What is Transparent Generosity?
On this page you can read about:
- What is Transparent Generosity?
- The Specifics of Transparent Generosity
- My Personal Situation Right Now
- Current Dharma I’m Offering or Working On
You can make a tax-deductible donation through the Awakening in Life Foundation in USDÂ or in cryptocurrency.
What is Transparent Generosity?
So that all are welcome regardless of your financial situation, I offer teaching and support to students in the spirit of Transparent Generosity, a model designed to encourage generosity, transparency, and reciprocity as a basis for training together (a model pioneered by my good friend, Vince Fakhoury Horn).
This takes the form of donations that are tax-deductible in the United States via Awakening in Life, a 501(c)(3) non-profit I founded or through Buddhist Geeks, another non-profit I co-founded.Â
The hope is that this transparent generosity model enables deeper human connection to arise over the course of training together, while ensuring that everyone has their needs met.
The Specifics
For every form of teaching I offer, whether private sessions, trainings, retreats, writings, etc., I offer them all freely. For each offering you will see the following to consider and inform your decision around donating:
- Suggested Donation $
- Average Amount Given $ (when available)
- Range Given $ (When available)
- Your Actual Situation ???
Here this allows us to be open and transparent with each other, but not transactional. We first and foremost show up for the relationship, practice, deepening, and training, but we also include the importance and reality of finances.
In this model you are always welcome to study and practice with me regardless of your financial situation.
My Personal Situation Right Now
More recently I realized that, in the spirit of transparent generosity, it might be helpful for me to share a bit more about my personal financial situation in real time, providing transparency from my end. In that spirit, I will be periodically updating this section as my situation changes.
*It’s important to know that you are very welcome to work with me in trainings, retreats, and private sessions regardless of your financial situation and ability to donate. This is the very most important point of Transparent Generosity.
As of March 2022
In September of 2021 I quit my previous job so that I could have enough time and energy to teach full-time. By this point I was teaching 2-3 training groups per week, and I still am, and have been for the last 2+ years. I have also taught retreats and I teach a small number of private sessions weekly. It was simply too much for me to handle in work and service, and in my personal and family life to both be teaching and trying to hold another job. Not to mention my whole heart is in teaching and I have been receiving more and more requests to teach over time.
The previous job was in the form of a small business that I owned, a web design business. This business never provided me with profit, and in fact, quite the opposite, especially due to the Covid-19 pandemic. I walked away with debt that was needed to sustain the business, and while I exited the business by selling some assets, the amount of money was less than 50% of the debt I still hold. However, this money allowed me a runway of about 6 months of ‘borrowed time/money’ to help transition into attempting to teach full-time.
While my teaching practice is growing and in due time I believe it will reach the point of being sustainable financially from the donations I receive, I am not currently able to live off of what I receive as a teacher, and I am now in a difficult position and crossroads of having to figure out what to do financially to stay afloat.
There are more details I could provide, but to keep this shorter and simpler, ‘live off of’ here means to cover the most foundational expenses, debt, as well as recent medical expenses (I’m healthy and ok, but had to do a number of tests to arrive at this).
No matter what, I will continue teaching. This is my heart of how I can and want to be of benefit to others. However, within the next month I will no longer have enough money to pay all of my most basic, foundational expenses, as well as expenses associated with teaching. Because teaching and dharma is so important to me, I will be striving diligently to find any solution at all to sustain myself and allow me to teach. The result of this process might be that I am not able to teach as much as I would love or am asked, but I will continue to find ways to be available for support.
I must strongly reiterate again that regardless of my situation and your situation, you are always most welcome to schedule private sessions and participate in trainings and retreats with me. The only thing that matters to me is your heart and dedication to practice, awakening, and healing. If you’re needing or wanting support, I am here for you.
Current Dharma I’m Offering or Working On
Currently Offering:
- In-Process Trainings
- Integral Dharma, ends March 15th
- Advanced Realization Process Training, ends March 16th
- Upcoming Trainings
- Inquiry Meditation, March 17 – May 19, 2022
- The Realization Process, April 5 – June 7, 2022
- Private Sessions
- Recorded dharma talks (video), guided meditation (audio), written guide
Working On
These are dependent on the time I have available to dedicate to these dharma offerings, which is heavily dependent on my financial situation:
- New 10-week training inspired by Vajrayana and Dzogchen, combining elements of The Realization Process, Social Meditation, visualization, and mudras
- Revising the At Home Meditation Retreat Guide
- Advanced Integral Dharma Training
- Structured, Systemized Path of Practice
- Based on approaches, systems, paths, techniques that I’m most familiar with
- Requested by some students
- Daylong Retreats for The Realization Process
- Editing and publishing backlog of recorded dharma talks
- Translation into Spanish:
- Buddhist Geeks Guides
- Awakening in Life Foundation Guide
