Member Profile – Ali Kelley
- Hometown: Kansas City, MO.
- Role at Rime: Volunteer for the Gift Shop.
- Day job: Sales Manager for the Holiday Inn Country Club Plaza.
- Hobbies: Reading, listening to music, spending time with loved ones, and volunteering.
- What led you to the Dharma: Existential crisis and insatiable curiosity. I realized peace would only be found by looking within and through personal effort. With my mind turned inward, the Dharma appeared. Faith and confidence grew from experience; resulting in commitment to the Three Jewels. I took Refuge Vows in August 2015.
- Something a lot of people don’t know about you: If I won the lottery, it would be my dream to establish K-12 Dharma Schools in the US, beginning with KC of course. How wonderful it would be if there were as many Dharma Schools as there are Christian Schools!
- Buddhist book you would recommend: Tough question! Generally, I would recommend any book by the Dalai Lama. The book I continue to go back to is The Middle Way, Faith Grounded in Reason by the Dalai Lama. As if by magic, the Dalai Lama communicates in such a way that complex concepts like the nature of self and no self, emptiness, dependent origination, and the two truths, can be understood (by even we ordinary beings), and put into direct practice.