About this Event
Empowering Together: Joys and Sorrows of Community
with Larry Yang, Pawan Bareja, and Kimi Mojica
Sunday, November 8th 2026
10am - 4pm PT
HYBRID
In-person at 2406 Webster St, Oakland
Online via Zoom
Community is where we practice together, & love, grow, and learn from each other. Our Dharma community is also a space where we can practice holding wholeness in the most expansive sense, even as different views and opinions can create discord and fractures within our communities. The gift of Dharma is the potential that we can hold our fractures differently, but together. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. encourages us, we create beloved communities through cultivation of an agape love, an understanding and good will for all human beings that is encompassing and inclusive.
As those of us oriented to social justice within our Dharma communities, we are ever watchful to see if the fractures within our communities are contributing to the efforts of our oppressors who wish to break us apart. If we fracture ourselves, then we are contributing to the very goals of the oppressors.
Please join beloved teachers Larry Yang, Pawan Bareja, and Kimi Mojica for a daylong retreat where we’ll hold the Dharma as our compass, to guide us through difficult situations and support us to look deep within, while we hold differences within our communities with love and kindness. Our time together is about being a part of our beloved communities and staying in connection, not just during the easy joyful times, but also in the midst of our individual and collective struggles and sorrows.
Each one of us is a community leader, and this day will empower all of us to build sangha with love and equanimity, even in the midst of external and internal harm.
This event will be both in person and online.
TICKETS
This event raises much-needed funds for the East Bay Meditation Center, and we ask you to give at the highest level you can for the benefit of all. Tickets are offered on a sliding-scale, including a name-your-own-amount ticket.
For those who have greater financial resources, we encourage you to purchase a Generosity Ticket as a gift for our community members who are unable to donate at this time. You can set any amount you wish for the Generosity Ticket.
If you wish to be a recipient of a Generosity Ticket, please email [email protected]. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.
Please consider giving a financial gift to our teachers as well, who do not receive a salary for their work, and give their teachings freely to all.
Venmo:@Kimi-Mojica
Paypal: [email protected]
CashApp: $KimiMojica.
Please indicate “Empowering Together at EBMC” in the subject line. Kimi Mojica will collect dana on behalf of the teachers.
To make a gift to sustain the work of East Bay Meditation Center, you may do so at bit.ly/ebmc-give 100% of our programming on a sliding scale and no one will ever be turned away for lack of funds.
Larry Yang teaches meditation nationally, and has spent much energy to deepen Dharma teachings within multicultural communities. Larry is a core teacher of EBMC. He is on the Teachers’ Council and the Board at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and is the Guiding Teacher of Insight Community of the Desert in Palm Springs, CA. Larry is trained as a psychotherapist and has spent six months as a Buddhist monk in Thailand. He considers retreat practice, family practice, livelihood practice, and householder practice all integral to a spiritual path towards Freedom. He is one of the teachers who coordinate the Community Dharma Leadership training program cultivating future leadership in the dharma.
Pawan Bareja, PhD has practiced vipassanā meditation since 2001. She is a graduate of the Spirit Rock Teacher Training, a Buddhist Ritual Minister, and a Community Dharma Leader at Spirit Rock. She has served on the board of Braided Wisdom and on the Teacher Council at Dhamma Dena. She has a keen interest in empowering students with practices to resolve their stress and trauma using mindfulness, Buddhist psychology, and neuroscience. She has taught this material at Spirit Rock, San Francisco Insight, EBMC, Esalen, and globally. She is the award-winning author of Reignite Your Power: Resolving Trauma Using Mindfulness. In her private practice as Trauma Resolution Practitioner, Pawan works with a diverse population of clients and teaches mindfulness meditation. She believes that cultivating love for ourselves and everything around us is at the heart of all healing. You can find more information about Pawan on her website www.PawanBareja.com
First introduced to mindfulness and the teachings of the Buddha in 2003, through Thich Nhat Hahn and the Plum Village tradition, Kimi Mojica has been student and practitioner ever since. A Community Teacher at East Bay Meditation Center, their commitment to racial, gender and healing justice is evident through the dynamic and ways they hold space and as a consultant, facilitator, coach, and conflict transformation practitioner. As a sangha builder and community leader, Kimi is a graduate of EBMC’s Commit2Dharma program, Spiritual Teacher and Leader training program, has served as former Board Chair and later co-founder of Restorative Practices for Dharma Practitioners (RPDP) deep refuge group. Beyond EBMC they have had the privilege and joy of teaching at various sangha affinity groups (BIPOC, QTPOC, Queer/Trans/Non-Binary folx); daylongs and retreats at Braided Wisdom, Dhamma Dena among others. Kimi loves connecting through ritual, movement and nature, centering liberatory practices that cultivate wholeness and well-being in everyday life.
Event venue & nearby stays
2406 Webster St, 2406 Webster Street, Oakland, United States
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