In-Person and Online: Beyond the Separate Self – Emptiness and the Freedom of Awareness
Part of The Body Remembers Freedom Series
with Kaira Jewel Lingo and My Tong
Thursday, June 18th, 2026 | 6:30pm – 8:30pm ET
In-Person Location: New York Insight at 115 West 29th Street, 12th Floor
What if the aliveness we call ‘me’ is not a solid thing at all, but vast and open like the sky?
In this session, we begin with meditation on awareness itself, resting in the nature of consciousness and touching the spacious freedom that is always already here. From this ground, we explore the teaching of not-self through playful group forms that invite us to hold and be held by one another’s stories. Together, we discover that when the sense of a separate self softens, what remains is not emptiness as absence, but emptiness as connection, intimacy, and belonging.
This workshop is part of The Body Remembers Freedom, a monthly series that brings together meditation, dharma, and embodied practice in a way that is relational, grounded, and alive. Each session includes time for meditation and contemplation, a dharma talk or shared inquiry, and InterPlay, a playful and powerful practice using movement, voice, storytelling, and deep listening to access the wisdom of the body.
Participants are supported to be:
- More grounded and connected to their bodies and to one another
- More accountable to themselves and to community
- Reconnected to joy, creativity, and inner resource
- Better able to meet life, and themselves, with compassion and presence
In times that can feel scary, overwhelming, or isolating, these gatherings offer a place to put the phone down, release accumulated stress, and reconnect with what feels trustworthy and alive. We gather to remember the sacred in ordinary experience and to be held in the support of community.
No experience with meditation or movement is required. You are welcome exactly as you are, with curiosity and a willingness to be present.
The Body Remembers Freedom is offered one Thursday a month from 6:30 to 8:30 pm ET and is offered in a hybrid format. During the InterPlay portion of the evening, My Tong guides participants joining on Zoom, while Kaira Jewel guides those attending in person. The full group then comes back together for the closing practice. You are welcome to register for a single session, select multiple dates, or join the full series at a discounted rate.
Sessions are recorded and shared with all registrants after the program, so you are welcome to sign up even if you cannot attend live.
Register for one session or the full series (at a discount!) below.
2026: June 18 | July 9 | August 6
In-Person Registration:
Online (Zoom) Registration:
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.
My Tong
My Tong has been involved in the Wake Up movement of the Plum Village tradition since 2011 and helped organized and facilitated over 30 mindfulness retreats. She is also a certified InterPlay leader. She is currently bringing her passions in sculpture, sound healing, labyrinth land art and paramita practices to create a community ceramic studio in Ukiah, CA. You can connect with her more on Instagram.