There’s a lovely Pali word, sampiyena, which could be translated as “by means of mutual kindness.”
A beautiful expression of mutual kindness is taking place at Wildmind and transforming what we do here.
For a long time we’ve sustained ourselves by offering online courses by donation. Since there were always good months and bad months, that turned out to be a precarious way to keep the site going. As a result, a lot of energy has been diverted into figuring out how to survive, rather than just getting on with the job of teaching meditation.
So we’re moving to a different model. We’re becoming a community-supported meditation initiative, where people who feel moved to support us give a small sum each month, and we provide spiritual support in return.
Our supporters get access to:
- All of Wildmind’s existing meditation courses (of which there are around 30).
- Access to all of my new meditation courses that are run through Wildmind (there’s a new one in the works).
- An online community where we can discuss our practice
- A monthly newsletter with meditation downloads, and articles that are only for sponsors.
This is a beautiful example of sampiyena because it exemplifies mutual care — supporters taking care of the needs of a Dharma teacher, who is then able to offer guidance to those supporters and others.
Right now, thanks to 400 sponsors, we’re 55% of the way to our goal of being 100% community-supported.
I’d love you to join us! The benefits above are considerable. It’s amazing that for just $6 a month (although you can contribute more if you like) you’ll have ongoing access to all of that meditation teaching and be part of an international community of hundreds of people. But this is what can happen when many people contribute small amounts to a common end.
In the future, membership of the community will be the ONLY way to participate in new courses I develop. Once the remaining shares in our initiative have been sponsored this opportunity may not come again for a while, so I’d suggest acting now.
You can choose any number of shares to sponsor. The average person sponsors two shares. There are no extra benefits (besides good karma) for sponsoring more shares, but that’s an option open to you if you want to show extra appreciation and if you can afford it. I’d certainly be very grateful if you sponsor more than one share.
Love,
Bodhipaksa
If you’d prefer not to use PayPal, you can download a credit card billing authorization form. You can complete this on-screen, then print, sign, and return it to us by mail or email.
