HYBRID: White and Awakening in Sangha 2025

HYBRID: White and Awakening in Sangha

Sundays, 10am to 2pm PT

September 28, October 12 and 26, November 9 and 23, 2025

With Crystal Johnson, Kitsy Schoen, and Heather Lear

Open to white-identified practitioners

Closed Captioning Provided on Zoom

The center is fragrance-free and wheelchair accessible

N95/KN95 masks required

Please note; registration for this class is two steps: 1) On-Demand materials and 2) Live Class Registration (this page).

Course Description

Since 2007, the East Bay Meditation Center (EBMC) has been offering courses designed for white people who want to build awareness and skills for disrupting the operation of white supremacy culture. We began this journey by developing a curriculum that guided white people into deeper awareness of our white conditioning, and built intra- and inter-personal skills to support the creation of inclusive sangha. Over time, we have gone deeper into the dharma practices that guide us toward wise effort and wise action in our lives and communities to address the harm arising from race-based oppression. By bringing our practice to bear our actions are guided by the Precepts and informed by the teaching of the Eightfold Path.

This year, we are offering the foundations class in a revised format and adapted for a time of great conflict and violence, and of intense political and psychological polarization around issues of race and justice and harm. We are offering the basic curriculum in an On-Demand, online format that participants can watch on their own time or by joining one of the hosted “watch parties” that will be offered. The live course meetings will be focused on:

• Building a supportive community of white people to deepen our inquiries and support our efforts to grow and change
• Digesting and sharing our increasing understanding of white conditioning, the operation of systemic racism and the psychological strategies that keep us stuck as we work to engage with the painful realities of white supremacy
• Developing intra- and inter- personal skills for personal and community development
• Cultivating meditation practices that allow us to stay present in very difficult circumstances while staying grounded in our values
• Building our understanding of, and commitment to, wise effort and action guided by deep compassion

Format

This course is designed to include people with a wide range of experience. We will cover the basics of whiteness through the On-Demand materials that can be viewed privately or in one of the watch parties that we will host. The live sessions (offered both in person and online) will offer additional materials, including guided meditation, dharma talks and discussion, Q&R, small group conversations, and large group sharing. Partial recordings of live sessions will be available for people who wish to review the material or who have to miss a class meeting.

Prerequisites

Please come to the class with an established meditation practice, a genuine openness to learning from the teachers and other participants, and the willingness and capacity to move through difficult emotions and psychological disruption while staying engaged. This work requires courageous and honest self-reflection and the commitment to show up for ourselves and each other with compassion. We rely on the strength of our community to get through the hard stuff.

You will get the most out of this course if you:

• Watch all the materials offered and complete the exercises
• Do the offered practices every day
• Show up with a wide open heart and willingness to be surprised
• Come in person, if at all possible. We are very happy to welcome those who join us from far away, and we do feel there is something lost in being remote…

We invite you into our practice of Gift Economics

At the East Bay Meditation Center (EBMC), we practice Gift Economics, which means, among other things, that we welcome you into our community, and invite you to contribute according to your capacity and inspiration, rather than as if you are purchasing a product/course. By donating to EBMC, you are supporting a community founded and dedicated to creating a dharma refuge for BIPOC, LGBTQI2+, people with disabilities, other marginalized communities, and everyone (including us white identified folks) who seeks to end suffering and cultivate happiness. Our mission is to foster liberation, personal and interpersonal healing, social action, and inclusive community building.

We hope that you will join us.

For this course, the teachers offer their time without monetary compensation as a practice of reparation, so that 80% of your donation for the On-Demand materials, and 100% of your registration contributions will go to support the East Bay Meditation Center (EBMC). We will invite you to offer dana twice in this registration process (yes it’s a little clunky…).

Next Steps

• First, please register for the On-Demand materials through Spirit Rock. The dana that you offer here will support EBMC (80%) who created the class, and Spirit Rock (20%), who produced it.
• Second, please register through EventBrite for the EBMC live class here. We invite you to contribute as generously as you can, given your economic circumstances.
• You may also contribute each time the class meets, or at any time, by going to the EBMC Donation page or through Venmo at @eastbaymeditation. If you attend the class in person, you may also contribute via check or cash.

Questions? Write to us at WhiteandAwakeninginSangha@eastbaymeditation.org

The On-Demand materials qualify for 6 homestudy CE credits for $100 for psychologists and California licensed MFTs, LCSWs, LEPs, LPCCs, nurses, and chiropractors.

A technical note: You should receive a confirmation email within a day of completing your registration. If you don’t receive this email, please contact us at whiteandawakening@eastbaymeditation.org so that we can troubleshoot this issue!

Crystal Johnson is a retired clinical psychologist and a Community Teacher at the East Bay Meditation Center (EBMC) in Oakland, CA, where she also serves on the Leadership Sangha (Board) and as a member of the Radical Inclusivity Committee. She completed the year long Commit2Dharma training at EBMC, as well as the 2-year Dedicated Practitioner Program and the 2-year Community Dharma Leader Program at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. In her teaching, she focuses on creating/co-creating programs for white dharma practitioners seeking to build awareness, knowledge and skills to challenge the dynamics of white privilege and race-based oppression, and create truly inclusive sangha. Her courses include White and Awakening in Sangha at EBMC, Unpacking Whiteness: Reflection and Action at the San Francisco Zen Center, White and Awakening Together at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, Unpacking Whiteness for the Soto Zen Buddhist Association and Unpacking the Whiteness of Leadership for Branching Streams. She offers consultation to individuals and organizations seeking to disrupt the practices of white supremacy culture and support change toward racial equity.

Kitsy Schoen, MSW, began her mindfulness practice and was inspired to work as a hospice social worker after meeting Stephen Levine in 1979. Throughout her career she has been able to integrate mindfulness and her passion for racial equity into her work. At Kaiser Permanente, Kitsy led the NCAL Kaiser Psychiatry’s Cultural Diversity Workgroup and was a founding member of the “Isms Collaborative”, a group of representatives from public and private health care organizations that sought to address workplace bias in agencies committed to reducing health disparities. In 2004 she began Spirit Rock’s Community Dharma Leader program with the specific focus of bringing insight and compassion practices to working with other white people on racism. In 2007, she joined the Leadership Sangha (board) of East Bay Meditation Center and began offering antiracism classes to white practitioners. Kitsy has provided training and consultation to numerous mental health training programs and dharma centers on issues of racism, power and privilege.

Heather Lear (she/her) was born and raised with the Dharma in a family of Insight Meditation practitioners in the South, and is now based on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone land in San Francisco. She studies and teaches at the intersection of heart-centered Dharma, embodiment practices and DEIA work around white and awakening in community, and serves as the Program Manager at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. Heather has completed various study and teaching programs, including Spirit Rock’s LEAP program, the Sati Center’s Buddhist Chaplaincy Training, and Radiant Heart Qigong Teacher Training with Teja Bell. She has served on the board at Insight Santa Cruz, on the teaching team offering the 6-month White and Awakening in Sangha program at the East Bay Meditation Center since 2019, and is part of the current Spirit Rock Community Dharma Leaders (CDL7) cohort.