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Insight Newsletter Spoke with Him About His Life, and His Unique Perspective of the Organization

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Insight Newsletter Spoke with Him About His Life, and His Unique Perspective of the Organization INSIGHT NEWSLETTER SPRING SUMMER 2003 Cultivating Courage IMS Schedules: How does a peace-loving person find the inspiration to face the future? The Retreat Center 2003 What we need to do right here and right now is work to retain our faith. We can The Forest Refuge 2003/04 do this, no matter what our religious orientation, or lack of one, by remembering that everything is changing all of the time. Once we see the inherent change in our BCBS 2003 experience, we see that we are not trapped, that we can have options. Then faith Course Schedule Outline can arise. Interview And it is a vitality of faith that tells us, however easy it is to forget or be afraid, that the time for communicating, for loving, for risking, for trying, has got to be now. IMS News and Developments Excerpted from an op-ed piece written for msnbc.com by Sharon Salzberg, IMS co-founder and guiding teacher. To read more of the article, on achieving peace in a dangerous world, visit our website www.dharma.org. In this Issue Interview with Edwin Kelley . .2 News Worth Noting – IMS Developments . .5 Forest Refuge Update and 2003/2004 Teacher Schedule . .9 The Retreat Center – 2003 Schedule and Information . .12 BCBS – 2003 Course Outline and Information . .18 Book Review . .19 - Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha THE NEWSLETTER OF THE INSIGHT MEDITATION SOCIETY LIBBY VIGEON Directing a Dharma Organization An Interview with Edwin Kelley Edwin Kelley has been Executive Director of IMS since 1996. He is soon to leave his position to devote more time to long-term meditation practice. Insight Newsletter spoke with him about his life, and his unique perspective of the organization. Edwin, what led you I reacted by becoming particularly to practice? averse to any form of spiritual practice. I decided to get a ‘normal’ life, and by In 1972, in the middle of my first year 1990 was back in Australia, immersed in Edwin & Myoshin Kelley at university, I had a serious motorcycle a career as an accountant and married to accident. I was knocked unconscious, a wonderful woman – my wife Myoshin. had a bad case of concussion and That year, Myoshin went away to sit a fractured a vertebra. This near death four-day retreat and came home a event, at the age of 18 caused me to different person. Within weeks she was question the meaning of life. I dropped sitting for an entire month with Sayadaw out of university and began traveling U Pandita, a renowned Burmese around Australia, looking for something meditation teacher. I began to notice, more fulfilling. with some curiosity, that her practice INSIGHT was having an amazing effect on her NEWSLETTER After a couple of years of going health and her sense of well-being. wherever the wind blew me, I landed She often invited me to join her but A twice yearly publication of the Insight in Perth on the west coast of Australia. I would decline. Meditation Society, a tax-exempt nonprofit I started reading books by Paul Reps, organization whose purpose is to foster Gurdjieff, Hermann Hesse, Ramana The next year Sayadaw returned to the practice of vipassana (insight) and metta (lovingkindness) meditation, and to Maharshi, Ram Dass, and Paramahansa Australia, and Myoshin suggested that preserve the essential Buddhist teachings Yogananda. One day in 1975, as I I sign up for a 10-day retreat with him, of liberation. washed pots in a restaurant, a woman which I did. A year later another I worked with - whose name I can’t even Burmese master, Sayadaw U Janaka The goal of the practice is the awakening visited Australia, and I sat for two of wisdom and compassion through right remember but to whom I am eternally action and cultivating mindful awareness indebted - suggested that I sit a 10-day weeks. This course had a profound in all aspects of life. vipassana retreat with a teacher named impact. When I went back to my office Robert Hover, a contemporary of after the retreat, I sat down at my desk Editor: Gyano Gibson and gazed at the piles of paper that Cover photo: Libby Vigeon SN Goenka and Ruth Denison. I sat the IMS Buddha Photo: Dawn Close course, and my life has not been the represented each of my clients’ yearly Design: Lux Productions same since. I discovered the prospect tax returns. I was overwhelmed with the of becoming enlightened, of freeing the understanding that my role as an Please address any mind from the stress and worry of life. accountant would never produce true correspondence to IMS, 1230 Pleasant St. satisfaction. That would only come from Barre, MA 01005, USA How did this bring you to IMS? being liberated. Accounting for me has Phone: (978) 355-4378 never been the same since! Fax: (978) 355-6398 After about a decade of living in spiritual Email: [email protected] Website: www.dharma.org communities in Australia, India and the Within six months Myoshin and I US I had become disillusioned with the were in Burma at Chanmyay Yeiktha, PRINTED IN CANADA abuse of spiritual power that I observed. Sayadaw U Janaka’s monastery. Printed on recycled paper using soy-based inks Spring • Summer 2003 INSIGHT I ordained as a monk and we stayed order to attract and retain qualified Then of course there is The Forest for half a year meditating intensively. people, who could ensure that Refuge. From its conception it has This was followed by another five months adequate systems and procedures represented an enormous undertaking. traveling throughout South East Asia, were in place to successfully manage For more than six years we have been visiting different spiritual centers the ever growing and more complex planning and building; now we are including Bodhgaya, where the Buddha organization. entering the new phase of operation. was enlightened. This additional program has impacted us Many people felt that by becoming in many ways - our staff, our budget, our In early 1994 I heard from Steven more professional, IMS was in danger fundraising needs have all increased. Smith, an IMS guiding teacher, that of losing part of its soul. However, that It requires us to be smarter, wiser and there was a job vacancy for the position didn’t happen, primarily because we more skilled in management. I suspect it of Associate Director of Operations. consciously choose to recruit those will be another two or three years before I applied, and after a number of telephone with a strong connection to our IMS has fully integrated the change. interviews I was on my way to the US. mission. We hire people who highly value what we offer and who What role does fundraising What are your primary understand why a place to explore and play for the organization? responsibilities? free the mind is so important in this uncertain world. Yes, we have become Fundraising and development are Simply put I am responsible for more professional, but without losing critical parts of any nonprofit everything at IMS! Fortunately our soul. organization. Currently the revenue I have a lot of support - an administrative we receive from our programs covers group that supervises the day-to-day When I first arrived, the organization only about 60% of our operating costs. running of the two programs, and a was consciously trying to provide a This means that, in order to balance great team of people in each department community experience for its our budget, we are dependent on the who actually get things done. Together residential staff. Significant time and generosity of our members to give the with the board of directors, I supervise effort was spent on shaping and other 40%. the organization’s strategic planning defining the container that would give and fiscal management. Together with rise to a workable spiritual community. IMS is blessed with a generous the guiding teachers, I organize the But in the end, it always transpired and dedicated group of supporters. annual schedule of programs. I also that ‘community’ meant different I believe this is a direct result of the direct our external operations - our things to different people - what was benefit people derive from the public awareness, development and one person’s ideal did not prove to be meditation practice they learn here, fundraising activities. another’s. This made it hard for the and the impact it has on their lives. institution to meet everybody’s needs. Over the last few years, I have witnessed How has IMS progressed over a fortunate development - observing that the last 7 years? What changes In the end we let go. We decided that meditation is no longer viewed as have you seen or initiated? the key objective for IMS must be to something strange and outlandish; it is provide its retreatants with an now relatively accepted in our society. I have helped bring about some environment most conducive to As a consequence, most of our retreats significant changes during my time practice. For its staff who live on site, have been filled to capacity. as Executive Director, especially in it should provide the necessary the area of organizational maturity. resources - such as instruction and But with the current economic The first and most difficult was the discussion about the teachings, and climate, it is more difficult for nonprofit introduction of salaried staff, to fulfill training in communication skills – so organizations to raise money; IMS is no needed middle management and they are equipped to work and live in exception. The creation of The Forest specialist functions.
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