Apprentice Contribution

Community involvement, including contribution, is the defining feature of Evolving Ground (eG) apprenticeship.

Buddhist Tantric practice is creative involvement: activity that brings about growthful, engaging, and exciting experiences for others. To remain Tantric in flavor, apprentice contribution reflects personal challenge, commitment, and enjoyment. If it loses the energy of enjoyable engagement and turns into a burden, or feels like self-sacrifice, then it becomes something else.

Finding an appropriate, satisfying way to contribute may take some trial and error and we are happy to talk with you about what might work best before you become an apprentice. As an apprentice your contribution is likely to change from project to project. We want you to be challenged, engaged, and happy. Contribution need not be flamboyant or novel: many of our regular contribution opportunities are enjoyable simply because they involve friendly communication. Basic helpfulness is gratifying. Contribution can be solo, or part of a group collaboration.

We strongly recommend starting with one or more suggested projects (ask us for an updated list). Additionally, you can suggest a personal contribution according to a need that you see in the community or an idea that you would like to experiment with.

Apprentices always discuss contribution with us. Over the coming years, the projects we build here together will create Evolving Ground’s distinct character and impact on society. We want to be sure that there is consistency in language, themes, and approach across projects — we are involved with some apprentice projects ourselves, sometimes as coordinators, sometimes as contributors.

Some of the suggested projects are ongoing and have rotational roles. We usually ask new apprentices to take one of these roles for a while to familiarize themselves with our principles, methods, and resources, and to make friends and connections in the community. We are working closely with well-established apprentices in our second year to setting up systems to make it easy for new apprentices to move into these roles.