Who we are
We are sangha members of Dhamma Dena Meditation Center in Joshua Tree, California, united in centering Black, Indigenous, disabled, trans, feminist, people of color, and queer communities. We call for open board elections and expanded opportunities for community, staff, and volunteer participation in vision and decision making.
How we got here…
In 2020, amidst a transnational reckoning with the enduring brutality of anti-Black white supremacy, Dhamma Dena committed to and received a multi-year, $450,000 grant to transition to being led by Black, Indigenous, and people of color and to support related programming.
In the years that followed, leadership faltered in effectively centering BIPOC voices. In retrospect, the organizational structure was a barrier to shifting power; without transparent and deep community involvement in decision-making, unattended patterns of white privilege and control impeded progress toward change.
Despite years of setbacks, there was a concerted effort to bring in new teachers, staff, board members, and students to the center, establishing trust with communities frequently excluded from US Buddhist spaces, and creating conditions to holistically support BIPOC teachers and practitioners. Dhamma Dena has increasingly become a refuge for Black, Indigenous, people of color, disabled, immigrant, trans, feminist and queer practitioners and teachers.
By April 2025, the board had shrunk to three people. In May 2025, the board held a special meeting in which they voted off one member and voted on the spouse of another, effectively shifting from a diverse board to a majority straight, white board in which two out of three members are married. This new board member was added while other qualified sangha members of color who had applied were turned down.
Shortly following this shift in board membership, the board initiated a formal pause on programming, requiring teachers whose retreats had already been approved to re-apply and be re-approved. Many of the teachers chose not to continue teaching at Dhamma Dena, leading to the cancellation of several retreats. This included the twice-yearly retreat for queer and trans Black, Indigenous and people of color communities, which had previously provided a much needed and loved refuge not found elsewhere.
The new board has not affirmed their intention to carry forward the 2020 commitment to BIPOC leadership, which threatens to reverse the last five years of that vision. During this time, Dhamma Dena became a refuge for people who are underrepresented in Western Dharma spaces: a true reflection of honoring Ruth Denison’s legacy. In recent years, Dhamma Dena has become a center with majority Black, Indigenous, and people of color teacher-led retreats and majority Black, Indigenous, and people of color retreatants, underscoring the urgent need for safe, accessible spaces to practice the Dharma, while still offering most retreats open to all. Notably, this coincided with the most solvent period in Dhamma Dena’s recorded financial history, and the capacity for fundraising has significantly diminished since.
In response to these changes, we held a community-wide sangha meeting in June 2025, where the board was asked to open seats to new board members, increase the size of the board, and affirm their commitment to BIPOC and queer leadership and programming. At the time, two dedicated practitioners and long-term sangha members had submitted applications. The board said they would consider this and respond within two weeks; they did not. Subsequently, we reached out and asked if they would be willing to open the board, they said “no for now,” and that they needed more time. The board also rejected the staff’s proposal to grant those working at the center a vote on the board, and to expand its membership.
March 2026: Call to action
Eight months have gone by and the board has not communicated any updates on a timeline or process for opening up the board.
Two weeks ago, after years of efforts towards structural change and transparency, Dhamma Dena’s two remaining staff members delivered to the board their intention to resign unless there is movement toward a member-elected board.
The staff took their jobs with the understanding that the center was building a multi-cultural organization, centering BIPOC leadership and programming. In light of the recent board changes and “pausing” of programming, the staff directly and repeatedly asked the board to affirm alignment on this mission, but have received no response.
The staff is wholly responsible for coordinating and managing residential- and self-retreats; maintaining the center facilities year round; holding relationships with volunteers, visitors and retreatants; and in practice being the primary fundraisers, as most of the center’s income is dana given during these retreats. Without a guiding teacher or director, staff have taken on more and more responsibility, while being excluded from and lacking clarity on organizational decisions and vision that shape their work. Without a voice, labor conditions feel increasingly extractive and are now untenable, following in a long line of people working on the land who have left feeling exploited.
Dhamma Dena cannot continue without the labor on the land that makes it all possible, and the current structure is not sustainable for staff.
It is clear from numerous statements, actions and inactions made by the three current board members, that they are not capable of holding dissonance and diversity, of being in genuine relationship with the full breadth of the sangha, and of leading Dhamma Dena as a truly multicultural center that includes all of us.
We are the sangha who animate and resource this space, and we would like leadership that reflects us.
We are thus calling on the entire Dhamma Dena sangha community and friends to sign a petition for a member-elected board.
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