best served. Should you be on or off camera; stand up, lay down or be in some other position; or have something soothing to drink on hand? Gather blankets, cushions, or other supports you may want to call upon during our time together, including writing or drawing implements and media, markers, crayons, or paints to set out your reflections on what you are experiencing if do that that serves you. My favorite position to receive guided meditation in is a restorative yoga pose called Mountain Brook (see image above) and I invite you to explore and use the posture(s) that best support you. Please know that you are welcome to leave the offering early or leave and come back. All DJATD sessions will be recorded so you can experience or re-experience them later.

Please listen and attend to your needs as they arise, knowing that by attending to your needs, you are attending to the needs of all.

And again, WELCOME! I am looking forward to being with each and everyone of you!