Unity Tables
No current address or website.
Description of Organization
In 2010, the actor Jeff Bridges partnered with Bernie Glassman’s Zen Peacemakers to initiate a network of social enterprise cafés intended to infuse greater dignity into hunger relief. Unity Tables Incubator trains leaders in a practice of innovation based on letting go of fixed ideas and looking to opportunities and needs in the community. Unity Tables supports Buddhist groups to become more socially engaged, spreading compassion by reducing hunger and social segregation. It supports mindfulness by making meditation and mindfulness-based job skills training available to low-income communities.
Grant(s) Awarded
In 2017, a grant in the amount of $2,500 was awarded to to assist in the costs of conducting their annual Bearing Witness Retreat that brings together diverse groups including those affected by large scale trauma for deep listening and transformation. Soul Fire and Unity Tables led a gathering inspired by this tradition in order to bear witness to the food system and race in the United States. Bearing Witness Retreat participants plunge into an extensive personal practice and work to heal social wounds through a process based on three tenets: (1) Not-Knowing by giving up fixed ideas about ourselves and the universe; (2) Bearing Witness to the joy and suffering of the world and (3) Taking Action that arises from Not-Knowing and Bearing Witness.