Why I Built My Website

Welcome to my website! And… I have a website!

I have to be honest, I am a little surprised to be here. For the longest time, I thought that I would never create a personal website. While I’ve been grateful and humbled to have the successes I’ve had in my life and work, I’ve also tried my best to de-center myself and not make it about me. I’ve tried my best to lift up the organizations, movements and communities that I’ve been a part of.

I always felt like having my own website would turn the spotlight directly on me as an individual, and feed my ego in a way that I felt uncomfortable with.

However, two things have shifted in the last few years for me and I’ve decided to change course.

First: I’ve decided that I no longer want to be an employee of an organization as part of my core identity.

The front gate of Engaku-Ji Temple in Kamakura, Japan. This 800-year old temple was founded after the last Mongolian invasion of Japan as a way to honor the dead on both sides of the conflict. The temple has a long history of working on reconciliation.

After working in nonprofits for close to 25-years and running my own organization for 10, this is a huge shift. But it’s one that I have been thinking about for years.

I have become more and more disillusioned by the nonprofit industrial complex. And while my last experience with an organization attempted to build radically different systems that were grounded in our values, I was amazed at how powerful the momentum is towards hierarchy. I was humbled by how easily our habitual patterns of domination, professionalism and bureaucratization can creep in and take over our commitment to collectivism, relationship and emergence.

About 18-months ago, I had the honor of being a guest for a couple of nights at Engaku-Ji, a nearly 800-year old Zen monastery in Japan. I had the opportunity to sit with Rōshi Yokota Nanrei, the head abbot there, and he told me something unexpected.

Engaku-ji is a beautiful site. Nestled in the beautiful and historical mountainside of Kamakura, it is considered to be one of the most important temples in Japan. A complex that actually houses 18 different temples, it is being proposed to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Sitting inside one of it’s ancient tea houses, Rōshi Yokota told me, “I think we should burn this temple to the ground.”

He went on to explain that at some point, a temple becomes so large that the monastics spend so much time maintaining the structures and lose site of the purpose – the practices that are supposed to be happening inside of the temple. In fact, the temple, now both a famous pilgrimage and tourist site, becomes a hindrance to the practice.

“We should burn this to the ground and be reminded why we practice,” he taught.

I realized in that moment that I got too comfortable. The structure of the nonprofit made my life easy, and I was no longer challenging myself to be in the practice.

Decades earlier, when I was a teenager living in a Buddhist monastery in Nepal, I had a fantasy to give up all my worldly belongings except for the clothes on my back and my prayer drum, and just walk around Asia drumming and praying. To give myself fully to the practice and live in unwavering faith that if I stayed true to my path, the universe will get me to where I am meant to go.

I have not given up my worldly possessions. Far from it. However, I realized that I wanted to be in a deeper practice again. I realized that while its nice having a salary and the safety of working in an institution, I actually don’t feel free when I am bound by workplans, by-laws and corporate charters, when my accountability is to a Board of Directors rather than to spirit.

I wanted the freedom to do my work, to fulfill my vocation, and to be guided by intuition. And the weight of a nonprofit wasn’t allowing me to do so.

Of course, I want to embark on my own personal journey in a way that is responsible and accountable. Which brings me to my second shift:

Two: I want to own and be transparent about leadership.

I’ve always been challenged by leadership. It’s something I’ve never sought, and always feel uncomfortable with. But I also realized that whether I admit it not, I do have a platform, however small it may be. I do have people who follow my work. And not talking about it can actually push the power that comes with it into the shadows. And when power exists in the shadow, it can seep out in unskillful ways.

I want to relate to whatever leadership, power and platform I have in ways that are transparent and accountable, intentional and hopefully skillful. And I can’t do that if I keep pretending that it’s not there.

I remember this being a real challenge during the Occupy Wall Street movement. The movement continued to say that it was a “leaderless” movement, but of course in reality, large groups of people can never organize without some people playing leading roles. People who knew how to put up camps, facilitate meetings and organize groups of people were obviously part of the movement.

The idea that the movement “had no leaders,” while coming from a place of good intention, created a toxic situation where there was no transparency about who had power, and therefore there was no way for accountability to happen either.

Humility is an important value for me. And… so is transparency and accountability. I realize that being transparent about the reality that I have a platform is not in contradiction to trying to walk in the world in ways that humble me.

Owning that a lot of the work I do is “my” work is not about ego (at least I hope it is not. That is something I will have to be in ongoing discernment about). It is about learning not to hide behind an organization, and trying to be even more intentional about how to be in relationship to whatever power I have.

After 25-years doing nothing but social change work, I feel like I have something to give. I want to follow my calling, and do work that I feel inspired by – not what anyone else tells me to do.

There is incredible privilege is being able to do this. Most people don’t get to follow their heart’s calling and at the same time survive in a capitalist world. I feel incredibly privileged. And I want to continue to utilize that privilege in ways that are transparent and accountable.

So here we are. Me taking the plunge to chart my own course. It’s humbling, scary, exciting and I have no idea what’s going to come of it. But I’m grateful that, if you are reading this, to some end you are along for the ride.