Please refer to the note below this description about the choice of the title for this episode.
In this episode, journalist Jo Confino is joined by much-loved international mindfulness teacher and author Kaira Jewel Lingo, to talk about her practice and community work, both as a monastic and subsequently as a lay practitioner and spiritual mentor.
Together, they further discuss the intersection of racial, climate, and social injustice; privilege; denial; white awareness; hate and embedded white supremacy; deep listening; and spiritual practices for a world in crisis.
Kaira Jewel Lingo is a dharma teacher who has been practicing mindfulness since 1997. She lived as an ordained nun for 15 years, during which she trained closely with Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. Speaking five languages, she shares Buddhist meditation, secular mindfulness, and compassion practice internationally, providing spiritual mentoring to individuals and communities working at the intersection of racial, climate, and social justice. Her teaching focuses on activists, educators, artists, youth and families, BIPOC communities, and includes the interweaving of art, play, nature, ecology, and embodied mindfulness practice. She teaches in the Plum Village Zen tradition and in the Vipassana tradition.
In this episode, Kaira Jewel expands on the journey of her name – Jewel – and her route to the Plum Village practice; being the first ordained monastic of African heritage in Plum Village; Thich Nhat Hanh’s guidance and support; embodying Thay’s teachings; learning to take care of suffering; deciding to disrobe; her mission as a lay dharma teacher; practice as a way of life; deep relationships; and her plans to open a Buddhist-Christian practice center with her partner.
She also dives more deeply into spiritual bypassing; healing racialized trauma; the importance of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) retreats and teachers; the story of the first Plum Village retreat for people of color; collective consciousness; adapting the Five Mindfulness Training to different ethnic groups; and her first book: We Were Made for These Times: Ten Lessons for Moving through Change, Loss, and Disruption.
The episode ends with a short meditation guided by Kaira Jewel.
[This episode was recorded on February 18, 2022, via Zoom.]
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Note: Race is a social construct designed to divide and dehumanize, but it still has a significant impact on inequality and discrimination today. White supremacy, as used in the context of this episode, refers to the societal and structural biases that deeply influence communities and individuals of color across the world, affecting their lives in tangible wide-ranging ways - from access to everyday necessities being harder or impossible to all types of abuse (which takes an ongoing physiological and psychological toll).
This episode explores the impact of racism, emphasizing that it's not being white-skinned that is inherently problematic, but rather how the social constructs of race are enacted in harmful ways. Given the historical contexts of colonization, slavery, and intergenerational trauma, understanding the dynamics of power and privilege in a racialized world requires a great deal of compassion, learning, unlearning, and healing, regardless of how we are categorized.
This episode was recorded with the intention to live our ideals of non-discrimination and addressing social injustice as encouraged in the 14 Mindfulness Trainings.
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🔔 The Way Out Is In: The Zen Art of Living is a podcast series mirroring Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh’s deep teachings of Buddhist philosophy: a simple yet profound methodology for dealing with our suffering, and for creating more happiness and joy in our lives.
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🎙️ The podcast is co-produced by the Plum Village App and Global Optimism with support from the Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation.
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Resources:
Plum Village Community
Old Path White Clouds: Walking in the Footsteps of the Buddha
Ram Dass
Brahmavihārā
James Baldwin
Melina Bondy
Joanna Macy
Resmaa Menakem
The Quaking of America: An Embodied Guide to Navigating Our Nation’s Upheaval and Racial Reckoning
My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies
The Civil Rights Movement
We Were Made for These Times: Ten Lessons for Moving through Change, Loss, and Disruption
The Five Mindfulness Trainings
Deep Adaptation
Schumacher College
Buddhist-Christian Community of Meditation and Action