Online: Black Buddhist Teachings on Ancestors, Joy, and Liberation
with Kaira Jewel Lingo and Marisela Gomez
Thursday, December 12, 2024 | 6:30pm – 8:30pm ET
Buddhist teachers Kaira Jewel Lingo and Marisela Gomez began their journeys separately in the Plum Village tradition founded by Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh. Through their practice, they each came to touch into the pain and beauty of their families of origin, relationships, sexuality, politics, race, and healing.
In this two-hour evening event Marisela and Kaira Jewel will talk about their experiences as Black women and Buddhists, and share wisdom from their new book, Healing Our Way Home: Black Buddhist Teachings on Ancestors, Joy, and Liberation.
Join these dharma teachers and spiritual friends to learn about how the dharma’s teachings can support the work toward social, racial, and environmental justice.
Together, we’ll learn embodied mindfulness practices and other techniques to help us lean into our individual and collective liberation, as well as our sense of belonging and joy.
Everyone is welcome to participate, regardless of experience with meditation or Buddhism.
Registration:
Please register below. If you are able, registering at the “Supporter” level enables others to attend at the “Subsidized” level. Thank you for your generosity! (Please note that the registration price includes a base level of teacher support, and you will have the opportunity to donate more after the program.)
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Volunteering
All of our programs rely on volunteers to support our teachers and staff with various tasks and responsibilities. Volunteering allows you to participate in our programs at no cost. To inquire about volunteering opportunities, please fill out our inquiry form, and we will get back to you as soon as possible.
Teacher(s)
Kaira Jewel Lingo
Kaira Jewel Lingo is a Dharma teacher whose path is rooted in spirituality, social justice, and embodied wisdom. A lifelong lover of dance, singing, and the performing arts, Kaira Jewel integrates movement and creative expression into her teaching as a way to access joy, healing, and deep presence. Her early background in improvisational movement, dance, and capoeira, along with her long-standing practice of InterPlay—which she began in 2005 and now teaches and trains leaders in—shapes her commitment to liberation through the body as well as the mind.
She lived for 15 years as an ordained nun in Thich Nhat Hanh’s Plum Village community and was ordained as a Dharma teacher in 2007. Her teaching continues the work of Engaged Buddhism, drawing inspiration from her parents’ lives of service and her father’s work alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. She now teaches internationally in both the Zen and Vipassana traditions, as well as in secular mindfulness settings.
Kaira Jewel’s work bridges the inner path of awakening with the outer path of justice, focusing especially on Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities, activists, artists, educators, families, and youth. She is dedicated to holding spaces that welcome the whole self — breath, voice, story, grief, joy, and movement.
She is the 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. She offers spiritual mentoring, teaches embodied dharma, and is co-creating a spiritual sanctuary in upstate New York — The Beloved Community of Engaged Spirituality — with her partner, Episcopal priest Adam Bucko.
Upcoming events and offerings can be found at www.kairajewel.com.
Marisela B. Gomez
Marisela B. Gomez (she/they) is a dharma teacher in the Thich Nhat Hanh Order of Interbeing, and a dharma practitioner for more than 20 years. Her practice focuses on mindfulness in everyday life. This includes her work as a public health scholar, activist, physician, and solidarity economy organizer. Of Afro-Latina ancestry, they live in Baltimore. She co-authored the book Healing our Way Home and authored Race, Class, Power and Organizing in East Baltimore as well as numerous book chapters, and articles in popular and scholarly publications. She has blogged on the intersection of spirituality and justice at Huff Post and on the intersection of community rebuilding, wisdom justice and health at mariselabgomez.com. They’ve also delivered a TedTalk on healing racism through “waking up.”