UUBF-L

User's Guide for The UUBF-L (The Email List of the Unitarian Universalist Buddhist Fellowship)

Overview:

For Unitarian Univeralists to explore Buddhism, and how Buddhism and UUism meet. Others are welcome, and all are expected to abide by a code of courtesy and kindness. (If, in the view of the list managers, someone violates these principles and will not change their ways, they will be suspended or removed from the list.)

What We Do on the List

Buddhism emphasizes practice over intellectual speculation. We are interested in learning about Buddhist practices, and offer the opportunity to talk about experience and issues with practice — formal, traditional methods, innovative techniques, and our whole lives as practice. For more information see UUBF-L: Practice Talk.

The Buddha's teachings come to us from other cultures. We share our understandings of how to interpret them for ours.

Buddhism and UUism each teach certain fundamental values. (For example see The Principles and Purposes of the UUA, and Thich Nhat Hanh's Fourteen Precepts of Interbeing.) We dialog here about concerns arising from these values.

We report what's happening in the UU Buddhist community, and support each others' efforts with practical information, witnessing our experience mindfully

In general, our topic is UU Buddhism, and Buddhism from a UU viewpoint.

An electronic forum such as UUBF-L is like having a face-to-face discussion group in the centre of a hall, with a huge gallery around the outside. Anyone can walk in the doors, sit in the gallery for a while, shout out a comment or two, or come down and join the discussion. People are coming and going all the time, the quiet ones are afraid to speak up in public, and so on. The openness gets in the way of trust and deep sharing. We acknowledge this paradox, and work with it.