Regenerative Dharma Network
A few months ago my long time Dharma brother and friend George asked me to share my vision of what the Dharma could look like in the future. It was a big question and one that I hadn't really thought about.
The past year I have been working in web3 and in DAOs (decentralized community-owned organizations) and I have gained a new appreciation for how communities can organize themselves at a large scale to accomplish profound change. I have worked with a variety of ImpactDAOs, or projects that focus on creating positive change in the world, and have taken the lessons that I have learned to reimagine what a system that promotes the flourishing of the Dharma might look like.
I have put my thoughts on the subject together as a whitepaper. It is a long and complex paper at this point, and I intend to create more visual and 'lite' version soon, but I wanted to share my initial vision.
This is a whitepaper for creating a regenerative Dharma network that supports the flourishing of the Dharma in our world, with the primary positive externality being a decentralized network of conscious, global citizens working together to restore human dignity and build a culture of awakening.
In this paper, I first explore the lessons of Buddhist history to locate ourselves in the present, developing a sense of where we have come from, and having a sense of the direction we want to go. With that foundation, I look at some lessons for understanding what a flourishing ecosystem might look like. Next, I introduce the key principles behind designing regenerative systems. With these principles in place, we can create an ecosystem where the Dharma flourishes by understanding the unique roles and relationships of the network, designing for wholeness in the system, and by working together to enhance co-evolutionary relationships that allow the ecosystem to thrive and to begin to accrue value outside the network.
The main thesis is that by working together to create a network that conserves and promotes the Dharma, values such as compassion, loving-kindness, interdependence, mindfulness, wisdom, and innate dignity will begin to take root in the collective consciousness and give rise to a culture of awakening.