Inclusiveness & Intimacy: Honoring Black History Month

Whatever our racial or ethnic backgrounds, we can always grow our hearts. February is black history month and this talk invites us to nurture the seeds of compassion in our minds and respectfully honor and learn about those who are different from us. In a world of increasing alienation, let this be an invitation to practice patience, inclusiveness, tolerance and forebearance.

Transcript

Welcome,

Friends.

February is Black History Month,

Or African American History Month,

Which I'm so grateful even exists.

And I want to honor that it is celebrated in many countries as Black History Month,

Honoring all those of the African diaspora.

Some countries honor it in February,

Other countries in October.

It is an important step toward righting the wrongs of our collective heritage.

And to begin this talk,

As I'm also from the United States,

I want to call in and honor the indigenous ancestors of the land.

Without them,

There would be no unfolding of a history for African Americans.

I invite you to join me in calling upon the indigenous ancestors of your land,

Wherever you may be.

I honor this month as an invitation to practice inclusiveness,

Or kshanti,

In Sanskrit,

Sometimes translated as patience,

And sometimes as inclusiveness,

Tolerance,

Or forbearance.

Kshanti,

Inclusiveness,

Is one of the practices known as perfections,

Also called paramitas in Sanskrit,

Or paramis in Pali.

They're called perfections because their mind states are qualities of heart and mind that can be perfected if we train in them diligently.

Paramita also means something that helps us cross from the shore of suffering to the shore of liberation.

When we're suffering,

Stuck in our illusions,

In our narrowness,

In our reactivity,

We can practice the paramitas.

And they're like a boat helping us cross to the shore of well-being,

Wisdom,

Equanimity,

Love,

And compassion.

We don't need to practice for 10 or 20 years to get results.

The paramitas can help us find relief and open to the goodness in us right away.

In a world of increasing alienation and polarization,

We each can do something to nurture the seeds of inclusiveness,

Understanding,

And compassion in our own minds,

And in our society,

In our world.

Whatever our racial or ethnic backgrounds,

We can always grow our hearts.

The Buddha taught that our hearts have the capacity for immeasurable,

Boundless,

Infinite love without any discrimination,

Without any boundary.

So we can always keep growing our hearts,

Learning to be more open and more inclusive of others.

This is what is called for now in these times of heightened exclusion,

Border walls,

Bans,

Sanctions,

And war.

The paramita,

Or perfection of inclusiveness,

To help us individually and collectively move from the shore of suffering and separation to the shore of well-being,

Ease,

And interbeing,

Or the reality of our profound interconnection with all of life.

One of the ways to practice inclusiveness is to respectfully honor and learn about the ways or traditions of those different from us.

So if you're not familiar with calling on the ancestors,

I invite you to try on this practice with curiosity and openness.

Maledoma Somme of the Western African Dagara people shares this Dagara prayer.

May all ancestors join forces to wake up our spirit and put good thoughts into our minds.

Then we shall see the good that awaits us and accept it.

In many traditions and lineages,

Before beginning anything of significance,

People call upon their ancestors for guidance,

Protection,

And support.

As we begin Black History Month today,

I invite each of us to call upon our ancestors,

Which include our blood or genetic,

Biological ancestors,

As well as the ancestors of our land,

Our country.

And a third category is our spiritual or ethical humanistic ancestors,

Those who lived in loving,

Truthful,

And virtuous ways and were models for us or for our communities of how to live beautifully,

How to bring about greater justice for everyone.

So I invite you now to identify someone or some group of people in any of these three ancestral lineages,

Blood,

Land,

Or spiritual,

Whom you feel a connection to,

Who have modeled inclusiveness,

Goodness,

Love,

Protection,

Support,

Virtue,

Or compassion.

Connect in this moment with someone from either your genetic or adoptive family lineage,

Your geographic heritage,

Or your spiritual ethical tradition that you feel supports you in some way,

Who modeled in their life some value you aspire to live by.

Let us take a few moments in silence to connect with them.

If you wish,

You could say their name out loud or simply bring their image to mind and open yourself to feel your connection with them,

Inviting them to be present here with you now,

Sensing that flow between generations of wisdom passed on from one generation to the next.

May all ancestors join forces to wake up our spirit and put good thoughts into our minds.

Then we shall see the good that awaits us and accept it.

So I want to share about the ancestor that I call to mind.

It's my great grandmother,

Who we called Mudrow,

But her name was Jeanette Baldwin Jones Weatherford.

She lived to be 101,

And she was born in Tupelo,

Mississippi in 1900.

We called her Mudrow,

And that was because one of her grandchildren couldn't pronounce mother,

So everyone began to call her like this child.

She was the daughter of Sherry,

Who was born in 1912.

She was born in 1912,

And she was the daughter of Shercroppers,

The 13th of 14 children,

So her grandparents were born into slavery.

She buried five of her six children,

One as a baby and the others died in their 50s or 60s before she did.

She told me many stories of growing up in the South and acts of racial terror,

Like lynchings that she witnessed,

And also of her journey north.

As an asylum seeker,

Not moving for greater economic opportunity as I was taught in schools,

She was escaping terrorism.

But even in the north,

She and her family faced racial terror from the Ku Klux Klan,

And then crippling racialized poverty in the urban north as well.

Still,

I remember all of my time growing up visiting her,

She had no bitterness for everything that she went through.

She was able to laugh and joke and tease.

She was deeply loving and expressive of her affection.

She was also very mentally clear until she died.

And the way she died,

She just stopped eating and drinking.

She was ready to go.

And that's a huge legacy as well,

That she survived all of that,

The racism,

Violence,

Fear,

The dehumanization,

And managed to pass on love and clarity and a sense of dignity.

She sang in the choir at church,

She would go fishing into her 90s,

Wearing her jeans,

Bringing a case of beer,

Going with friends,

And she'd go fishing.

She really knew how to enjoy her life,

And she passed that on.

So what we just practiced together,

This invocation of love and clarity,

Is a constant reminder that we're not alone,

That we got here because of many others.

We are but a continuation of our ancestors.

They're in every cell of our body.

Without them,

We couldn't be here.

We can draw on their strengths when we're in need.

We can call on them for help and ask them to take over when we're facing a difficult time.

We can call on them for help and ask them to take over when we're facing a challenge.

I did this quite spontaneously as an 18-year-old.

When I got into a difficult position,

I was interning one summer in a rural community development project in Portugal.

I was being treated unfairly by those in authority,

And being asked to take responsibility for a situation that was quite overwhelming.

I remember lying on my bunk bed far from all my networks of support in the U.

S.

And just calling on my great-grandmother,

Madro,

Who was still alive at that time,

Asking for her protection and guidance,

And then just inviting all of my ancestors to come and support me.

I don't know where this came from.

I'd never done it before,

And no one specifically taught me to do it.

I just knew that that was where I could get strength from.

And it helped me to relax a little bit in that moment and to feel that I could do something about this situation that I felt helpless in.

And sure enough,

In those next days that followed,

I was able to stand up for myself in that situation and call on the support from others around me to move through that challenging moment.

I did it in preparation for this talk as well.

So please know that my ancestors are helping me to give this talk.

I'm not giving it alone.

Your ancestors are also listening to this talk with you.

You're not listening alone.

So calling on our ancestors is like the practice of beginning or ending any retreat or gathering in the Buddhist tradition,

Where we recite the three refuges.

Calling upon the nature of awakening,

The Buddha,

Of truth,

The Dharma,

And of interconnection,

Sangha,

That is in and around each of us.

Invoking ancestors,

Like taking refuge,

Helps us see we are more than our small,

Separate self.

We belong to and are supported by,

And are also accountable to,

Something larger,

Something bigger.

Connecting in this way with our ancestors can help us heal from the pain of self-doubt,

Self-sabotage,

As well as from the complexes of inferiority and superiority.

If we see ourselves as a stream,

We know that our ancestors' suffering,

Unhealed,

Trauma,

And ignorance flow into us from the past into the present.

And we can learn to see that our failures and our self-destructive habits are not ours alone,

But were transmitted to us,

So we can have compassion for ourselves when we miss the mark and release feelings of inferiority.

Our task is to transform these inherited weaknesses,

But we are not to blame for them.

In the same way,

As a continuation of our ancestors,

We know that our skills and talents are not ours to be individually proud of,

So we cultivate humility,

Feeling gratitude and reverence for the weak and the weak.

We are not to blame for our own weaknesses,

But we are not to blame for our own pride and reverence for the wisdom,

Resilience,

And joy that flows into us from past generations,

Letting go of our egoic pride and any feeling of superiority.

Our work as spiritual practitioners is to strengthen the goodness our ancestors passed on to us,

So that we can help it grow and deepen in our generation and pass it on to future generations,

Be lost.

And we also have the responsibility to transform the unskillfulness they passed on to us,

So that we don't unconsciously transmit it to future generations,

Hobbling them unnecessarily.

As we connect more to the suffering our ancestors passed on to us,

It is important to see clearly a particular suffering we have all inherited,

The legacy of white supremacy.

All of us,

Regardless of our ethnic and racial backgrounds,

Have been shaped by this,

Whether we wanted to be or not.

Generations of Europeans who went out to colonize much of the world from the 16th to the 20th centuries were only able to do so because of a foundational illusion and belief in the inherent supremacy of white-skinned bodies,

Which was constructed,

Articulated,

And refined over these centuries for the express purpose of economic,

Political,

Religious,

And cultural domination.

This illusion of white supremacy has come to influence every part of the planet through the history of colonialism,

Our globalized economy,

And mass marketing culture.

Black History Month is an opportunity,

Albeit a painful one,

To atone for and begin to heal our ancestors' mistaken and misguided belief in white supremacy,

The ignorance of their discrimination,

And the violence of their oppression,

Which has contaminated all of us.

We can see this Black History Month as a call to each of us to do what we can in our own small spheres of influence,

To correct and heal the damage our genetic,

Land,

Or spiritual ancestors caused and passed on.

We can use the privilege we may have received due to our non-chosen social identities,

Like race,

Class,

Gender,

Sexual orientation,

Gender identity,

Age,

Nationality,

Etc.

,

In the service of uplifting those with less privilege.

At the end of this talk,

I'll offer two practices that we can try out this month that may help us to repair what has been broken and reconnect us to that which we have forgotten is also us.

Let us draw upon the goodness and strength of our ancestors in this coming month to support us to honor and uplift not just the history of Black people,

But also the vibrant,

Thriving,

Living communities of those of us in the African diaspora.

So I want to speak now about another mind state that supports inclusivity,

Which is intimacy.

Dogen Zenji,

A 13th century Japanese Zen Buddhist teacher,

Said,

Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.

To wake up,

We want to be intimate with our world,

Especially with that from which we've been separated,

Because it's only in reuniting with it that we can realize our full self,

Our full potential,

Our awakening.

Ruby Sales,

An African American civil rights activist,

In an on-being interview with Krista Tippett says,

And so we're incomplete without knowing each other.

So that intimacy,

Which has been one of the greatest trigger fingers of the empire,

Is to destroy intimacy,

To destroy how we know each other.

And that the Black community has been under this assault ever since enslavement,

Where Black people's families were sold away from each other.

We've had to constantly fight to maintain that intimacy.

So our reflections today on Black History Month are a practice of intimacy with ourselves and with each other,

A radical resistance to the separation our racist white supremacist society imposes on us and on our relations to others.

Ruth King,

An African American Dharma teacher and activist,

Continues this message in her article on healing the broken body of the Sangha in the Lions Roar magazine.

She says,

At the core of racial suffering is denial about our belonging,

That is,

Our kinship and our membership in each other's lives.

The separation inherent in the entrenched patterns of racial suffering is not just a division of the races.

The consciousness or unconsciousness that supports racial suffering cuts people out of our hearts,

Then has us try to live as if cutting does not hurt.

We have come to accept this dismemberment as normal and move about our lives in search of spiritual freedom and contentment,

As if we're not bleeding from the wounds of separation.

It's as if we were orphans in search of our family,

Not realizing that they are the other,

The ones we despise,

Don't see,

Or think we already know.

We have convinced ourselves that we can live with missing body parts,

With some folks and without others,

And still be whole,

Happy,

And peaceful.

But the reality is that we live in a state of pervasive unsatisfactoriness and confusion,

Not able to see or touch a deep sense of belonging,

Nor put language to it.

We work harder at belonging because we only make use of a fraction of our wholeness and overcompensate with what remains,

Righteousness or avoidance that masks fear.

We waste energy that our communities need to heal and transform.

In these moments of dismemberment,

We have forgotten that all of our parts matter.

Our challenge is to practice in ways that reflect tender and wise kinship with all beings.

We must ask ourselves,

How can we create a sangha that genuinely cares about racial suffering and belonging?

So Black History Month is an occasion to reconnect with these parts of ourselves that we've cut out.

And so I want to offer you two practices for inclusiveness,

For recreating,

Reestablishing this kinship that Ruth King speaks about,

And the intimacy that Ruby Sales speaks about.

So we get to be a learner,

To open ourselves up to the vast richness around us that we have yet to become intimate with.

It's said in the Buddhist Sutras that a Bodhisattva or an awakened being is always ready to learn and grow and never feels that they have learned everything that they need to learn.

So in this spirit,

I invite you to take on these two practices of inclusiveness in this month of February.

The first one is to get to know more about a particular African American or person of African descent who inspires you.

You could read their autobiography or their biography.

Some years ago,

My dad gave me John Hope Franklin's autobiography,

Mirror to America.

But there are wonderful books about and by writers like Lorraine Hansberry,

Toni Morrison,

Aretha Franklin,

Muhammad Ali,

James Baldwin.

Or you might read a novel about the African American experience.

Wonderful ones are by Toni Morrison,

Alice Walker.

There's one that I read that I really love by Ghanaian author Yah Gyasi,

Which is a novel about slavery called Homegoing.

So you might want to read or listen to books or watch talks that also provide a literary or social analysis of race from a black perspective.

There's thinkers like Ta-Nehisi Coates,

Patrice Kahn,

Colors of Black Lives Matter,

Who wrote a book called When They Call You a Terrorist.

Most anything by Bell Hooks,

Cornell West,

Derrick Bell,

Michelle Alexander.

The New Jim Crow is a book of hers.

Or there may be films that you want to watch that center the black experience that are made by black filmmakers like Ava DuVernay.

And then there's other films about black people like the recent one on Harriet Tubman,

Or Hidden Figures about the black women mathematicians who helped put a man on the moon.

Or films like the Jesse Owens story.

I also watched a film Men of Honor about Carl Brashear.

And then there's films that give historical perspectives.

I have a friend Katrina Brown whose film Traces of the Trade,

Stories from the Deep North,

Is about tracing her white family's legacy with transporting enslaved Africans.

You could also plan to visit museums or historical sites that will help you learn more about the African American legacy.

And I want to particularly here uplift the work of Bryan Stevenson,

A black lawyer who founded the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery,

Alabama,

Which is working to end mass incarceration.

He founded the National Memorial for Peace and Justice,

A memorial to the thousands of victims of lynching in the US.

I also encourage you to see the recently released film about his life and experience freeing an innocent man from death row in Alabama called Just Mercy.

Other places that you could visit are the Civil Rights Museum in Atlanta.

And then there's also resources that help us understand white privilege and the workings of white supremacy.

Just One by Robin DiAngelo is her book on white fragility.

So taking action in this first way could also come in the form of donating to causes that advance the well-being of black people,

Those of the African diaspora,

And those who are oppressed.

Organizations like Black Lives Matter or the Equal Justice Initiative and so many others.

So the second practice of inclusiveness that I invite you to take on this month is to make a connection or deepen one you already have with an actual person in your daily life.

So not just learning about black history through reading or watching or visiting but also connecting with people who are different from us.

This may be making an effort to get to know and be inclusive of black people or a particular black person in our lives that we may pass by or be around on a daily basis but maybe we never really saw them or stopped to reflect and inquire who are you?

What is your story?

How might we be connected?

What might we have in common?

But if we are from the African diaspora of African descent and even if we're not the inclusiveness practice may show up in other ways for you.

Maybe reaching out to someone you find difficult,

Someone in your family who you want to understand better and make a deeper connection with.

Or if they're people of other racial backgrounds or other social identities that you're not familiar with.

Perhaps different genders or different gender identities,

Different sexual orientations,

Different economic or educational backgrounds or from a different generation or from another country or culture.

Or someone who's an immigrant or someone who's indigenous to your land or perhaps a veteran of war or someone who spent time in prison or whose profession is unfamiliar to you.

Someone whose background is different from yours.

And one way to connect with people who are different from you in this way would be to find out what kind of groups are meeting on certain issues that would be of concern to them.

And if they're open groups then going to attend them and learning and hearing their stories.

So take time in this month to practice the perfection of inclusiveness by opening yourself up to learn and grow through respectful,

Curious and humble contact with someone different from you.

To create even a little bit more intimacy than was there before.

And just a note on how we might approach this unfamiliar person or someone that we want to deepen our relationship with.

It's important not to bring expectations or demands that they return your interest.

But just showing our care,

Our loving curiosity which is coming from the heart.

Reviews

What an insightful and kind invitation.
Thank you!

Kaira, thank you for creating this talk and sharing your wisdom and that of your ancestors with us. It opened my heart in a new way of connection and understanding. I have much gratitude for you. Thank you

Very inspiring and enlightening, thank you for for sharing. Namaste

Very insightful. Love the excercises that you suggested. Thank you.

An unknown piece of my heart has been opened. I am so grateful

Great intro to being in touch with and gaining support from our land, spiritual, blood / family of origin, ancestors in relation to racial healing and inclusivesness. Wonderful connection to the practice of inclusiveness and that paramitas ( perfections) along with clear and practical ways to support and grow our understanding of the struggles, strengths, and stories of people different then us, with particular focus on honoring the African American diaspora experience. We have been studying Ruth King's book Mindful of Race with a small group within my local Sangha. After reading and practicing the guided meditations, journaling, and establishing a safe and nurturing space we decided to create a Racial Affinity Group as Ruth King instructs to explore racism, white Priviledge, white fragility, institutional racism, unconcious bias, White supremacy, while also allowing for inner work and looking at our own ancestors and what their experiences and attitudes have given us to transform for our children and grandchildren. How can we integrate interbeing and non separate self, non discrimination into an engaged practice as individuals in a Sangha body . A Bow of gratitude to Kaira Jewel Lingo for a Wonderful talk that brought all the work we have been doing together. Ashe

Update: I played your Dharma talk for my Racial Affinity Group this week. It was a big hit. We had a great discussion about the intimacy we have created in sharing looking deeply into our own challenges with racism, white supremacy, and colonial thought patterns. Since then we have seen a film on Ida B Wells together, made plans to go see Just Mercy, and started a discussion on what book to read next. I went and got White Fragility and How to be an Anti - Racist by Kendi for myself. My daughter is an active member of People of Color United and Minority student Achievement Network at her highschool. She saw my new reading books and she approved, adding "I met Mr. Kendi at a MSAN conference and Robin Diangelo another workshop on Social Justice. I liked Mr. Kendi!" A wonderful feeling to be acknowledged by my teenager in a connected way. I made a plug yesterday at my larger Sangha to listen to your talk and to become involved with ARISE and it's resources. I am looking forward to hearing Valerie Brown's Webinar series in a few weeks.

Thank you for sharing your beautiful talk, Kaira Jewel. A deep bow of appreciation, Hugh

Illuminating and heart centered sharing
Thanks

This was very moving, thought provoking and much needed. Thank you for your gentle guidance and tender care of the soul. Nam myoho renge kyo.

Extremely moving! Exceptional insight! I was emotional throughout! Love you and bless you beautiful soul 🙏🤗❤️

Thank you for sharing about your beautiful grandmother & all these important stories & information. As a mixed Caribbean national, I share in the similar painful history of slavery & colonization of my ancestors. Grateful to where we are today, we collectively have to work & expect to see more just changes for black people.

✨💜✨

Thought provoking

Such a thoughtful and intelligent contemplation of inclusion and intimacy! And so needed. Thankyou thankyou.

Excellent! As a white person something I needed to hear and something all whites should listen to. Grateful for the talk!

Interesting and inspiring. Thank you 🌷

Great suggestions at the end! I was able to google Ruth Kong’s “Healing the Broken Body of Sangha”. I also found “Traces of the Trade” on the National Library streaming service, Kanopy. Im going to dig into both now!! Gratitude🙏🏾

A wonderful talk to highlight Black History Month. Thank you for the gentle guidance to our ancestors and book recommendations.

Wonderful talk with beautiful voice and well researched topic. Thank you for the recommended books and references. My take home from this talk was intimacy, humility and knowledge that our ancestors are forever loving and uniting us as one from our disconnectedness.
Thank you for the light you have brought to this world through your spiritual practices and talk on Black History month. Thank you so much.

A thoughtful, thorough invitation to deepen our understanding and connection to our inheritance and legacy.