Kaira Jewel Lingo: Mindfulness & Anti-Racism Speaker Series 9th Speaker
As a culture we have not acknowledged and taken care of the deeply rooted, often still unconscious wounds of colonialism, genocide, slavery, patriarchy and so many other forms of domination and systemic violence. The refusal to face the truth of our history and metabolize it through grieving, restoration and reconciliation is why these many forms of violence continue to re-emerge in different forms, including the desecration and rape of our planet.
What if the key to our collective healing is turning towards the pain of our ancestors, embracing the tender, wounded parts of our collective psyche? What would it mean to stop repressing our pain at the collective level? Giving space to and listening to this pain, both individual and societal, is necessary for our collective healing.
Kaira Jewel Lingo is a Dharma teacher with a lifelong interest in spirituality and social justice. Her work continues the Engaged Buddhism developed by Thich Nhat Hanh, and she draws inspiration from her parents’ lives of service and her dad’s work with Martin Luther King, Jr. After living as an ordained nun for 15 years in Thich Nhat Hanh’s monastic community, Kaira Jewel now teaches internationally in the Zen lineage and the Vipassana tradition, as well as in secular mindfulness, at the intersection of racial, climate and social justice with a focus on activists, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, artists, educators, families, and youth.
Based in New York, she offers spiritual mentoring to groups and is author of We Were Made for These Times: Ten Lessons in Moving through Change, Loss and Disruption and co-author of Healing Our Way Home: Black Buddhist Teachings on Ancestors, Joy and Liberation. Her teachings and writings can be found at www.kairajewel.com.