The UU Buddhist Fellowship had it’s first Convocation at the Garrison Institute in 2005. Since then we’ve had them approximately every 2 years (except with COVID interruptions). Sam Trumbore has faithfully recorded just about every one with video and audio. Here is the archive of those events stored on YouTube. They will be listed from our most recent ones and go back to the oldest ones. There is a treasury of video of teachers and leaders who are no longer with us.
2025
The 2025 UUBF Convocation was held at Bon Secours Retreat Center in Marriottsville, Maryland from April 11-13, 2025 with Lama Rod Owens as the featured guest teacher. Lama Rod is the author of The New Saints: From Broken Hearts to Spiritual Warriors, Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation Through Anger (a favorite of several UUBF Board members), and Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation. More information about Lama Rod Owens can be found at https://www.lamarod.com. Dana Link for Lama Rod.
2023
Dr. David Robert Loy is a professor of Buddhist and comparative philosophy and Zen teacher in the Sanbo Zen tradition of Japanese Zen Buddhism. Loy is one of the founding members of the new Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center, near Boulder, Colorado. He is the author of many books, including Ecodharma: Buddhist Teachings for the Ecological Crisis.
For our weekend together, Loy wrote:
“Traditional Buddhist teachings help us wake up individually and realize our interdependence with others. Today we need to wake up collectively in another way. We need to wake up to what is one of the greatest dangers that humanity has ever encountered. Buddhism can help us understand and respond appropriately to the climate emergency driven ecological crisis. Neither the Buddha nor Asian Buddhist traditions have faced the complex set of challenges of the twenty-first century. Yet Buddhism includes many teachings that are relevant to our situation.
There are profound parallels between our individual human struggles which Buddhism addressed and our ecological predicament today. The parallels suggest that the eco-crisis is as much a spiritual challenge as a technological and economic one. In both cases, at the root of the problem is our illusion of separation: that “I” am separate from others, and that we are separate from the natural world.
Perhaps the most important thing that Buddhism has to offer today is a new version of the bodhisattva — or ecosattva — path, which can respond to collective and institutionalized versions of greed, ill will and delusion (the three poisons). All this suggests, the ecological challenge is also a challenge to the ways we understand and practice Buddhism.”
2019
April 25 – 28, 2019
at Garrison Institute,
in Garrison, NY
Making the Invisible, Visible:
A Multi-medial Exploration of Race and Racism
in the U.S. through a Buddhist Lens”
Featuring Dr. Jan Willis Professor Emerita of Religious Studies at Wesleyan University, CT and author of several books on Tibetan Buddhism including “Dreaming Me: Black, Baptist and Buddhist – One Woman’s Spiritual Journey.
2017
March 31—April 2
Menucha Retreat Center
Corbett, Oregon
Learning the Language of Dragons:
Zen Meditation and Zen Koans
James Ishmael Ford, Zen teacher and Unitarian Universalist minister says that Zen meditation, both its “just sitting” or “silent illumination” discipline and “koan introspection” are in fact the language of dragons. In our time together we will be introduced to the grammar of dragons, a bit of the vocabulary, and with that to throw ourselves into a little dragon language immersion.
Menucha Lodge overlooks the beautiful Columbia River Gorge, designated as a national scenic area with the greatest concentration of waterfalls in North America.
2015
After Buddhism:
Recovering the Dharma for a Secular Age
With Stephen Batchelor
March 20-22, 2015
Garrison Institute, Garrison, New York
“By returning to the earliest texts of the Buddhist canon, we will seek to clarify the distinctive vision of Siddhattha Gotama before it evolved into the orthodoxy of an institutional religion. This weekend of talks, workshops, meditations and discussions will explore how such a vision might address the questions and crises of contemporary culture.”
A former Buddhist monk, Stephen Batchelor is the author of Buddhism without Beliefs and Confession of a Buddhist Atheist. He teaches secular Buddhist meditation and philosophy worldwide, and lives in France.
2013
Tara Brach was our presenter in 2013. Unfortunately we don’t have video or audio from this event in our archives at this time.
2011
2009
2007
Bernie Glassman and his wife Eve Marko were our presenters along with the Faithful Fools from San Francisco. Lots of video available but not uploaded to YouTube yet.
2005
This was our first one and there are lots of videos available but not uploaded to YouTube yet. Be patient as Sam plods through the process. If you’d like to help let me know! sam.trumbore <-at-> gmail.com