In keeping with the “Diversity and Inclusive Community Building” component of EBMC’s mission, the Center has a number or organizational practices and policies designed to facilitate participation from members of marginalized communities in EBMC’s programs, events, and activities.

PEOPLE-OF-COLOR (POC) REGISTRATION POLICY

The EBMC Leadership Sangha has set a goal of balancing the demographics of the EBMC practice space and maximizing the percentage of People of Color (POC) in attendance at each of the daylongs, class series, and workshops for which EBMC requires advance registration (i.e. not for the weekly sitting groups), except events reserved for certain specific communities. We seek a minimum of 40% POC attendance at events open to all.

GENDER INCLUSION PRACTICE

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EBMC will continually seek to fulfill its mission of diversity and inclusive community building by reinforcing inclusive language and space that acknowledges and doesn’t have the impact of oppressing a wide variety of gender identities, including: male, female, inter-gendered, non-gendered, trans-gendered, gender queer etc.

Culture / Education of the Sangha

EBMC will actively encourage all sangha members to help foster an environment that truly welcomes all people by providing ongoing support and training for teachers, volunteers, the Leadership Sangha, and the sangha as a whole about how to model, create, and grow a culture of inclusivity, and integration.

This includes, and is not limited to:

  • Education about the importance of language use related to gender identity, as well as how to model and integrate inclusive language that does not privilege and normalize binary-gendered ways of thinking, communicating, feeling, and occupying of space;
  • Education to invite transformation in our sangha culture by examining the beliefs, attitudes, and assumptions we internalize and inherit from static, binary-gendered, hetero-normative culture, and how to actively shift that thinking through our collective mindfulness practice.

ACCESSIBILITY POLICY

EBMC will continually seek to fulfill its mission of diversity and inclusive community building by consciously making the center accessible across the full spectrum of mobility differences, communication differences, sensory differences, chemical injury, multiple chemical sensitivities, and environmental illnesses. In so doing, we commit to collective access as a guiding principle, and treasure our practice as a sangha of “All of us, or none.”

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COMMUNICATION AGREEMENTS

EBMC has adapted a set of communication guidelines to support the practices of mindful community-building, inclusion, and wise speech. These guidelines are posted on the wall in the meditation hall and in the library. Please use them and refer to them in your teaching and facilitating events at EBMC.

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