We’re not freeing Palestine, Palestine is freeing us... When this protest chant emerged in the early days of the current genocide in Gaza, it illuminated the inherent interconnectedness that the Buddha taught. When we show up for another being’s freedom, it frees us too – from the sense of separation that is at the root of all suffering.
One year later, these words take on another layer of significance. Palestinians are still living and dying in horrific and violent conditions. We are witnessing the expansion of the attempted genocide throughout the occupied territory, as well as deadly attacks in Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen by the Israeli military regime – all funded heavily by US tax dollars. For many of us, this has also been a year of waking up to the multiple ongoing genocides fueled by legacies of colonization, capitalism, and empire, in which the US also plays a central part – in Myanmar, Sudan, Tigray, Democratic Republic of Congo, and beyond.
How do we maintain absolute clarity in our commitment to interrupting Israel’s military apartheid, while staying connected to our own and each other's fundamental humanity?
How do we stretch our awareness to attend simultaneously to the many places and people who need our attention, resources and love right now, without losing our sense of ground and center?
How might we deepen our practice towards freedom, even in the face of overwhelm, exhaustion, and polarization?
We asked Kaira Jewel Lingo and Marisela B. Gomez, two of our beloved teachers from Thich Nhat Hanh’s Plum Village tradition, to help us hold these questions, as they share wisdom from their book Healing Our Way Home: Black Buddhist Teachings on Ancestors, Joy and Liberation, co-authored with Valerie Brown.
Join us on October 9th for a day of remembrance, one year into the genocide in Palestine, as we collectively hold a vision of a world where all beings are free, and as we strategize ways to deepen our spiritual and political commitments in the world as it is today.
Click here to register for the October 9th event
Click here to order Healing Our Way Home and enter PEACE25 for 25% off (valid through October 15th, 2024)
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.
Marisela B. Gomez is public health scholar activist, physician and mindfulness practitioner. Of Afro-Latina ancestry, she/they lives in Baltimore involved in building cooperative communities at the intersections of mindfulness, housing justice, and solidarity economies. Author of Healing our Way Home and Race, Class, Power and Organizing in East Baltimore, she has written numerous book chapters, popular and scholarly publications. She blogs on the intersection of spirituality and justice at Huff Post, on the intersection of community rebuilding, wisdom justice and health at mariselabgomez.com and a TedTalk on healing racism through waking up.