<![CDATA[Mindfulness and Climate Action: Join us on Oct. 5]]>

This Sunday, October 5, at 12:30 pm U.S. Eastern Time begins the first of our five-part series, “Mindfulness and Climate Action.” We’re so excited to have you there and want to make the most of this rare opportunity. To that end, this email will offer a number of resources and answer some common questions. We have you registered; let’s make sure you’re ready!

Invite Your Sangha and Other Friends

We encourage you to invite others who might be interested to join the calls; it’s not too late and the calls are free to all (with an invitation to donate). Because everyone’s connection to the call must be unique, please invite others to register individually from this page.

A Primer on the Science of and Policy Response to Climate Change

As a community working on these issues in various venues, we’ve found it very helpful to provide a common scientific and policy foundation for conversation. To that end, we are providing the attached primer, which we encourage you to read at least a day or so before the first call (you can also read the document online). This is in no way intended to be the final or full word on the reality of our ecological crisis and policy response, but rather a way to ground our discussions. That said, these conversations will be focused not so much on developing our understanding of these realities as on how the Dharma can inform and support a wise and compassionate response to our current understanding of these realities (one response might be to follow a desire to develop further understanding!).

Connecting to the Conversation

We want everyone who is interested to successfully connect to the conversation. We’ll therefore describe here exactly how to make your connection to each of the calls. We ask you to read it carefully.

To give yourself time to handle any issues, please begin the process of joining the call 15 minutes before the scheduled start. You’ll hear some (hopefully pleasant) music before the call begins.
You will receive a reminder email to the addressed you provided in your registration and from Maestro Conference. This email, like your registration confirmation, contains information specific to your connection to the conversations. So have one of them on hand when you’re ready to connect.
There are two separate steps to joining the call, and it is important that you do them in order.
Begin by making your audio connection.
- For those in the US, this means calling the phone number provided in your reminder emails and then entering your specific PIN, also provided in the emails from Maestro Conference.
- For those outside the US, you have the option of connecting using one of the country-specific numbers or, if you have a good internet connection, using the MCDialer application (Windows or Mac) or Skype (add a contact for and then call “Maestro4294”). For more information and options on connecting from outside the US, please see this guide. Whether you make the audio connection using your phone or the internet, you’ll be entering your specific PIN provided in the emails from Maestro Conference.
Your confirmation and reminder emails also provide a “Screenshare” link that makes your specific connection to the visual connection. Only after you’ve made your audio connection, open up the Screenshare page where you’ll be able to see the teachers as they offer their perspectives, discuss with one another, and address your comments and questions.
At this point, if you hear music and can see our opening image on your computer browser, you should be fully connected to the conversation. Yeah!
If after you’ve made your audio connection, you run into any problems making the visual (Screenshare) connection, press 5 on your phone, Skype or MCDialer keypad (your computer keyboard is not connected to the call).
During the call, the moderator or teachers may ask questions of the sangha in a form similar to a “show of hands.” When this happens, you can respond using your telephone keypad (i.e., pressing a number between 1 and 5). It might be tempting but don’t respond using your computer keyboard as we will not receive your response.

Can’t Make It to a Call?

No worries! It is not necessary for those who register to make all of the calls, and all calls will be recorded. Recordings and other materials will be available on our archive page within a day of each call.

Share Your Questions

These calls are intended to be conversations about how we can apply the teachings of the Dharma to the enormous challenge of climate change. As such, a portion of each call will be devoted to your questions and comments. With so many people registered (more than 1,000 so far), we can’t possibly hear from everyone, so we’ll do our best to get a few questions in during the call. You can send questions by email at questions@1earthsangha.org or tweet it to 1earthsangha with the hashtag #MCA (for “Mindfulness and Climate Action”). We invite you to do this now or anytime up until the last call ends! We’ll get to as many of these questions as we can over the series of five calls.

Our friends at Maestro Conference are generously hosting this series as part of a broader program of “Conversations that Change the World.” Their conference solution will allow all of us to come together and interact online around this topic in a powerful way. We hope this helps you feel ready so let us know if we left anything out.

We look forward to connecting with you and appreciate your loving attention to climate change, to the earth, to one another and to yourself!

In Sangha,

Your Conversation Hosts:

Thanissara – Dharma Teacher and Climate Activist

Lou Leonard – Co-founder, One Earth Sangha

Kristin Barker – Co-founder, One Earth Sangha

Yong Oh – Technical Assistant, Chattanooga Insight

Charlie Rebich – Maestro Conference

Joshua Edwards – Maestro Conference

www.oneearthsangha.org

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