Aloha!
This is the 8th and final chapter in a series of emails that have been written to entertain, maybe inform, spark memories, connect our hearts, and definitely beseech your help to sustain Karmê Chöling through April 30, 2020. Karmê Chöling needs your unrestricted donations now more than ever before. sustain Karmê Chöling through April 30, 2020. .
I hope you enjoy it. If you missed Chapter 7, you can read it here.
Aloha,
Kit Kanohoaloha Wynkoop
Director of Development
No one truly appreciates the practice of dish ROTA until one has lived at Karmê Chöling. At my first program – before living at Karmê Chöling – I remember being incensed that I had to do dishes! The nerve – I paid for the program, afterall.
I estimate as of this writing that I’ve now washed dishes for between 16 and 225 people 712+ times.
Dish ROTA is where one’s neurosis can jet to the surface for all to see. If you haven’t secured the sprayer as your dish ROTA role (preferred by almost everyone though Karmê Chöling staff know that it’s the person on the sprayer who can make the shift long or short), then you’re either scrubbing or putting away pots & pans; storing the food away (while simultaneously making more pots & pans to wash); wiping down the service area & dining tables; managing the mind-bendingly fragrant Bokashi composting process; heaving compost out to the garden; wheeling paper, plastic, & glass to the recycling bins; hoisting heavy bags of garbage; sweeping; mopping; and, don’t forget, returning the rubber mats back to where they belong on the kitchen floor.
Each dish ROTA shift isn’t done until all of its specific components are done. There has to be a rallying of the troops – so to speak – to do a thorough job AND finish in a reasonable amount of time. Thankfully, there is ROTA help from program participants because the Karmê Chöling staff could not do it all on their own.
We need the help of participants, local sangha members, and volunteers.
For me, the concept of this kind of help is very much like the Hawaiian concept of Lōkahi: many hands. Almost every Hawaiian word has kaona (multiple-entendres) – up to as many as 50 in some cases. The kaona for Lōkahi are: unity, agreement, accord, unison, harmony. If you mix the word manaʻo (wisdom) with lōkahi, you get “unanimous.” In Hawaiian antiquity, Lōkahi was what was needed to harvest the taro patches or bring up the fishing net or protect the ahapuaʻa (district). So Lōkahi also has a quality of sustainability.
When everyone is pulling together to make things happen at Karmê Chöling, they are helping to sustain the community. Some offer help by doing things physically, others offer computer or organizational skills, and still others sustain the community by donating money. It is this last method of sustaining the community that we are asking you to help us with today. As of this week, Karmê Chöling needs to raise $62,000 to get us through the Winter session and open its doors at the end of April for the 2020 Summer programs. At that point, we will have cash flow from program revenue to carry us forward.
Can you give, today? If you can, please do so right now. Itʻll only take a minute with our new form.
2020 is Karmê Chöling’s 50th anniversary and we are celebrating with a 6-day open-house in June called Coming Home.
Mahalo Nui (Thank you very much) for all the ways you have and will continue to help Karmê Chöling perpetuate the dharma and provide a safe, inclusive place in which future generations can learn & practice it. Your generosity brings great positive change to the world.
As of this writing, I have moved back home to Hawaiʻi to live the dharma on the island of Oʻahu. If you would like to stay in touch or read more of what I write, here’s how.
Until we meet again, I wish you a fond Aloha!
Kit Kanohoaloha Wynkoop
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