Interbeing as a Path to Collective Awakening and Social Engagement

				Opening Minds, Opening Hearts Podcast Season 3 Episode 7 with Kaira Jewel Lingo

Episode Title: Interbeing as a Path to Collective Awakening and Social Engagement




Colleen: Hello! 

Mark: Well, welcome. Colleen, we're back.

Colleen: We're back. We always chuckle when we get started. I don't know why. Probably because we have excitement and nerves when we come to record an episode. We're still not pros about this. It always feels like a learning experience each and every one. 

Mark: It does. You know, one thing that's happening for me as we're getting deeper into the season now with our guests, I'm really feeling this sense of dropping in a little bit more, as much as I'm also aware of what we need to do and what I'm going to ask and all that stuff.

But there's this really beautiful deepening that I feel just in our time together. ( yeah.) Both you and I, but also as we welcome guests, and it's been wonderful. 

Colleen: Even a deepening of trust. We were talking a little earlier that learning about other spiritual traditions requires an openness and a not-knowing that maybe was akin to the experience that they had at Snowmass in engaging in these dialogues that were not able to come to these conversations as prepared.

As we have been in other seasons because we don't know, we want to know, we want to be open and being open and being prepared are often intentional, at least for me. I keep using this word curious, you know, holding curiosity while also needing to have some notes so that we just don't go all over the place with the conversation.

Mark: Yeah. And, you know, we're asking questions, so that sort of suggests that we want answers, but there's a lot that's just open. And I like that word curious, you know, it seems like it's the antidote to the quick judgment or the quick answer. 

Colleen: Yeah. 

Mark: And so there's a, there's a spaciousness too, that feels like is opening up the more we talk with our guests.

Colleen: Exactly. I like to think of it as we're offering invitations. I'm using that language more and more. Inviting reflection. We'll always have questions and hopefully, our guests will learn from them too what questions they're always holding, still holding. I always think of this Rilke quote that we live the questions.

Well, with that, we have a lovely guest with us today that Mark and I are both excited to speak with. We actually talked to her husband– was that last season or the first season? 

Mark: It was the first season.

Colleen: Yeah, the first season of the podcast. Today, we are welcoming Kaira Jewel Lingo, who is a Dharma teacher with a lifelong interest in spirituality and social justice.

She works in Engaged Buddhism, which was developed by Thich Nhat Hanh, who was one of her teachers and draws a lot of her experience from her parents' lives of service, in particular, her dad's work with Martin Luther King Jr. And so she lived as an ordained nun for 15 years in Thich Nhat Hanh's monastic community.

And she now teaches internationally in the Zen lineage and the Vipassana tradition, as well as in secular mindfulness. And she teaches at the intersection of racial, climate, and social justice, with a focus on activists and Black, Indigenous, people of color, BIPOC communities, artists, educators, families, and youth.

She's based in New York now, although some exciting things are developing that we'll chat with her about later in terms of creating a new spiritual home for herself and people in the Buddhist Christian community that she and Adam hold space for. Kaira is also the author of We Were Made for These Times: Ten Lessons in Moving Through Change, Loss, and Disruption.

And she co-authored another book, Healing Our Way Home: Black Buddhist Teachers on Ancestors, Joy, and Liberation. You can find out much more about her, her teachings and workshops at her website, kairajewel.com. Welcome Kaira. We're so glad to have you. 

Kaira Jewel: Thank you so much. It's really lovely to be with you both. 

Mark: Yeah, thanks for being here, Kaira.

I'm really excited about this time we have together. This season, we're really looking at those dialogues at Snowmass Monastery that Thomas Keating started, I don't know, 20-something years ago, where he invited people from different traditions to come and basically be in community. in practice and in conversation.

And one thing that emerged out of that is they talked about where there's a lot of intersection. They called them the Points of Agreement in these interfaith, interspiritual dialogues. And there's one where they basically are talking about different views around, some would say God, some would say Creator.

There was a lot of different language around that. And so they came to an agreement of a shared language and they called it this Ultimate Reality. And the point of agreement which they actually listed read, "The world religions bear witness to the experience of Ultimate Reality, which they give various names."

And so, curious maybe to start off how you might talk about this Ultimate Reality, particularly where you're coming from in your own spiritual tradition and your own understanding of that. 

Kaira Jewel: Yeah, thank you. And Adam introduced me to these agreements a year or two ago and getting to read them was really powerful.

So I'm really deeply grateful for the pioneering work of Father Thomas Keating and the many spiritual siblings that he gathered with to reflect. I think it's such an important gift to the future generations. It's such really important work that I'm so grateful you two in this season are exploring and building on.

So I just want to express my gratitude and joy that we're exploring. 

Mark: Yeah. You know, we should say, because we've mentioned Adam a couple of times, some of our listeners may not know that we're talking about Adam Bucko, your partner.

Kaira Jewel: Yes, thank you. So, in the Buddhist tradition, Ultimate Reality is understood as Nirvana. That's one way we could talk about it, which is very much part of our historical reality. Like two sides of a coin, you have the historical reality and you have Ultimate Reality, right? Right there with it. And the two arise together. Like you can't have just heads on a coin arise by itself. Or tails arise.

If you're going to have a coin, it means you have a head and a tail, right? So, reality means you have historical, which is our everyday reality, and ultimate. You have the crucifixion, and you have the resurrection. You have the fact that samsara, that's a Sanskrit term for suffering, you have all the ups and downs of our daily life, of our historical existence, our identities.

And right there with that, you have the Ultimate Reality. Nirvana is the ability to break through the ways in which samsara keeps us attached to or identifying with the less essential, we could say, parts of our experience. And helps us to connect with the life force that runs through all living and even nonsentient beings.

Throughout time, throughout space, that pervades everything. It's our true nature. It's the essence of who we all are. And I think our purpose, each of our purpose in the historical realm, is to break through to that ultimate realm. I would say probably many different spiritual traditions see it that way, that that's the purpose of any spiritual path is to help us understand the complete interwovenness of that head and tail on a coin that our daily existence, you know, waking up and fighting over who didn't do the dishes last night is right there with this, then the nirvana in that experience is saying, wait a minute, I really love this person.

And I'm not going to be here forever. They're not going to be here forever. Is this the best way to spend this moment? So it's a moment of awakening where we touch impermanence. We touch interbeing. We touch Not Self. We touch, "Where did we both come from? Where are we both going to?" We're not separate. So, let's figure out how to get on the same team and tackle this from a place of open-heartedness and wisdom rather than clenching into the ego.

And I'm really speaking from a very, very personal experience. 

Mark: That sounds like a good title for a book, doing the dishes in light of Ultimate Reality or something. 

Colleen: Well, and you brought us right up to the bank of this other theme that we're trying to dive into this season, which is this term that Father Thomas uses more and more in his later teachings and writings, which is nonduality.

As you were talking, I was thinking about an expression that when I lived in Los Angeles, I spent a lot of time– I had a dear friend who was Mexican American. She was deeply involved in indigenous communities in Los Angeles and with Aztec dancing. And they would say, death and life are two sides of the same coin.

I wonder if you can help us deepen our understanding, too, of nonduality from the Buddhist tradition and how we are able to even practice in some way, living more into this Ultimate Reality. 

Kaira Jewel: Sure. So, I realized I threw the word Nirvana around just before and I wanted to give a little more context for those who aren't familiar with the term.

You'll probably be familiar with the feeling of what I'm talking about, but in Buddhism, Nirvana is this ultimate kind of awakening experience where we transcend all the different mind-produced realities that keep us attached to suffering. So, a classical understanding of Nirvana is that you uproot completely forever in your mind and heart all hatred, delusion, and greed.

That you no longer think that you're a separate self, existing independently, so you no longer try to protect yourself, defend yourself, get things for you, care about your reputation and your image in front of others; that you really see yourself as a process rather than an object. 

That you understand that everything flows into you. You didn't create yourself the way you were, even your parents and your, whatever your culture, it's much bigger than that. It's all of life, like none of us could be here without the entire cosmos being in us, right? And that everything flows out of us too. And so Nirvana really translates into boundless compassion because you only want to protect and care and love for everything around you because you realize that's you, you're that.

So there's this utter selflessness. And it's also– I love this other understanding of Nirvana. It's the extinction of all notion. So you're not caught in any ideas, in any ideologies, or this is right, this is wrong. So, coming now to this beautiful question about nonduality it's very hard to talk about these things because none of us probably has experienced it, maybe, except for a tiny fraction of a second, and the moment you try to put it into words, it sort of degenerates what it is.

But, there are some beautiful images, right? Like, some dialogues between patriarchs and the Zen tradition, one student said something about, oh, the nirvana is like a mirror, and you brush the mirror and there's nothing on the mirror, and then the patriarch said, no, there is no mirror. Like, there is nothing to even land on.

That's where this extinction of all views, like, it's emptiness in the sense of, empty of self, empty of thingness. So it's hard to talk about because in our day-to-day reality we don't really encounter anything like that, right? 

Another image that I like is, there's the image of the wheel, like a horse cart with a wheel and then at the center of the wheel is this circle where all the spokes come out from the wheel.

And in the Sri Lankan tradition in many temples, you'll see this symbol. There's often eight spokes, and it signifies the eight worldly winds. So you have the worldly winds of fame and disrepute. You have the worldly winds of gain and loss, you have the winds of praise and blame, and this wheel is always moving, so you're always moving from some gain to some loss, to some praise, to some blame, something fortunate to something misfortunate, like that wheel never stops moving, but If you look at the eye of the wheel, that's not moving.

There's space in that eye of the wheel. That space in the center of the wheel is not subject to the ups and downs of the vicissitudes of life. It's not conditioned, right? Another way to talk about Nirvana - nonduality - is the unconditioned; the state which is not affected by what people think about us, by how much money we have in the bank account, by whether we have a partner or not, by whether we're housed or not housed, or whether there's war in our country or not war. It doesn't mean all those things aren't super important and that we really need to fight for justice and care for all beings, but that there is this experience each of us can tap into that is beyond that, and we can tap into it in this very existence, in our day to day, right in the midst of the troubles and the sorrows and the pain and the despair, there is this ability to tap into a reality that's beyond the confines of gain and loss of pleasure and pain.

Colleen: Yeah. Yeah. It really reminds me too of, when you say it's hard to put into words, I'm thinking Mark that it's maybe why Father Thomas ultimately expressed this so much in his poetry towards the end, you know, in The Secret Embrace. He has this beautiful poem that he titled, The Last Laugh. 

And he says, "I watched the seductive dance of everyday life, but the desire to join has ceased. Nowhere is my destination, and no one is my identity. Is this annihilation, or is it the path to the silent love that we are?"

And he goes on, but it's the essence, it's an essence that is what I hear you describing too. 

Kaira Jewel: Yeah. That's so beautiful, that poem. Thank you. 

Mark: As you're talking, Kaira, about nondual and Ultimate Reality and Nirvana, I'm thinking about the relationship to all of that.

And maybe this is my Christian roots in me. I think of communicating with that somehow. Like there's me, and then there's this Ultimate Reality. 

Whatever term we would give that God. And then there's communicating with God - a very much part of, right? 

Mark: And maybe you could even shift that from communication to communion, and that might be getting added a little bit more. It's a very Christian or Catholic term, maybe, but I was just wondering about this idea too of how do we cultivate that relationship that is not grasping on it in some way, but engaging, I guess, and is there, from your perspective, a relationship there or is that more of an impersonal relationship when it starts to get into the nondual area? What is this notion of God? And is this what Thich Nhat Hanh was meaning when he talked about interbeing? These connections and communion with all things? 

Kaira Jewel: Yes, I would say yes, that when he spoke about interbeing, it very much was expressing the insight that we simply do not arise except interconnected with every other; with every other thing, every other being. So you just shouldn't use the word being because it's not accurate. You should use the word interbeing because that's the only way to really talk about how we all exist, is completely interconnected and interdependent. 

And so in terms of this communicating and communing, I think it's a different emphasis in Christianity and Buddhism. When you were sharing the question, I was thinking, Oh, you know, my experience is that the aspiration in Buddhism is to become. To just let it infuse us to just be part of it. And maybe in Christianity, it's more to establish this relationship or this communing, this connecting with. I'm not sure, but I have definitely experienced– 

I just did a month-long silent retreat from home, which was the first time I tried that. And I went many times in a week to an arboretum near where I live, just to meditate and do walking meditation. I ate my lunch in a big park around trees and bushes, and I had one experience early on where I was just sitting quietly, I was following my breath, letting my mind get concentrated on just what was present in the moment, hearing the sound, just feeling the sense of the air, the insects.

And what I felt was this beautiful, very light blanket, almost like a web, but it was just a very... so ephemeral, but it was a real presence that I felt just sort of landed over me and all around me. And that really was so loving and just communicated to me my absolute belonging and interbeing with everything around me in that moment.

It was like this presence just descended on me and it was part of the whole landscape I was in. And it didn't last long, but it was this very lovely experience of when you talk about communing, that's what it felt like, that I was being held, that I was being welcomed, that I was being known by that place, not just I was knowing that place, that place was knowing me.

And it just felt like life, like nature, like there was a feminine variance in this energy, it was just so embracing. And I want to just tell another story because it is this experience of communing and communication. I also did a two-week silent retreat this summer in Oregon as part of a training that I was taking for teachers and nature guides on how to bring mindfulness and retreat practice into nature.

So we each had three days on our own. And we selected a place, and we went, and we were there for three days. We took our food, we took our water, we didn't see anybody for those three days. So I was on a ridge and I came to the end of the three days and I kind of was like, well, I didn't really have any special experience there. I was kind of disappointed and a little grumpy. 

Mark: Too worried about mountain lions? 

Kaira Jewel: Yeah, well, the first night I was worried. We knew there were bears in the area, but we also had bear hangs so the bears couldn't get into the food. Nobody really had any trouble with bears. The first night was spooky, but the second two nights were okay, but I got really hot and muggy.

And so I was kind of irritable and you couldn't really get out of the weather because you were just in your tent on this bridge. So yeah, the last day I was kind of grumpy and I was like, I didn't really have any special experience. And so I said, you know what, let me not think about what did I get out of this.

Let me think about, what have I given to this place? What have I been a part of in this place? And so I said, let me just connect with this one tree, because it had been the tree I decided would be like, my altar would be at the base of this tree when I first selected this site. So I decided, and I hadn't really done any of the tree-hugging that I like to do sometimes.

So I was like, let me just sit with my back up against this tree. It was a pine tree, I noticed, and I was in an oak grove, so all the other trees were oak except there were other– a few other pines, but they were different than this kind of pine tree, it was a different kind of pine. So I just got very quiet and I asked the pine tree, Are you lonely here? Because you're the only one of your kind. 

And the pine tree said, look out at the mountain across the ridge covered with pine trees, which I had been looking at that ridge for three days, but it didn't process that they were pine trees. And then the pine tree said, look behind you at the mountains behind you, that's covered with pine forest.

And the tree was like, no, I'm happy for this oak forest to be here. And there were all these baby oaks in kind of a circle around this pine tree, and the pine tree was like, and when these baby oaks grow up, I'm happy to yield my space in the sun to them. 

So I'm like, wow. So then I was like, okay, so what's it like to be a pine tree?

And the pine tree was like, well, I'm hard on the exterior, but I'm very soft inside. And I'm very happy to share the nectar that I bring up. I need most of it for my branches and leaves and nourishing the roots, but I'm happy to share it. And I was very surprised when the tree asked me, what's it like to be a human?

And so, I first said, well, I wanted it to know all the other places where I had seen trees. I said, oh, well, it's cool to have two legs. I can go and see all the different places where trees exist, like you, beaches and parks and cities, suburbs. And then the tree asked, but what's it like to be a human? It was a deeper question than just, how is it to move around this planet.

And I just really sat with that and what came from my heart was most of us are either driving each other or being driven to live very cut off from you and your kind and from this natural world and there was really this explanation to the tree that most people are not able to live in a way that is beneficial to themselves and to the planet.

And I said, but there are a few humans who are living in a way that is deeply respectful of the natural world of your kind. And I said, I sometimes am able to be in that small group and sometimes I'm not. And it felt like a confession, like asking for forgiveness. And the tree just said, well, please continue to share this and share it with others.And I said, I will. 

And I just offer this story in light of your question because I think we can be in communication with each other, interspecies, right? As representatives of the Ultimate Reality. I really felt like that tree was standing in for the whole cosmos in that moment. It was the tree, but it was also, I don't know, I felt like that ability to have that conversation was each of us were being inhabited by, you could say the Holy Spirit, you could say the Ultimate Reality. And that's how we could communicate like that. 

Mark: That's beautiful. As you're saying it, I'm getting that more, that interbeing and the communal aspect. If it's in one thing, it's in everything, if it's all connected, right? That's it. And Keating said that even about the relationship to God, he says, "When you say God, you don't really mean God. You mean your idea of God". And to put it another way, you mean God as not God. That if it's really Ultimate Reality, it's in everything. And so you can have that conversation with the tree. And you can also receive communing with the tree. It's an open thing. It's back and forth. It's reciprocal. Yeah, it's beautiful.

[solemn music starts]

In the Christian tradition, Contemplative Prayer is the opening of your mind and heart to God, who is beyond thoughts, words, and emotions. Centering Prayer is a method designed to facilitate contemplation. The method suggests four guidelines. One, choose a sacred word as the symbol of your intention to consent to God's presence and action within you.

Two, sit comfortably and relatively still, close your eyes or leave them slightly open and silently introduce your sacred word. Three, when you notice you have become engaged with a thought, simply return ever so gently to your sacred word. And four, at the end of the 20 minute prayer period, let go of the sacred word and remain in silence for a couple of minutes.

The additional time invites you to bring the atmosphere of silence into everyday life. 

[solemn music ends]

Mark: We're talking about all this connection, nirvana, transcendence, nondual. I'm wondering about how the impact of all of that shows up in our life, in the world, and in the work that we do. This was another part of the dialogues. They looked at these points of agreement, like, what does that mean then for our life?

And things that came up that were common practice of compassion, service to others, practicing moral precepts and virtues, you know. So I'm wondering how you see that. I mean, you're doing all the work that you're doing in racial justice and care for the earth and all kinds of expressions of that.

And, I think you've said this, "I see my work as a continuation of the Engaged Buddhism developed by Thich Nhat Hanh." As well as the work of your parents that inspired you. And so I wonder if you could say more about that kind of Engaged Buddhism. 

Kaira Jewel: Yeah. 

Mark: And how that comes out of our practice. 

Kaira Jewel: Yeah.

Yeah. You know, what I mentioned earlier about Nirvana being this absence of self and not being driven by greed, hatred, and delusion, and that, that basically translates into boundless compassion because if you see your interconnectedness then all you want to do is protect and love and provide the best conditions for each being to flourish.

I mean, when I think of Jesus's life and how it was just a stream of compassionate, enlightening actions that he took, he was extremely active, right? He was extremely engaged in the events of his time. And I look at Buddha's life, and it's very much the same. Immediately, the first thing he did after he became awakened, first of all, well, these are all up for interpretation, right?

What happened and who wrote it down and how accurate, but what he saw was so profound, he was inclined to just sit on it because he thought no one's gonna get this. No one's gonna get this. And according to the Buddhist mythology, some devas, these celestial beings came and begged him to please share his insights with others.

So, he walked some ways to the five ascetics who he had been practicing with. And of course, when they saw him, even they were judging him because he had left the path of asceticism and taken some food, you know, tried to be more moderate, which allowed him to have this awakening experience. But, they listened to him, and first one realized stream entry, this first stage of awakening, as soon as he gave his first discourse, and then later all of the other ones with the second discourse also achieved stream entry.

So, the first thing he did, basically, even though he knew this is not going to be easy, was try to help water the seeds of awakening in others. And then he quickly built a Sangha community of monks and nuns and then lay people. And he advised kings and he tried to prevent wars and he was very engaged in the life of his society, very much turning caste system on its head as soon as he could, basically by taking in those who are considered untouchables, nowadays known as Dalit people. Ordaining them into the Sangha, which was unheard of. Ordaining women into the Sangha, which was unheard of.

And when he would ordain, this is in the canon, in the Sutras, when he would ordain a person of a lower caste with others of higher caste, he would often ordain the lower caste person first, so they would be senior to the higher caste.

So, he was always trying to turn oppressive systems on their head. And so, if we just look at their lives, Jesus and Buddha, it's like they're just walking social change. People who are engaged and who are trying to really manifest the teachings. I mean, to me, Engaged Buddhism is sort of redundant, right?

Just like Eco Dharma, as a term, is redundant because Buddhism means being engaged. If you have a path of awakening, If you have a path that helps people end suffering, it means you need to be living that. It means if you see people in unjust situations or situations where they're not able to thrive, then Buddhism means you create systems or your practice should be addressing that, should be connected to that.

And similar to Eco Dharma. If Dharma's not supporting us to see our interbeing with the earth and live that way, right? Like I'm trying to fly less, very consciously, and I'm not doing it perfectly, but I'm really trying to say, here are the criteria under which I will take a flight. It's not just for anything, right?

It needs to be for a reason I've really thought about. Otherwise, I'll try to drive, and I was able to purchase an electric car, I know that's not the answer for everything, but it's something, and I'll drive, or I'll take the train, or I'll, you know? 

So how do we live that way, where we really see, like, these hurricanes coming? They are not inevitable. Those could be prevented. The worst thing we've seen in a thousand years and two in a row in Florida, like, how do we live that way as part of our spiritual practice that we are not contributing to this getting worse? How do we invest in solar and renewable energy? How do we divest from fossil fuels?

How do we elect officials that believe in climate change and enact policies to end human contributions to creating this polycrisis? So, that is spiritual practice, to look at what's my unconscious bias, my internalized racism, my white privilege, whatever it is, how can I work with that as part of my spiritual practice?

What's my internalized patriarchy? All of those things to me are what it means to be on a spiritual path, to look at how do we interact with the world around us and not keep contributing to suffering, whether consciously or unconsciously, individually, systemically. 

Colleen: And I think that was all so summed up so beautifully in the question you asked on your retreat that preceded this encounter with the tree. What have I given to this place? That's going to be added to my practice. What have I given to this place? 

Thank you so much. Listening to you has been like a spiritual practice. I do want to give you an opportunity to let us know about where our audience can engage with you. You're often doing retreats and most importantly, because I've been receiving your newsletters, we know that you have a wonderful opportunity and gift of some land that you and Adam are receiving. Can you tell us a little bit about how our audience can find information about that and support the development of this place? 

Kaira Jewel: Sure. Yeah, thank you. So we were gifted a monastery, it's called Our Lady of the Resurrection Monastery. It's near Poughkeepsie in upstate New York, 72 acres, and we're hoping we can raise the money to open a contemplative center for practice there.

Our non-profit is called the Beloved Community of Engaged Spirituality, and it will exist alongside Our Lady of the Resurrection, we'll have a chapel there. and a meditation hall. So there'll be a Buddhist and Christian and interspiritual. It's bigger than both of those traditions, but there'll be places to do contemplation, hermitages, retreats, and really to connect with nature.

It'll be a big part of the focus of our work will be earth-based and earth-centered contemplative practice. So people can find out at the Give Butter site, which is linked here and also on Adam Bucko's website, we'll have information and links as we. Soon we'll have our own website for this place, but until then you can stay in touch through our websites or through our newsletter. There's also a special newsletter for the Our Lady of the Resurrection, so you can get news from us through that.

Colleen: Wonderful. Yes, we'll include all the links in our show notes. 

Mark: I'm gonna reserve a hermitage right now in advance. 

Kaira Jewel: Yes, we want to honor Thomas Keating there, you know one of the things we want to do is have like 12 stations of the cross, but not stations of the cross, but like maybe 12 places that honor the saints and the bodhisattvas of the beloved community. So Thomas Keating, Howard Thurman, Dorothy Day. So we're going to have the people and the movements that have really shaped us. Outdoor spaces to contemplate and be with them. 

Mark: Sounds beautiful.