This is the first day of the Kalachakra empowerment, a centerpiece of the inaugural Global Peace Prayer Festival, held in Thimphu, Bhutan, from November 4–19, and apparently everyone from all over the country—and from well beyond it—wants to be here. Tens of thousands are in attendance. Even India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, is on his way.

Kalachakra initiations or empowerments are not offered regularly, and in Bhutan it’s downright rare. This particular Kalachakra is especially historic because not only are eminent Vajrayana Buddhist teachers participating but also teachers from the Theravada and Mahayana traditions. Plus, in these times of polarization and global unrest, it seems like a particular potent moment for the Kalachakra. After all, it is believed to promote inner and outer peace, planting seeds of global harmony and healing.

Sporting a press pass, I linger near where the monks are sitting. A sea of burgundy, orange, and saffron robes, they directly face the sumptuous pavilion where the ceremonies will take place.

In pride of place on the bottom floor of the pavilion, there is a Kalachakra sand mandala. Then, up the yellow spiral staircase to the top, there is a yab-yum statue presiding over the space: two figures in sexual union. With its many faces and arms, this statue is hand-carved of wood, gleaming gold, and set to slowly spin. 

Me? My mind is spinning. What is the meaning of the Kalachakra?

Roger Jackson, coauthor of The Wheel of Time: The Kalachakra in Context, agrees to take an emergency Zoom call to answer my questions. Since the Kalachakra is part of the larger tantric tradition, first we need to cover tantra 101. 

“The key feature of tantra,” Jackson says, “is taking the goal, which is buddhahood, and making it the path. You dissolve or deconstruct your ordinary sense of yourself as a person, and you reconstruct yourself as a buddha/deity. You see your body in the form of a buddha. Your speech is, in effect, mantra—sacred speech. Your environment is a mandala, the sacred environs of a buddha, and your mind is the mind that recognizes the actual nature of things. Some people have described tantra as a kind of dress rehearsal for enlightenment, because even though you’re not really a buddha, you’re taking on the identity of a buddha.”

Essentially, Jackson continues, “tantra is about transformation.” In this, there are two stages: generation (or creation) and completion (or perfection). The generation stage is the transformation of seeing, that is you overcome ordinary appearances. You see things purely, and you see them as pure. Then in the completion stage, you have a direct realization of emptiness, and you transform your mind and body into the mind of buddha. This is a transformation of being.

But in order to practice tantra, you have to be initiated or empowered. This is an absolute prerequisite because, as one lama once put it, the thing about tantra is that it can take you straight to heaven—because it’s this dramatic, direct approach—but if you mess up, tantra will take you straight to hell. 

If you’re unprepared, the wrathful deities and sexual imagery can be easily misunderstood, and visualizing yourself as deity can lead to delusion. “So, you don’t want to mess with it,” says Jackson. “That’s why initiation is required, and why initiation, in turn, requires that you find a proper guru or teacher who is himself or herself experienced in this system and can judge your fitness as a disciple.”

There are many tantric systems. But the Kalachakra, which dates back to the eleventh century, was one of the last of the major tantric systems to develop in India. Most of the major tantras have four initiations, or ritual ceremonies, but the Kalachakra is more complex with eleven initiations, including the water initiation during which water is sprinkled on the disciples as a symbolic purification, and the crown initiation during which a crown is placed on the disciples’ heads to represent their potential to attain buddhahood. 

Generally, only the first seven of the Kalachakra initiations are given publicly—the remaining four are too advanced for the general population. In fact, the Kalachakra is unusual in that any of it offered publicly. The Dalai Lama has brought international attention to this empowerment by offering it to large crowds. In 2012, for example, over 200,000 people attended the Kalachakra initiation he officiated in Bodhgaya, India. Notably, he was also the first to confer it in North America, which he did in 1981 in Madison, Wisconsin. 

The word Kalachakra means “wheel of time” or “time cycles.” In essence, the Kalachakra tantra is about cyclic existence—the continual coming into being, eventual dying or disintegrating, and then coming into being again in new form. Everything from a single breath to a human life to the cosmos itself is subject to this cycle, but the Kalachakra is about how to get free of it and become a buddha.

The buddhas at the heart of this tantra are Kalachakra and Vishvamata whose statue is on top of the central pavilion. While their sexual union might be shocking to some, the intention, says Kalachakra translator Niraj Kumar is to “depict the nondual union of everything in the universe.”

No separation. No us, no them. No birth, no death. 

I take one more up-close look at the Kalachakra statue spinning in place under the blue sky of Bhutan. The whole scene is glorious: Mountains rest calmly in the distance. Prayer flags whip in the wind. Incense burns.

Then a security guard ushers me out of the area for monastics, and I weave my way through the stadium, trying to find a place to sit. Finally, I find a viewing pavilion where I have clear slight of an enormous screen that shows what’s happening on the red carpet: the King of Bhutan entering with his father.

The woman sitting on my right offers me a cup of butter tea. Actually, she clarifies, it doesn’t have butter in it. She needs to avoid butter for her cholesterol. I gladly accept. I also should avoid butter for my cholesterol. And I’m hungry since I skipped breakfast, so I’m truly grateful when she gives me zoaw, puffed rice, which she has mixed with cornflakes. We throw the zoaw in with our tea, and it’s almost like being back home, having breakfast cereal with milk.

Sitting on my right there’s a little boy, maybe eight years old, who’s wearing glasses and watching something on a phone. Since I really want to experience the profundity of the Kalachakra, I’m a little put out by his noisy show. Then I notice he’s watching videos about Minecraft and immediately I think of my own little boy half way around the world. He also wears glasses, loves playing with a phone, and is crazy about Minecraft. 

Suddenly, I’m not bothered, because in a sense the Kalachaka is doing just what it is supposed to do: It is bringing people together, shining a light on our oneness. This empowerment, I realize, is not a magic spell for global harmony. It is a way to formalize our aspiration for peace, and—as with every endeavor—aspiration is the necessary and powerful first step.

I hand the empty teacup back to the woman beside me. Thank you, I say. 

Lion’s Roar readers curious about travel to Bhutan might also be interested our March 2026 pilgrimage. Participants will meditate in ancient monasteries, explore sacred sites, and immerse themselves in the spiritual heart of the Himalayas.

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Rather than articulate a new way to understand and fight against the impending climate disaster, Malm and his coauthor Wim Carton look at how our governments, corporations, and institutions have tacitly accepted that we will exceed at least 1.5°C of global warming and, amidst the warning signs of impending climate catastrophe, have carried on in a business-as-usual fashion. They call this state of affairs the overshoot conjecture, or climate overshoot, and define it as:

the period when officially declared limits to global warming are exceeded – or in the process of being so – and the dominant classes responsible for the excess throw up their hands in resignation and accept that intolerable heat is coming… Overshoot is here not a fate passively acquiesced to. It is an actively championed programme for how to deal with the rush into catastrophe: let it continue for the time being, and then we shall sort things out towards the end of this century.

In other words, our fight against climate change has been fought, and we have lost. 

The Challenge of Climate Overshoot to Eco-Buddhism

Malm and Carton begin their book with a question: “what do we do when catastrophic climate chaos is a fact?” Indeed, this is a major question that Buddhists, especially those in the eco-, green, or engaged Buddhist camp, must begin asking ourselves. 

Catastrophic climate chaos has become a fact. Wildfires, heat waves, ice storms, hurricanes, and other once-in-a-generation disasters have become near-yearly events thanks to anthropogenic climate change. In the midst of these effects of our climate overshoot paradigm, what is a Buddhist to do?

The Books

Modern Buddhists may be aware of the collections Dharma Gaia and Dharma Rain (published in 1990 and 2000 respectively), which brought together teachers and scholars to talk about how Buddhist practice can adapt to the threat of climate change, including Thich Nhat Hanh, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Gary Snyder, Sulak Sivaraksa, and Joanna Macy. These teachers were writing at a time when human activity could actually change to address pressing ecological issues, and many of these writings reflect a hope that Buddhist thought can contribute to this change. 

Since then, a variety of books have been published in the same vein. Stephanie Kaza’s Green Buddhism: Practice and Compassion in Uncertain Times collects a variety of the pioneering eco-Buddhist thinker’s essays to show how compassionate attention and novel practices like having conversations with the trees can allow us to foster ecological consciousness. Likewise, Christopher Ives’ twin books Zen on the Trail and Meditations on the Trail look at the intersections between hiking and pilgrimage and encourage readers to treat their hiking trips as both Zen and environmental practice. 

In each of these books, Buddhist practice is directed to abate the possibility of ecological collapse. But are these Buddhist approaches to the natural world still viable in a time of climate overshoot? If our forests have burned down and we’re unable to hike because of the wildfire smoke in the air, do not these Buddhist engagements with the natural world become moot? This question, perhaps a hypothetical at the time of publication, has become a real point that we must address. 

When I moved to Edmonton for a teaching position in 2024, I was elated to be near Jasper National Park. I had spent some summers living and working in this enchanting part of Canada, and being able to spend time there on my weekends made the idea of moving away from friends and family a little easier. But mere weeks before packing my car for the cross-country trip, news broke out that a massive wildfire had engulfed the National Park and had burned down the majority of the town. When I did visit that fall, I was struck by the devastation that catastrophic climate change had wrought. The lush conifers that had blanketed the mountain were now charred telephone poles dotting the slopes. The turquoise lakes once curtained off by the treeline were visible from the highway.

The imminence of climate change was indeed a fact. Faced with the fallout of the wildfire, I didn’t feel the desire to have a meditative conversation with these trees, and paying attention to the relationality between myself and my surrounding environment on a hike didn’t lead to some kind of beatific, compassionate disposition, but revulsion — and a reminder of the defects of samsara.

As climate chaos and extreme weather events become more pronounced, their ability to engender feelings of apathy and renunciation may likewise increase. But this kind of response to ecological collapse isn’t new — in fact, the eco-Buddhist scholar Ian Harris intimated this kind of reaction all the way back in 1994. Speaking about the critically engendered status of the black rhino, Harris writes: 

For the environmentalist the potential demise of these noble creatures is a matter of sadness and concern. To counteract this possibility, measures will be taken to protect the species by mitigating the destructive forces at work in the rhino’s habitat… A Buddhist is unlikely to view things in this way… Change, dissolution, suffering and death are the hallmarks of all conditioned things. At the deepest level, what we take to be a rhino is nothing more than a complex series of momentary dharmas which have come together in a certain pattern… The rise and fall of all things, whether they be mountains or animals is part of the inexorable process Buddhists call samsara.

In other words, rather than inspire environmental action, reflecting on the potential extinction of the rhino may compel us to simply pursue Buddhist practice to escape samsara altogether.

This is the challenge posed to eco-Buddhism by our present moment of climate overshoot. Like all other conditioned phenomena, the climate is impermanent. Thus, when confronted with the reality of the climate changing and the disastrous ecological consequences that emerge from this change, a Buddhist may very well be compelled to reflect on impermanence, think about the defects of samsara, and work to distance themselves from the world in pursuit of liberation. In doing so, they might forsake any kind of engagement with ecological politics or any kind of work to ameliorate our shared climate situation. In this way it seems as though Kaza and Ives’ approaches to eco-Buddhism, while innovative and impactful at the time of their publication, might be somewhat troubled by our contemporary moment of climate overshoot. If catastrophic climate change is a reality that confronts us in our day-to-day lives, can Buddhist practice actually offer us a way to respond?

What Are Buddhists To Do?

I suggest that Buddhist teachings actually present ideal models for how to act in a time of climate overshoot. Now, perhaps more than ever, it seems as though there is nothing that can be done about climate change. Institutions are not greening, sustainability is a marketing slogan instead of an economic ethos, and more fossil fuels are being extracted than ever before. Indeed, climate change seems unstoppable, insurmountable. But so too are sentient beings innumerable, our desires inexhaustible, the dharma boundless, and the way of the buddha unattainable.

For those practicing in Mahayana contexts, these four statements are likely familiar – they consist of one half of the Bodhisattva Vow. The other half of the vow states what we are to do about the matter: Sentient beings are innumerable, I vow to save them; desires are inexhaustible, I vow to overcome them; the dharma is boundless, I vow to master it; the way of the Buddha is unattainable, I vow to attain it. In each of these cases, the scope or even the sheer impossibility of the task at hand doesn’t compel apathy, renunciation, or giving up. It is in the very face of impossibility that we commit to act. 

Climate change is out of control, I vow to stop it. This is how one committed to the bodhisattva ideals should think about the inevitability of climate change and climate chaos. In the face of our impossible moment, we must commit to act. The inevitability of climate change can make one feel hopeless, this hopelessness can lead to paralysation, and this paralysation can lead to a deference to business-as-usual activities (the kinds we find responsible for climate overshoot). In her 2011 book Living in Denial: Climate Change, Emotions, and Everyday Life, sociologist Kari Marie Norgaard looks at several studies which show that “respondents with higher levels of information about global warming show less concern,” because “unless they feel able to do something about the problem, an awareness of concern or sense of responsibility would be a conflicting cognition [that creates an unpleasant feeling].” But if we approach this problem with a bodhisattva mentality, we will act in spite of the feeling that we are not able to do anything.

This bodhisattva approach to climate change has been forwarded before — David Loy’s Ecodharma: Buddhist Teachings for the Ecological Crisis forwards the archetype of the “ecosattva” as an embodiment of ecological Buddhist practice, and talks about the ecosattva vow in precisely these terms. He writes:

No matter how momentous the task of working with others to try to save global civilization from destroying itself, that is nonetheless a small subset of what the bodhisattva has committed to doing. No matter what happens, we are not discouraged — well, not for long, at least… That’s because this vow goes beyond any attachment to any particular accomplishment — or defeat. When our efforts are successful, it’s time to move on to the next thing. When they’re not successful, we keep trying — indefinitely.

So, in this moment of climate overshoot, when the negative consequences of climate change have arrived in full force, I propose that we return to the Bodhisattva Vows in order to ground our practice, act in the face of impossibility, and navigate this moment of climate overshoot.

Sentient beings are innumerable, I vow to save them.
Desires are inexhaustible, I vow to overcome them.
The dharma is boundless, I vow to master it.
The way of the Buddha is unattainable, I vow to attain it.
Climate change is out of control, I vow to stop it.

The post A Buddhist Response to “Climate Overshoot” appeared first on Lion’s Roar.

The exhibition is intimate and grand at the same time. Most of the pieces are no bigger than 12X12 inches, yet the themes they touch on feel vast. Crystals—the main medium of the pieces— usually take millions of years to form. Terasaki and his team, however, managed to grow them in a single day. They began experimenting with chemical processes in March 2025 and launched the fully realized show by late summer. The speed of development is remarkable, but, as in Zen practice, when the causes and conditions align, anything is possible.

The idea for the project began when Toryo Ito, vice abbot of Ryosokuin, visited Terasaki in Honolulu. He invited Terasaki to create a site-specific piece for the temple and spoke about the declining population of chestnut tiger butterflies, whose numbers are dropping due to numerous factors such as climate change and habitat disruption.

At the time, Terasaki was curious about working with crystals as a source of paint. Crushed crystals have been used in this way for thousands of years, including the brilliant blues of ancient Egyptian tombs having been made from lapis lazuli. Terasaki had also visited Sedona, Arizona, a place known for its fascination, even celebration, of crystals as a spiritual tool.

A pivotal moment came during a Zoom call with Toryo Ito. On screen, the vice abbot wore a mala, or prayer beads, made of crystals. Though he did not ascribe spiritual meaning to the mala’s material, the image sparked Terasaki’s imagination for the exhibition.

If crystals didn’t necessarily impress the vice abbot, the process of making them did. Creating the crystals required absolute stillness and silence—any vibration or sound would disrupt their fragile formation. Vice abbot Ito likened this process to Buddhist practice: “Minerals slowly regain their order in environments that maintain stillness and stability. Even slight vibrations or fluctuations in temperature can unravel their fragile and intricate bonds. Zen meditation is much the same. Distracted thoughts gradually settle through the stability of breath and awareness, until the mind eventually takes on a form of harmony. In silence, both crystals and the mind return to an unseen order.”

The Terasaki Legacy

Taiji Terasaki is a third-generation Japanese American. “My grandparents and my parents were incarcerated in camps,” he says. “They were part of that generation, but they did good for themselves.”

Taiji Terasaki’s father was Dr. Paul Terasaki. As a child, Paul Terasaki shared one room with five other family members while incarcerated at Gila River Internment Camp in Arizona. In the 1950s, Paul Terasaki went on to become a pioneer in organ transplantation. Today, Los Angeles is home to two institutions bearing the Terasaki name: the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation and the Terasaki Budokan, a recreational center in Little Tokyo.

While the Terasaki family is filled with scientists, Taiji Terasaki found his path through art. Even though he doesn’t consider himself a scientist, he does enjoy research. And his work reflects a STEAM sensibility—integrating science, technology, engineering, art, and math (as opposed to the more commonly lauded field of STEM). Even when discussing his process, he slips into a bit of scientific lingo: “I like that the crystals are inorganic material, and the butterfly is organic,” he says. “And [crystals are] below the earth’s crust, and the butterfly is flying above.”

His art uses the sciences, particularly the environmental sciences and technology, to explore themes of the show. Part of the fascination of the exhibition is the use of “augmented reality” to make the exhibition come alive. While patrons can enjoy the exhibition on its own, they have the option of using mini iPads; when held up to the art pieces, the iPads illustrate butterflies fluttering across the Asian landscape. During the opening of the show, a trio of Gen-Z patrons—a group raised on screens and immersive technology—were delighted to see the small butterflies fly across the crystalline canvases. The augmented reality elevates the traditional gallery experience.

The Plight of the Butterfly

Across cultures, butterflies have long symbolized transformation. Chestnut tiger butterflies make their trek throughout Asia, from Japan to Taiwan, China, and eventually Vietnam. Sadly, like so many other butterfly populations, their numbers are in decline. In the United States, butterfly numbers have dropped by 22 percent.

Beyond their beauty, butterflies play vital ecological roles. They are pollinators and a food source for other animals, from birds to monkeys. The chestnut tiger, in particular, pollinates the fujibakama flower, a culturally significant plant in Japan that appears in classical art and literature, including Lady Murasaki’s The Tale of Genji, often cited as the world’s first novel.

In his research, Taiji Terasaki investigated the migratory path of the chestnut tiger butterflies. They fly over lands rich with quartz crystals and a variation of other stones. These stones are mined and used in a variety of ways, from improving the aesthetic quality of jewelry, to being used as spiritual healing tools, to improving technology. (Ever wonder why a Quartz watch is so precise? A tiny quartz crystal helps power the watch.)

It’s unclear whether the mining of these stones adds to the habitat destruction affecting the population of chestnut tiger butterflies, but the exhibition raises this important question.

Practice & Symbolism

Taiji Terasaki’s personal spiritual path began in a Methodist church in West Los Angeles. “But when I graduated, I became part of the sangha in downtown LA at the Zen Buddhist center there,” says Terasaki. “I took it pretty seriously for a while.”

His Buddhist practice isn’t what it once was, but it has continued to inform his world view. These days, he also incorporates Ayurvedic practices, focusing on diet, yoga, and meditation—and continues to learn about crystals and the possibilities they may hold.

In certain Buddhist communities, crystals and other rocks hold meaning. Malas can be made from an array of crystals, from clear quartz to tiger’s-eye. A Tibetan prayer wheel can have inlaid turquoise or coral. There are whole Buddhist statues made from jade. Buddhist texts refer metaphorically to the “triple gem” (Buddha, dharma, and sangha) and of course, there’s the Diamond Sutra.

While rock references are present in Buddhism, some Buddhist communities see the use of crystals—often popularized by Western New Age spirituality—as antithetical to the Buddha’s teachings. Vice abbot Ito is clear on the matter: jewels and gems in Buddhist texts serve as metaphorical symbols for “the truth Buddha found that is pure and genuine.”

In that spirit, Wings Over Crystalline Landscapes invites us to see the world with a new lens, to meditate on the impermanence of the earth and its creatures, of what we might lose or gain. It is a call to action—right action—to mindfully attend to the fate of butterflies, flowers, and all other living beings on the planet.

Lion’s Roar thanks Taiji Terasaki for supporting Noel Alumit’s attendance of “Wings Over Crystalline Landscapes” at Ryosokuin Temple in Kyoto, Japan.

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All images courtesy of the artist. Photos by Mitsuru Wakabayashi.

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The years passed, and Goodall’s passion and patience for observing wildlife only grew. In 1960, she began her study of chimpanzees and soon rocked the scientific community with what she learned: chimpanzees make and use tools. Prior to this, it was believed only humans had this skill. On hearing of Goodall’s observation, the anthropologist and paleontologist Louis S.B. Leakey famously said: “Now we must redefine tool, redefine Man, or accept chimpanzees as humans.” Goodall went on to make further groundbreaking discoveries that helped solidify the evolutionary link between chimpanzees and humans.

I spoke to her via phone when she was spending a rare day at her home in the United Kingdom. She talked about the compassion of animals, the power of trees, and what we can all do to effect positive change in the world.

Andrea Miller: For decades, you’ve championed wildlife and the environment. How do you maintain hope?

My reason for hope is—first of all—my youth program, Roots and Shoots. This is the way I explain why it’s called that: children are like plants. They start out as a tiny seed. Then wee roots and shoots appear. They’re weak at first, but the power within the seed is so magical that the little roots reach water and the little shoots reach the sun. Eventually, they can push rocks aside and work through cracks in a brick wall. They can even knock a wall down. The rocks and the walls are the problems we’ve inflicted on the planet—environmental and social—but roots and shoots surround the world. Plants can change the world; they can undo a spot of the damage we’ve created. And young people are definitely going to change the world. As I travel around, I meet the youth. They’re filled with hope and enthusiasm and innovative ideas, and that’s very inspiring. Roots and Shoots is now in 132 countries.

Secondly, my reason for hope is the resilience of nature. The places that we’ve destroyed can become beautiful again. And then there’s the human brain, which is utterly amazing. I think of the scientists who drilled down into the permafrost and brought up the remains of an Ice Age squirrel’s nest. In the plant material, they found three living cells and from those living cells they managed to recreate the plant, which was a meadow’s wheat. It’s 32,000 years old, but it’s now growing and seeding and reproducing. That’s the resilience of nature, the incredible human brain, and the indomitable human spirit. Sometimes people say that something won’t work, but there are other people—like the scientists who recreated this Ice Age plant—who don’t give up. They overcome tremendous obstacles, and that’s very inspiring. It gives me hope.

In your book, Seeds of Hope, you talk about the reverence people tend to feel when they’re with trees. Why do you think trees engender these feelings?

They engender these feelings for me because—rooted in the ground—they can be so strong. They can withstand wind. They even withstand fire sometimes. It’s difficult for me to stand by a tree with my hand on its bark and not feel that it has a spiritual value as well as a materialistic one. There is the whole symbolism of the roots going into the ground and finding water deep, deep down, and the leaves reaching up. There’s the fact that they’re purifying our air and removing the Co2.

You use the word spiritual. How would you define spirituality?

It’s the opposite of being materialistic. Some people believe that everything is just there for its material value, or just as a thing. And then other people believe there’s something more than that, which I happen to believe. I don’t know if I can define spirituality—I’m not sure anybody really has—but it’s something that you either feel or you don’t. It’s an awareness of life that’s more than just the physical presence.

In your work as a primatologist and an ethologist, what anecdotal evidence have you discovered that demonstrates animals can feel compassion or love?

I’ll give you one story. There was an infant chimpanzee named Mel. He was three and should still have been riding on his mother’s back, sleeping with her at night, and suckling. but his mother died. If he’d had an older brother or sister, he would have been adopted by that individual, but he didn’t, so he was on his own and we thought he’d die. Then he was adopted by Spindle, an unrelated male who was twelve, which is about like being a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old human. Spindle let little Mel ride on his back. If it was cold or Mel was frightened, he let him cling to his belly as a mother would. If Mel crept up to his nest at night and made whimpering sounds, Spindle reached out and drew him in. They slept curled up together. When Mel begged, whimpering with his hand out, Spindle would share his food. And most dramatic of all, Spindle protected Mel. Adolescent males tend to be scapegoats. If one male is being dominated by another, he takes it out on somebody lower ranking, so the adolescents keep out of the way in times of social excitement. And the mother’s job is to keep her infant away, but of course, Little Mel didn’t have a mother, so Spindle took that job on, even though it meant that he himself often got bashed by the adult male. There is no question that Spindle saved Mel’s life.

What do you see as the most important thing individuals can do to effect positive change for the environment?

The most important thing we can do is remember that every single day every single one of us makes a difference. And we all can choose the kind of difference we’re going to make. It does require becoming a little aware about what we buy. Where does it come from? how was it grown? Did it involve the use of child slave labor or chemical pesticides? And then there’s all the little ways in which you interact with the environment. Do you bother to help a sick dog? Do you respond to appeals for help when somebody is in trouble?

The big problem today is that so many people feel insignificant. They feel that the problems facing the world are so huge that there’s nothing they can do, so they do nothing. And as an individual maybe there really isn’t that much, but when you get thousands, and then millions, of individuals all doing the best they can every day for the environment and for other beings, then you get huge change.

Can you give Lion’s Roar readers some concrete examples of taking small steps to effect change?

There’s one man who moved to Japan, where he likes to walk in the woods. But sometimes there are violent storms and these little tiny tree orchids get blown down. Wanting to save them, he began taking the blown-down orchids home and looking after them. Now when the season is right, he gets as far up a tree as he can and staples them there with a stapler and they grow back. It’s a simple thing, but it’s rather charming.

Another example, I went into a radio station in Canada and in the studio waiting room I saw there were about six potted plants dotted around. They were all dying because they hadn’t been watered. So I made a huge thing about it. Then when I went back a year later, all the plants were very healthy. So little things like that make a difference. Just never blame somebody. I mean, I didn’t say to the people at the radio station, “Who’s responsible for this monstrous behavior toward the plants?” I just said, “Oh, these poor little plants. Please can you find me some water? I want to look after them.” It’s all a question of how you go about trying to create change.

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To the uninitiated, such raw grief might seem at odds with Buddhism. But it’s not. Macy viscerally demonstrated what true interbeing, a central Buddhist insight of interconnectedness, looks like. She wasn’t performing; she was the embodiment of the river’s sorrow, mourning its poisoning.

Macy’s life was as expansive as the causes she championed. A scholar, activist, and teacher, she spent decades weaving together Buddhist practice, deep ecology, and systems thinking into what became the “Work That Reconnects” (WTR): a body of group work that has helped countless people face ecological crises without turning away. Through books like Coming Back to Life and World as Lover, World as Self, she offered not just ideas but practices that married intellect with heart. She wrote and taught around the world, carrying both the authority of a seasoned academic and the warmth of someone who had sat in circle after circle, holding space for grief, rage, and possibility. It was this rare combination—clarity of mind, rootedness in practice, and a profound willingness to feel—that she brought into the retreat where I first met her.

Macy was eighty-five then, leading a WTR retreat in Boulder, Colorado, where I live. The ceremony—where participants were invited to share their grief, rage, fears, and uncertainties with the group—changed me. As a climate scientist, I carried a deep intellectual awareness of impending ecological collapse. My professors had drilled in me the facts about the state of our planet, but no one had ever created space for my heart to break. Until that ceremony with Macy, the knowledge had never reached my bones.

Macy showed me how to honor grief and rage. She gave me permission to feel it all—beautiful pain and unbearable love—and to hold gratitude and joy alongside the deepest heartbreak. She taught me, as my Zen teachers had, that paradox is where our strongest resolve to love and act is born.

I’m just one of many across generations who’ve been transformed by her. She offered Western Buddhists something radical: permission to treat grief, fear, and rage as sacred. In an era when many Buddhist lineages saw these emotions only as defilements to be overcome, Macy reframed them as proof of deep connection—signs that we belong to life itself. Perhaps this is her most impactful legacy.

Because Macy was an established scholar with decades of academic research and teaching, her embrace of emotional alchemy wasn’t dismissed as naive. Her voice carried weight, and her ideas entered mainstream Buddhist discourse with legitimacy. She insisted that we respect our emotions as if they held deep sentience and intelligence; by honoring pain, Macy asserted, we could dismantle the “skin-encapsulated ego” and awaken to interbeing.

Macy considered emotional numbness one of the greatest threats to the environment. The grief we carry for vanishing species, burning forests, and suffering people is not a pathology, she taught, but evidence of love.

“What batters you becomes your strength,” she’d say, quoting her translation of Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower.” “If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.”

In my first grief-rage ritual with Macy, I could barely speak. Emotions churned inside me, but only fragments escaped: “Men…in moving buses.” Then I wept while the circle lovingly witnessed me. I’d processed much of this pain in Zen practice, but I’d never publicly spoken about the sexual molestation I faced as a little girl in India’s buses and trains.

It struck me that in a ceremony meant to honor ecological pain, what emerged was my pain tied to toxic patriarchy—where men felt entitled to everything a woman is, has, or stands for. Over time I came to see that, for many women of color, ecological trauma is deeply interwoven with the traumas of colonization, hetero-patriarchy, and racism.

Macy helped open channels in my body that had been holding on to grief. She set me on a path of integrating racial, intergenerational, and ecological pain—work I’ve carried forward by leading grief and rage ceremonies for the past decade.

In the summer of 2015, a few months after witnessing Macy channel a river, I created and performed a solo WTR dance at the annual talent show at the all-staff meeting for the Environmental Defense Fund, where I worked as a climate scientist. Wearing a traditional Indian folk costume, I danced to the four stages of Macy’s WTR spiral—gratitude, grief, transformation, and moving forth with courageous actions—while images of ecological distress and racial injustice flashed behind me.

Foremost in my heart was Tamir Rice, the beautiful twelve-year-old Black boy murdered by police while holding a toy gun. There was barely any discussion within my organization of this tragedy, as if the systems that kill Black children are separate from the systems destroying the earth. My grief poured out through my dance.

The talent show was a celebratory tradition, filled with music and skits. No one else expressed grief or fear on that stage, despite our daily confrontation with climate catastrophe. It was nerve-racking to break that silence—not only to name my climate and racial grief in front of a thousand colleagues, but to do it while embracing my Indian heritage.

At the time, I led two separate lives: one as a Zen teacher, one as a scientist. Speaking of climate grief and racial trauma in my professional circles was uncharted territory. Macy gave me the courage to merge them. Several colleagues wept with me, grateful to see truths named openly.

When I hosted Macy later that year in Boulder, I told her about the dance. She received it like a proud, loving mother. She had a way of making everyone feel like they were her favorite.

Joanna Macy passed away peacefully on July 19, 2025, at the age of ninety-six. Hearing the news, I felt as if her compassionate radiance had dispersed into the world, leaving it subtly brighter.

On July 23, the day her body was taken to the mortuary, my sangha created an altar in her honor. There were photos, wildflowers, candles, and, in a large bowl, a statue of Guanyin, the bodhisattva of compassion. One by one, we poured warm, fragrant tea made from wildflowers and herbs over the statue.

As I bowed, my breath deepened and grief finally surfaced after days of stunned quiet. I felt Macy’s delight in the offering, though I wasn’t prepared for what came next.

In my home, herbal tea usually spoils within hours in summer heat. But the tea from that ritual never turned. I drank from it for five days before pouring the last of it out on July 28, the day Macy was buried. It felt like a blessing: her presence accepting our offering.

As philosopher Báyò Akómoláfé wrote in his tribute to her: “Visit during the swelling of the tides, will you?”

I know she will.

With gratitude to Dan Spokojny, whose editorial insights shaped this piece.

The post Remembering Joanna Macy appeared first on Lion’s Roar.

Director Ben Stiller and creator Dan Erickson have masterfully crafted an enigmatic, chilling world in this sci-fi thriller—one the Internet has become obsessed with dissecting and theorizing about. In its freshman season, Severance appeared to be a sharp, darkly comedic take on work-life balance. The concept of severing—implanting a microchip in your brain to erase the experience of work—seemed both absurd and strangely desirable for anyone who, like me, has endured corporate America’s monotony. The off-white walls and endless hallways often blur together, as do the endless monthly quotas that, in the show, amount to nothing more than eerie dance parties.

“The work is mysterious and important,” says Mark Scout, played by Adam Scott. Employees take an elevator that acts as a portal into the ominous office space of Lumon headquarters. Conversely, once they leave, they remember nothing about what happens inside, creating two forms of consciousness in one body—the “Innie” consciousness at work and the “Outie” consciousness outside. It is dualistic thinking taken to its most extreme form. 

Within this Innie/Outie dynamic, the characters are ultimately forced to choose between these two sides of themselves, leading to deeper questions about what ego death truly means or looks like. 

What Severance does so effectively is explore how we create cycles of suffering for ourselves—even when we’re trying to avoid it. Take Mark, for example. Overwhelmed by the grief of his wife’s sudden death, he chose to be severed, believing it would offer relief. At one point, we see Outie Mark wake up from a bender after a bad date, doing everything he can to avoid the pain of his grief. I kept thinking how much a mindfulness practice could help him—if only he allowed himself to be present with his grief. If only he knew the five remembrances, so he could stop living in a state of denial. If only he saw the horrible cycle of samsara he was creating for himself.

At the end of the first season, we learn that Mark’s wife, Gemma, is very much alive. Season two opens with Mark desperately searching for her in the halls of Lumon—a metaphor for the cycle of samsara as he literally runs in circles.

Samsara is further explored as the second season expands its world both inside and outside the walls of Lumon, with surreal landscapes reminiscent of the six realms. There’s the animal realm (tiryag) floor where a group of primitive farmers—led by Lorne (Gwendoline Christie)—shepherd goats. The hungry ghost realm (preta) takes shape in the Family Visitation Suite where Innie Dylan, one of our other main characters, meets with his Outie’s wife. They sit together, aware they can never have a real romantic relationship, forever stuck in this in-between state of craving. The god realm (deva) is reflected in the Wellness Sessions, where suffering is absent, while the human realm plays out on the outside, where there’s a balance between only suffering and the absence of suffering.

Most profoundly, the season explores suffering in “Chikhai Bardo,” an episode named after the first stage of The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Here, Gemma is trapped in a lab-engineered hell realm (naraka), subjected to a variety of painful experiences such as writing endless Christmas cards, going to the dentist, and, most hauntingly, silently dismantling a crib—a gesture evoking the unspoken grief of miscarriage. While illustrating the gradient of dukkha, these scenarios are designed to gauge the severance chip’s ability to block out the suffering consciousness.

The cycle continues, over and over again, as we see Gemma immediately forget what she experienced—cognitively unaware, though her body remembers some of the pain through toothaches and a cramped hand. 

We learn that Lumon has created this hell realm for a very specific reason: to end suffering, or at least to stop the feeling of it. This is where Severance truly singes and soars. 

Outie Mark decided to be severed to escape the grief of losing his wife. Yet, in the riveting season two finale, when faced with the possibility of reuniting with her, it’s Innie Mark who chooses to stay—opting for a life inside, no matter how fragile or doomed it may be.

It’s in this tragic twist of fate that all the karmic repercussions of both Outie and Innie Mark’s choices collide—merging into an even deeper, perhaps inescapable, form of samsara. The irony is unbearable.

Throughout the season, we watched Mark undergo a harrowing procedure of “reintegration,” intended to merge his Innie and Outie selves into one unified consciousness—an ideal state, non-dualistic and transcendent. 

This is why, arguably, the most powerful scene of the season—if not the entire series—is when Outie Mark essentially asks Innie Mark to sacrifice the life he has inside Lumon’s walls to become whole with him, whatever that might look like.

But of course, it’s an impossible choice—one of great sacrifice. And if Innie Mark doesn’t do it, Outie Mark will never be reunited with his wife. It’s a lose-lose scenario: one ego death pitted against another. And because neither will win, both remain trapped in suffering. There’s no way this story can end cleanly. Instead, there are consequences that ripple forward, inevitably, into season three.

As I watched Innie Mark and his Lumon love, Helly, running down the hallway into the abyss during the finale’s closing moments, I couldn’t help but think of one of Zen master Thích Nhất Hạnh’s most profound teachings: No mud, no lotus.

“If you know how to make good use of the mud, you can grow beautiful lotuses,” he wrote. “If you know how to make good use of suffering, you can produce happiness. We do need some suffering to make happiness possible. And most of us have enough suffering inside and around us to be able to do that. We don’t have to create more.”

This is what makes that final scene so heartbreaking. Innie Mark chooses a fleeting moment of happiness and survival, which we as the viewer know will ultimately push him deeper into a cycle of suffering, trapped in the walls of Lumon headquarters. All the while we see Gemma on the outside, looking in at someone unrecognizable, longing for Outie Mark who’s nowhere to be found. 

Perhaps somewhere in between those hallways, next season, the Innie and Outie versions of our characters—and perhaps even the Lumon higher-ups themselves—will discover that a more easeful, arguably more effective, way to end suffering is walking the eightfold path. I just hope Mark and the team figure it out, before it’s too late. 

The post The Samsara of “Severance” appeared first on Lion’s Roar.

This was hardly the first time white Americans expected me to be a recent immigrant from Asia who spoke “accented” English, though another expectation was new to me: “Your parents must be Buddhist.” To the contrary: raised by atheist parents who lived through the tumultuous Cultural Revolution, I grew up associating religion with brainwashing cults.

My Bay Area explorations also took me to Buddhist temples where the membership was primarily Asian, places where I spent much of the time listening to Mandarin and trying to decipher the Cantonese, Khmer, or Vietnamese around me. Here, nobody complimented my English, probably because many of them had children who spoke English as fluently as I did. Yet I rarely saw anyone between preschool and middle age at the temple services. I began to wonder, Where are all the other young adult Asian American Buddhists?

Beyond the Stereotyping of “Two Buddhisms”

Perusing popular and academic literature about American Buddhism, it became clear that I wasn’t the only person who had run into this problem. In a 2008 post on the group blog Dharma Folk, one of the writers remarked: “I don’t want to sound like the Angry Asian Man, but I’ve had a hard time finding articles about Asian American Buddhists.” In 2009 this writer founded Angry Asian Buddhist, a blog examining race, culture, and privilege in American Buddhism.

According to a 2012 Pew Forum report, of the 1 to 1.3 percent of the U.S. adult population who identify as Buddhist, 67 to 69 percent are Asian American. Despite comprising more than two-thirds of American Buddhists, Asian American Buddhists are underrepresented — and often misrepresented — in scholarly sources and mainstream media. In an April 2014 blog post, the Angry Asian Buddhist lamented:

Buddhist Asian Americans are often surprised to encounter so many stereotypes about us. Worse yet is that these stereotypes are routinely cited as solid facts.

The stereotypes are generally about how different we are from “American Buddhists.” These might sound familiar: We Buddhist Asian Americans are basically immigrants. We cannot speak English and carry a more supernatural bent. We focus our energies into holidays and spiritual beliefs instead of meditative practices… Some of us are Oriental monks who bring our exotic teachings to the West. The temples we attend aren’t about spreading the Dharma — they’re just ethnic social clubs. I could go on.

These stereotypes are bolstered by the oft-cited “two Buddhisms” typology that distinguishes between convert, white, middle-class Western Buddhists and their non-convert, Asian, immigrant “ethnic” Buddhist counterparts. There is no room for white “cradle” Buddhists born into the religion or for Asian American converts in a schema that insists on strict separation between two seemingly distinct and mutually isolated brands of Buddhism.

Though presented as a value-neutral sociological description, the “two Buddhisms” model is too often used to valorize white Buddhists while denigrating Asian American Buddhists. In 1991, the editor of Tricycle magazine wrote that Asian American Buddhists “have not figured prominently in the development of something called American Buddhism,” implying that they are merely Buddhists in America rather than true American Buddhists. A decade later, a scholar of American Buddhism similarly disregarded Asian American Buddhists by insisting “A religion that attracts so many high-status professionals is harder to dismiss than a faith of the poor and minorities.” A 2013 encyclopedia entry on “Buddhism in Asian America” contrasts “nominal cultural Buddhists” with “awakened convert Buddhists,” implying that it is white meditators who are spearheading the “enlightened” American Buddhism of the twenty-first century. I could go on.

“As a millennial, mixed-race Asian American Buddhist, I often feel like a party of one. When I am feeling lonely or unique, I imagine that I can see myself as if I am looking from a telephoto lens on the moon — I can see the insignificance of my challenges, that being a follower of Buddha’s wisdom doesn’t mean I am separated into a neat little category. Like the blades of grass in my yard, I am a part of this! Our differences deserve to be acknowledged and respected, but we must not forget what binds us together. We are links in the chain. We are part of nature. You can call it dharma (I do), or you can simply call it the truth of being alive.”

—Gabrielle Nomura Gainor, a media relations manager, professional dancer, and practitioner of Jodo Shinshu Buddhism from Seattle, Washington. 

These examples underscore the racist, exclusionist logic that relegates Asian Americans to perpetual foreigners within American Buddhism. The notion that Asian American Buddhists are “ethnic” Buddhists who need to shed their cultural baggage conveniently exempts white Buddhists from an examination of their own ethnic identities and “cultural baggage.” In his book Race and Religion in American Buddhism, Joseph Cheah asks “modernist Buddhists of the West” to “honestly acknowledge the Orientalized Buddhist baggage they have been carrying for the short time they have been around” — an exhortation that seems to have largely fallen on deaf ears.

I was seeking an alternative to the Tale of Two Separate (and, apparently, not quite equal) Buddhisms that I kept encountering, since I couldn’t place myself in either category.

Race is a touchy subject in discussions of American Buddhism. Those who address the issue head-on risk being accused of reverse racism against white Buddhists. Pointing out racism in Buddhist communities may also lead to people discrediting your religious credentials (“real Buddhists would be more compassionate”) or a dismissal of your grasp of Buddhist teachings (“if only you could understand that reality is non-dual, then you wouldn’t get so hung up about race”). These responses bring to mind African American writer and activist bell hooks’ encounters with white Buddhists who, as she puts it, “are so attached to the image of themselves as nonracists that they refuse to see their own racism or the ways in which Buddhist communities may reflect racial hierarchies.” hooks observes that she rarely sees prominent white Buddhists grappling with issues of ownership and authenticity as she does, leading her to pose the question: “Will the real Buddhist please stand up?”

“I believe my story is valid, worthy, and important, just like everybody else’s. I was born into the practice of Nichiren Buddhism and the SGI community but didn’t fully deepen my faith and understanding until I had to take responsibility for my own life and struggles. With unshakable conviction, I believe it is important to wholeheartedly share my experience with as many people as possible in order to help humanity reach true happiness.”

—George Yamazawa, a poet, emcee, teaching artist, and member of Soka Gakkai International, from Durham, North Carolina.

The more I encountered depictions of the docile Oriental monk, the more I read about Asian immigrant Buddhists whose chanting and devotional practices were deemed too superstitious for today’s rational Western meditator par excellence, the more I saw the “two Buddhisms” model slip from sociological description to racial disparagement, the more I wanted to ask, Will the real Asian American Buddhists please stand up? Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie warns us that “the single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.” I was seeking an alternative to the Tale of Two Separate (and, apparently, not quite equal) Buddhisms that I kept encountering, since I couldn’t place myself in either category. Nor was I content to be an American convert Buddhist who just happens to be Asian — a yellow-on-the-outside-white-on-the-inside “Banana Buddhist,” to borrow a provocative phrase from the Angry Asian Buddhist.

The Angry Asian Buddhist concludes his blog post on the “Stereotypology of Asian American Buddhists” with a recommendation:

If you choose to think of us as Superstitious Immigrants, you will never accept us as real Americans. If you choose to think of us as Banana Buddhists, you then trivialize the value of our heritage. The best way to uproot these stereotypes is first to stop perpetuating them, to encourage others to stop perpetuating them, and then to actually start spending some more time getting to know Buddhist Asian Americans for who we really are.

This is precisely what I set out to do through my master’s thesis research: get to know some young adult Asian American Buddhists.

Huge Diversity

Since I wasn’t finding many young adult Asian American Buddhists in temples or meditation centers, I put out a call for participants online and by word of mouth. Several people expressed interest but worried they might not fit the parameters of the project. Do I qualify as a young adult if I’m in my early 30s? I’m not very devout; can I still participate? A lot of times the media limits “Asian American” to East and Southeast Asians — can I participate in your project as a South Asian? In their uncertainty, I heard echoes of bell hooks’ insecurity about not counting as an “authentic” Buddhist.

I was astounded by the diversity of the twenty-six young adults I interviewed. They traced their heritages to East, Southeast, South, and even Central and West Asia, and were connected to a wide range of Buddhist traditions and groups.

Wanting to explore a range of possible meanings for the category “young adult Asian American Buddhist,” I deliberately used wide parameters, inviting anyone between the ages of eighteen to thirty-nine who was of full or partial Asian heritage and living in America, and also engaged in Buddhist practice, broadly defined, to participate in an in-person interview. The interviews covered a multitude of topics, including participants’ Buddhist practices, communities, and beliefs; perceptions of Buddhism in America; and opinions about the representation of Asian American Buddhists. Despite being part of what has been dubbed “the least religious generation,” the millennials (and a few young-at-heart Gen Xers) I talked to had plenty to say. Our conversations ranged from ninety minutes to more than five hours. Many told me it was the first time they had reflected so extensively on their Buddhist journeys.

“Even if you just research within Asian American Buddhists, there’s huge diversity,” Anthuan, a Vietnamese American studying Buddhist chaplaincy, remarked during his interview. (Both real names and pseudonyms have been used in this article, according to each interviewee’s preference.) Indeed, I was astounded by the diversity of the twenty-six young adults I interviewed. They traced their heritages to East, Southeast, South, and even Central and West Asia. They were connected to a wide range of Buddhist traditions and groups: Burmese, Cambodian, Chinese Chan, Jodo Shinshu, Korean Zen, Laotian, nondenominational Mahayana, Shambhala, Soka Gakkai, Soto Zen, Thich Nhat Hanh, Tibetan, Tzu Chi, Vietnamese, Vipassana, and more.

Though “two Buddhisms” would suggest otherwise, I could not simply assume that my interviewees went to temples with people who shared their same ethnic background. Knowing only Daniel’s ethnic identity (Chinese/Ashkenazi), we would be hard-pressed to describe his Buddhist community — more precisely, communities in the plural (Theravada and Mahayana groups in California, France, and Southeast Asia). Several of the young adults I spoke to were exploring forms of Buddhism different from those they had been raised in. Brian, for example, grew up as a Laotian Buddhist but now attends a Korean Buddhist temple. Others were raised nonreligious, Hindu, Christian, or with mixed traditions (Yima identified both Zoroastrian and new-age spiritual influences from his parents). Even those who saw their cultural heritage and Buddhist identity as closely connected — the Japanese American Jodo Shinshu Buddhists I spoke to, for example — had typically visited other Buddhist communities.

“While I wholeheartedly believe that Buddhism, as with all other forms of religion and philosophy, is something that everyone can be engaged in, on another level, I feel that acknowledging cultural roots is a critical part of that experience. I am mostly interested in simply hearing the stories of other Asian American Buddhists. Because I grew up in a community of predominantly Sri Lankan, Sinhalese Buddhists, I have rarely encountered Buddhists of other Asian American backgrounds.”

—Dedunu, the site director for community school initiative and a member of Staten Island Buddhist Vihara, from Staten Island, New York.

Through an interactive card-sorting activity, the young adult Asian Americans I interviewed revealed their familiarity with a wide range of Buddhist practices: attending ceremonies, bowing, chanting, meditation, offering donations, volunteering at a temple, and many more. The “two Buddhisms” model’s description of Asian Americans “going to the temple, making offerings, and not meditating” fails to capture the complexity of these young adults’ Buddhist practices. Indeed, all twenty-six interviewees had meditated before, though its salience to their Buddhist lives varied from “most important practice” to “on par with other practices” to “not at all important” (for Ratema, a Cambodian Buddhist, “meditation is different from the Buddhism I practice or my family practices”).

Clearly, these young adults are not hewing to the “two Buddhisms” typology’s standard for Asian American Buddhists. What about matters of belief? I asked for responses to eighteen different statements about Buddhism and again heard a wide range of opinions. My interviewees debated whether meditation was necessary to achieve enlightenment and proposed different interpretations of rebirth. They questioned the absence of an eternal self/soul and whether Buddhas and bodhisattvas respond to prayers. Ironically, the closest thing to an orthodoxic standard was the absence of a single standard, as seen by strong opposition to the statement “I should convert other people to Buddhism.” The young adult Asian Americans I spoke to are both evidence and upholders of American Buddhism’s multivocality.

This multivocality came as a huge relief to me. With my confusing mess of identities — 1.5-generation immigrant daughter of upwardly mobile Shanghainese parents; fluent English speaker and far less fluent Mandarin learner; Chinese American interested in a spectrum of Asian and Buddhist cultures; “convert” Buddhist (it was more a gradual immersion than sudden conversion) with strong atheist roots; (post-?)modern Westerner who prefers bowing and chanting to vipassana retreats and zazen, yet sometimes feels more at home in nature than any dharma center — I never seemed to meet the criteria for either of the “two Buddhisms” categories. The greatest gift my fellow young adult Asian American Buddhists have given me is the permission to stop straitjacketing myself into either category.

“Asian American Buddhist”: a heterogeneous category that transgresses the boundaries of “two Buddhisms.” A category that forces us to question the dichotomies of immigrant/convert, modern/traditional, devotional/rational, meditative/ritualistic, ethnic/white. A category that makes room for Alyssa, who values bowing, community service, offering donations, and meditation as equally important Buddhist practices. A category that sees no contradiction with Thomas understanding “hell realms” as psychological states while believing that bodhisattvas respond to prayers. A category full of alternatives to the normative story of American Buddhism. As Kaila, who attends both a Jodo Shinshu church and her fiancé’s Khmer Buddhist temple, put it: “I would like to see Asian American Buddhists represented, as we are: diverse.”

Invisible to the Mainstream and to Each Other

“What are the best-known types of Buddhism or Buddhist organizations in America?” I asked this question at the East Bay Meditation Center to fellow participants of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship (BPF) 2014 Summer Gathering. Of the thirty-two people who came to my workshop about Asian American Buddhists, more than a dozen identified as Asian American and/or people of color. After twenty-six in-person interviews, an additional round of sixty-two email interviews, and countless informal conversations with and about Asian American Buddhists, I was beginning to expect a common set of responses: Zen, Tibetan, Theravada/vipassana/mindfulness.

I asked a Shin Buddhist minister whether she thought of Zen as a Japanese tradition. She paused before exclaiming: “I don’t! I don’t think of Japanese Americans in Zen; I think of Caucasians.”

No one mentioned Jodo Shinshu (Shin) Buddhism, one of the earliest forms of Buddhism in America. From the time Shin Buddhism put down institutional roots on the West Coast in the late 1800s, it began to confront the challenges of adapting to a Christian-dominated society. By 1910, the Buddhist Mission of North America (BMNA) had switched from a lunar calendar system to weekly Sunday services. In a Japanese internment camp in 1944, the BMNA was renamed the Buddhist Churches of America (BCA). Duncan Williams argues the “camp dharma” of interned Japanese Americans “had the paradoxical task during the war of simultaneously serving as a repository for Japanese cultural traditions and as a vehicle for becoming more American.” Michael Masatsugu’s research demonstrates that the boundaries between Japanese American and white convert Buddhists were remarkably fluid during the 1950s and 1960s; for instance, the BCA’s Berkeley Bussei published Jack Kerouac’s first poems in the 1950s. This history is largely erased from popular conceptions of American Buddhism, showing how, for more than a century, Japanese American Buddhists have had to navigate their “perpetual foreigner” status as a group marginalized by both race and religion.

The Shin Buddhists I interviewed also acknowledged their tradition’s invisibility to the Buddhist mainstream. During an interview with Kristie, a Shin Buddhist minister, I asked whether she thought of Zen as a Japanese tradition. She paused before exclaiming: “I don’t! I don’t think of Japanese Americans in Zen; I think of Caucasians.” Pointing to a photo collage from a blog post entitled “Why Is the Under 35 Project So White?,” Kristie explained, “When I think of Zen Buddhists, I think of the people pictured here.” The collage of twenty faces was created by the Angry Asian Buddhist to critique the lack of Asian American writers featured in a Shambhala SunSpace project aimed at promoting a new generation of Buddhist voices.

Kristie’s comments corroborate a trend that Jane Iwamura has called “Asian religions without Asians.” Examining the role of the Oriental monk in popular culture in her book Virtual Orientalism, Iwamura argues that Asian Americans are only allowed a minor role in narratives about the development of Buddhism in America. She highlights how California-born Japanese American Mihoko Okamura, D.T. Suzuki’s secretary from 1953 until his death in 1965, is relegated to the margins by virtue of her race and gender. Okamura “does not conform to the racial script,” throwing off a writer for the New Yorker who seems to have a hard time reconciling her “almond eyes and porcelain complexion” with her being “an American girl with ideas of her own.” Sadly, more than half a century later, “two Buddhisms” would still have us puzzling over Okamura, an Asian American for whom fluent English and a sharp mind need not be at odds with dedicated assistance and devoted discipleship.

“Who are the most famous Buddhists in America?” The BPF group shouted out names faster than I could write them down: the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh; for Buddhists living in America, Jack Kornfield, Robert Thurman, Sharon Salzberg, Joseph Goldstein, Richard Gere, Tina Turner, Pema Chödrön, Joan Halifax…

“What about famous Asian American Buddhists?” An embarrassed silence ensued, in stark contrast to the flurry of answers a moment ago. I recalled how Brian had responded to this question during our interview: “The only ones I can think of are in Asia or dead.” The group finally named EBMC teachers Larry Yang and Anushka Fernandopulle. Someone mentioned Tiger Woods. I added George Takei, better known for his role in Star Trek than for being a Shin Buddhist.

“I was raised in the Taiwanese Mahayana Buddhist tradition, but in a white suburb. I didn’t really understand my parents’ dharma; I wasn’t sure whether or not to believe in the Pure Land. But every year, I did get to go to a Buddhist summer camp. There, I got to play, sing, and laugh with other Asian American Buddhist youth. We attended workshops about the dharma and discussed how we could apply it in our own lives. We created space to make the dharma our own. I guess summer camp was my Pure Land.”

—Andy Su, a community organizer for LGBTQ advocacy, from Los Angeles, California.

At the end of the workshop, Lisa, who was raised with Chinese Buddhist influences, told me she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She wanted to laugh because she was happy and relieved to find her experiences and struggles shared by other Asian American Buddhists; she wanted to cry because she was saddened and angered by the rampant media misrepresentations of them. “It’s like we’re invisible not only to the mainstream but also to each other,” she sighed, shaking her head.

Becoming Culturally Engaged Buddhists

It saddens me that many Asian Americans — myself included — are reluctant to “come out” as Buddhist. Sometimes this reluctance arises from a fear of being discriminated against or stereotyped. Sometimes it comes from a sense of inadequacy and inauthenticity when comparing ourselves to the white Buddhists who seem to be doing most of the defining in American Buddhism. Yet I am also reassured by a reminder from Alyssa, an interviewee whose Buddhist journey has taken her from a college meditation group on the East Coast to a Buddhist nunnery in China to various sanghas in her native Bay Area: even if they aren’t a trending topic on social media, Asian American Buddhists are everywhere.

Why, then, is American Buddhism so white? In a podcast on the Secular Buddhist, Charles Prebish, a pioneering scholar in the field of American Buddhism, counters with the question “Why are Asian American Buddhists so invisible?” Some of my interviewees thought this latter question suggested that Asian American Buddhists are to blame for their own lack of visibility. Peter, a Taiwanese American Buddhist and LGBTQ activist, gave an impassioned reply to this viewpoint during his interview:

A bodhisattva is an ally! A bodhisattva is someone who forsakes her enlightenment for those who cannot yet attain it. An ally recognizes and forsakes his privilege for those who do not yet share it. Prebish could be an ally: he’s starting to ask the right questions. It’s his responsibility to take that white space, that space where white people get to talk about Buddhism, and turn it into an ally space. Don’t question why Asian American Buddhists are invisible. They are invisible because you’re not looking for them!

The invisibility of Asian American Buddhists is compounded by the challenge of coherently defining such a diverse group. As I discovered when recruiting interviewees, there are multiple competing definitions of “Asian American,” “Buddhist,” and “young adult.” Not surprisingly, combining the three creates a complicated category. Yet the very ambiguity of the identity label is also a source of creative power.

Even if they aren’t a trending topic on social media, Asian American Buddhists are everywhere.

The fact that there is no one face, no single voice, of Buddhist Asian America frees us to be “real Asian American Buddhists” in a multitude of ways. We can see our religious identities not as fixed labels but as ever-shifting processes. As Holly, a Buddhist chaplain of mixed Japanese and Jewish heritage, eloquently stated:

I think young Asian American Buddhists I know, including myself, face challenges in integrating and expressing multiple cultural identities — as young, American, Buddhist, and Asian. Yet I think we are all moving toward a more pluralistic world in which multiplicity of identity will be the norm. As a Buddhist, I know that the self is always inconstant and interdependent, so in a way my Buddhist practices help me be at peace in the midst of the tensions in multiplicity and diversity.

Ven. Guomin, a Mahayana Buddhist monk, shares Holly’s belief that Asian American Buddhists have a unique role to play in American Buddhism:

As a group, we do a lot of “bridging.” We bridge our Asian roots with our Western values; respect for traditional culture and family with American independence; etc. What interests me most is how the dharma can help alleviate the feeling of being lost and directionless-ness that characterizes much of the young adult experience these days, especially for Asian Americans. Part of the reason, I believe, is because we are trying to “bridge” a lot — and so we find it hard to really identify who we really are.

The act of bridging — “constantly straddling cultural and spiritual worlds,” as one interviewee put it — is possible for Buddhists of all races and ethnicities. As culturally engaged Buddhists, we must contemplate the histories and intersections of the cultural and religious traditions we have inherited/adopted. If we are to weave different narratives about American Buddhism, we must also critically examine the racism and Orientalism that shape our perceptions of Asian American Buddhists.

The young adults I interviewed recognize the harm in erasing Asian American Buddhists from representations of Buddhism in America. Whether Buddhism is the religion of their family of origin, a religion they have sought out for themselves, or both, they recognize that Asian American Buddhists are not solely responsible for their invisibility. Remedying misrepresentations of American Buddhism must be a collective effort, one that includes Asian Americans and others who have been largely absent from mainstream portrayals of American Buddhism, as well as white allies who are willing to cede control of the Buddhist mediascape in which their voices currently prevail.

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As the child of Vietnamese refugees, the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War (April 30, 1975) was more than a historical milestone to me—it was a personal marker of my lived experience, including inherited trauma, survival, and resilience. My parents’ journey from a war zone to relative stability in the United States has shaped my understanding of freedom, suffering, and the ongoing repercussions of denying humanity in ourselves and others.

War does not end when one side capitulates; it lingers in bodies, memories, and generations. There are no victors, because for all parties the wounds of violence fester into attachments—whether to ideological certainties, to stories of victimhood or righteousness, or to the pain itself. These attachments in turn cause us suffering and blind us to the suffering we cause others, continuing cycles of harm that span generations and cross borders. Mindfulness offers a way to acknowledge this inheritance while offering hope to break the chains of trauma.

“In highly polarized spaces, mindful listening creates the possibility for mutual understanding.”

Today, even if we’re in a nation-state that has not declared war, we face a battlefield—one flooded not with bombs but with (mis)information. From “fake news” to “flooding the zone,” these are methods designed to overwhelm us with noise and contradiction. There is an agenda and strategy of disorientating us and sowing confusion. 

These tactics are not new. Throughout history, those in power have used misdirection and manipulation to maintain control. Yet, resistance has always emerged—rooted in truth telling, community, and common humanity. Still, many prefer silence and evasiveness to discomfort, as exemplified by the recent U.S. government directive instructing its diplomats to avoid Vietnam War anniversary events. This institutional avoidance of uncomfortable truths reflects a broader tendency to sidestep accountability for past actions and their ongoing consequences. When we cannot honestly face our individual and collective history, we remain trapped in its patterns. 

In this environment, staying grounded is a liberatory act. Mindfulness, with its roots in Buddhist teachings that originate from Asia, is not a retreat from the world—it’s a disciplined return to being with all of the world’s complexity. Mindfulness means cultivating present-moment awareness with an attitude of nonjudgment and compassion. For activists, this practice becomes a foundation for engaged and ethical action.

Rather than reacting impulsively to the flood of (mis)information and the emotions of despair and fear that may understandably arise, we can practice mindfulness and ground ourselves in the power of our true knowing. In the pause between stimulus and response, we connect with our agency to choose. We can choose to act from clarity instead of rage, from compassion instead of fear.

Audre Lorde’s insight that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house” reminds us that using domination to fight systems of oppression has only replicated their logic. Mindfulness, which invites us to turn toward compassion and interdependence, supports us to take a radical departure from this cycle. When we recognize the suffering beneath harmful behavior, our activism gets purified from the poison of hate. Compassion is not condoning; it means responding to injustice with wisdom and fierce love.

Activism can feel exhausting. The emotional weight of systemic injustice, combined with internal and external urgency, can lead to burnout. Through practices like meditation and body awareness, we learn to recognize early signs of exhaustion—tightness in the chest, irritability, and hopelessness. By cultivating resilience, equanimity, and self-compassion, we can swim in the muddy waters without losing ourselves. Setting clear boundaries is an essential tool.

When activism is fueled by compassion, it becomes transformative. Instead of dividing the world into “good” and “bad,” we begin to see the web of causes and conditions that produce harmful action. This understanding does not excuse injustice; it skillfully reframes our response. 

Mindful engagement isn’t abstract—it’s profoundly practical. It begins with mindful listening, the practice of truly hearing others without immediately judging or reacting. In highly polarized spaces, this kind of listening creates the possibility for mutual understanding.

Nonviolent communication follows—speaking with honesty and care to name one’s experience when discussing difficult truths. The goal is not to win an argument but to build empathy.

To be an engaged citizen requires an unflinching willingness to acknowledge suffering—both personal and societal—without denial. Still, relentless exposure to pain (e.g., doomscrolling) can overwhelm our capacity to respond effectively. Nonattachment offers a middle path. 

With nonattachment, we can fully witness suffering without becoming so identified with it that we lose our ability to act skillfully. This is not detachment in the sense of apathy or nihilism, but rather a spacious freedom from being consumed by what we witness.

From this place, we can cultivate equanimity—a balanced presence that holds both joy and sorrow with grace. As a queer person, I look to my community ancestors who during the peak of the AIDS epidemic protested and mourned their dead yet also refused to stop dancing. Tending to the totality of the human experience enables us to engage in long-term activism that’s rooted in the aspiration to end suffering for all.

The dharma offers us the principle of dependent origination, which holds that all phenomena arise in dependence upon conditions. Our actions ripple outward, affecting far more than we can see. This perspective challenges the “us versus them” mentality that fuels conflict. Through the lens of emptiness, we see that identities and positions are not fixed—they’re fluid and constructed. Accepting this, we loosen our grip on rigid views and create room for transformation.

In a time of misinformation, fear, and division, mindfulness anchors us. The more that we practice, the more we can show up with clarity, courage, and care. May we learn from our benevolent ancestors of blood, land, and spirit and embody loving-kindness, passing it on to future generations.

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His Holiness the Dalai Lama: I am hopeful that the twenty-first century could become the most important century in human history. The twentieth century experienced immense destruction, human suffering, and unprecedented environmental damage. The challenge before us, therefore, is to make the twenty-first century a century of dialogue and promotion of the sense of oneness of humanity.

As a Buddhist monk, I appeal to all human beings to practice compassion—the source of happiness. Our survival depends on hope. Hope means something good. I believe the purpose of life is to be happy.

The world’s seven billion human beings must learn to work together. This is no longer a time to think only of “my nation” or “our continent” alone. There is a real need for a greater sense of global responsibility.

I feel optimistic about the future because humanity seems to be growing more mature; scientists are paying more attention to our inner values, training of the mind and the emotions. There is a clear desire for peace and concern for the environment.

In our previous book, The Way to Peace in a Time of Division, you expressed the idea that “ethics is more important than religion.” What does that mean as far as environmental policy is concerned?

Religion should not be just limited to praying. Ethical action is more important than prayers. What are Buddha, Allah, or Christ supposed to do if we human beings destroy our earth, fill the oceans with plastic so that fish, seals, and whales perish, cause rapid increase of desertification and greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere?

Christ, Allah, or Buddha is not responsible for the climate change and the destruction of the environment. It is a man-made problem. Therefore, we must take responsibility and find solutions to the problems. That is why we need environmental ethics that focus on action and compassion for all sentient beings.

The Paris Climate Summit at the end of 2015 was the beginning of a new reality. For the first time, the world may have seen itself as a world family. Are you still optimistic? Can the Paris Agreement still be achieved?

I hope and pray that the 2015 Paris Agreement will finally bring tangible results. Egotism, nationalism, and violence are fundamentally wrong.

America’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement is very sad. It is important for scientists to continuously speak up about the dangers we face and alert the public. Here, the media has an important responsibility in educating the people. The gap between rich and poor is also very serious, and we have to take steps to close it by helping the poor.

What happens on this blue planet affects us all. It is not sufficient to just express views and hold conferences. We must set a timetable for change.

Any human activity should be carried out with a sense of responsibility, commitment, and discipline. But if our activities are carried out with short-sightedness and for short-term gains for money or power, then they all become negative and destructive activities. Protecting our environment is not a luxury we can choose to enjoy, but it is a matter of survival.

The questions of the environment and climate change are a global issue, not just of concern to Europe, Asia, Africa, or the Americas. What happens on this blue planet affects us all. It is not sufficient to just express views and hold conferences. We must set a timetable for change.

As early as 1992 you said, “Universal responsibility is the key to human survival.” What does that mean in concrete and practical terms?

The seven billion human beings are social animals and must learn to live together. This is no longer a time to think only of “my country,” “my people,” “us,” and “them.” We live in a globalized world. Countries think about their own national interests rather than global interests, and that needs to change because the environment is a global issue. In order to protect global environmental issues, some sacrifice of national interests is needed.

Nationalism has been shaping our history for centuries. Is there really a possibility to overcome nationalist thinking?

Wherever I go I emphasize that all seven billion human beings are physically, mentally, and emotionally the same. Everybody wants to live a happy life free from problems. Even insects, birds, and animals want to be happy.

In order to ensure a more peaceful world and a healthier environment, we sometimes point a finger at others, saying they should do this or that. But change must start with us as individuals. If one individual becomes more compassionate, it will influence others, and so we will change the world. Scientists say our basic nature is compassionate. This is very positive.

When I was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo in 1989, I called upon the world to assume universal responsibility. We have to learn that we are all brothers and sisters and live on one earth and under the same sun.

Our mother earth is teaching us a lesson in universal responsibility.

Unless we all work together, no solution can be found. Therefore, our key responsibility is to commit ourselves to the ethical principles of universal responsibility beyond profit and religion, and to place the well-being of all sentient beings and future generations above our egoism.

Climate change is an issue that affects the whole of humanity. But if we have a genuine sense of universal responsibility as our central motivation, then our relations with the environment will be well balanced, and so will our relations with our neighbors. Our mother earth is teaching us a lesson in universal responsibility.

Therefore, each of us as individuals has a responsibility to ensure that the world will be safe for future generations, for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Is global warming just a political problem or can every individual do something about it?

According to scientists, we human beings are responsible for global warming and the change in weather conditions. Logically this means that we human beings have a responsibility to solve problems that we have created.

On an individual level, we should change our lifestyles, consume less water and electricity, plant trees, and reduce the use of fossil fuels, which took millions of years to form. Fossil fuels are nonreusable energy; therefore, we must use renewable energy like solar, wind, and geothermal.

As a boy studying Buddhism, I was taught the importance of a caring attitude toward the environment. Our practice of nonviolence applies not just to human beings but to all sentient beings.

What distinguishes human beings from animals? It is our specific capacity for long-term thinking. Animals only live from one day to the next, whereas our brain can think ten or even a hundred years ahead. In consequence we are equipped to make preparations for the future and plan for the long term.

But is it only our short-sightedness that prevents us from treating our natural environment carefully?

Destruction of nature and its resources results from ignorance, greed, and lack of respect for the earth’s living things. Today, we have access to more information, and it is essential that we re-examine ethically what we have inherited, what we are responsible for, and what we will pass on to the coming generations.

Resolving the environmental crisis is not just a question of ethics but a question of our own survival. The natural environment is very important not only for those of us alive now but also for future generations. If we exploit it in extreme ways, even though we may get money or other benefits from it now, in the long run we ourselves and future generations will suffer. When the environment changes, climatic conditions also change. When they change dramatically, the economy and many other things change as well. Even our physical health can be greatly affected.

In the past, people needed protection from their environment. Today it is the other way round. Scientists tell us that without humans the earth would be doing better.

As someone born in Tibet, the rooftop of the world, where the world’s highest peaks are to be found and Asia’s great rivers originate, I have loved nature since my childhood. I have made environmental conservation one of my life’s commitments and advocate protection of the environment wherever I go. Therefore, I called on all to speak out about global warming, which affects the future.

This blue planet of ours is a beautiful habitat. Its life is our life; its future our future. Indeed, the earth acts like a mother to us all. Like children, we are dependent on her. Our world is deeply interdependent, both in terms of our economies and the problems like climate change that challenge us all.

When we see photographs of the earth from space, we see no boundaries between us, just this beautiful blue planet. This is no longer a time to think only of “my nation” or “our continent” alone. There is a real need for a greater sense of global responsibility based on the oneness of humanity.

Adapted from Our Only Home: A Climate Appeal to the World, by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Franz Alt. © 2020 by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Franz Alt, used with permission of Hanover Square Press/HarperCollins.

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“Self-inquiry was not easy, yet it was essential for my healing and for fostering a more just and equitable world.”

As my mind repeated, “jump, jump, jump,” through an inexplicable moment of grace, instead of jumping forward into the traffic, I fell backward into my apartment. This turn of events inspired me to begin practicing my ancestral Buddhist tradition and to mend the psychic and emotional wounds of separation caused by a lifetime of racism, homophobia, Islamophobia, and xenophobia in my own heart and mind.

Today, I’m dedicated to sharing with others what I’ve learned about the suffering that stems from our various human identities and how to alleviate such suffering using a Buddhist framework. When grappling with internalized bias, there are three key teachings that can help you: faith, wisdom, and compassion.

Faith

I learned how to meditate and pray from my grandmother. She’d seat me in front of her altar to chant ancient mantras, insisting that I sing with shraddha. But I didn’t fully embrace the depth and totality of this word, commonly translated as “faith” in English, until I temporarily ordained as a Chan Buddhist monk at Fo Guang Shan monastery in Taiwan.

I went to the monastery following my suicide attempt because something inside me knew that I had to get better acquainted with my mind if I wanted to embrace life. For weeks, I practiced silence, chanting, and prostration to the one thousand buddhas, and these practices were like the droplets of water that eventually fill a water bottle enough to quench one’s thirst. Over time, I experienced a somatically felt trust in the dharma. This was my grandmother’s shraddha. In Buddhism, faith is not blind belief; it’s a confidence born from direct experience. Ever since my time in Taiwan, I’ve had a daily meditation practice that invites and reminds me to trust in the path, even when the destination feels uncertain. 

Over time, as I explored meditation and teachings, I was encouraged to bring my suffering to the cushion. I learned to stay present with the pain of internalized stereotypes. Deep meditation practice helped me loosen the identification with those lies about my ethnicity and sexual orientation, as well as heal the underlying wounds of rejection, bullying, and marginalization that often led me to react unskillfully or cradle unwholesome emotions such as hatred, judgment, and ill will.  

Fueled by faith, I could feel glimmers of hope whenever I encountered the external or internal demons of hatred, stereotyping, and bias. Faith also allowed me to see that my identities, while deeply meaningful, are not fixed or permanent. The labels placed upon me by society—queer, brown, immigrant—are part of my human experience, but they don’t define the totality of my being. Through faith, I began to trust in the impermanence of these constructs and the possibility of freedom from their grip. I discovered my very own bodhicitta, heart-mind of enlightenment.  

Wisdom

Central to Buddhism is the cultivation of wisdom, or prajna, which involves seeing reality clearly for what it is and comprehending the causes and conditions that give rise to suffering. Dr. Bonnie Duran, one of my meditation teachers, helped crystallize this truth for me at my first meditation retreat for people of color. As a young lawyer, I attended the retreat to find some solace from the heart-wrenching racial disparities in our criminal legal system. “It shouldn’t be this way,” I recall saying to Bonnie. “But it is this way,” she answered, “and until you accept this reality, you will continue to fuel your suffering.”  

I found such profound wisdom in these simple words. As someone who was dedicated to changing the system, her words inspired me to identify the root cause of all identity-based disparities: bias. Bias is a learned mental habit that distorts how we perceive, reason, remember, and make decisions about ourselves and others. Whether internalized or external, bias is rooted in ignorance—a fundamental misunderstanding of the interconnectedness of all beings.

As I delved into Buddhist teachings, I began to see how the suffering caused by bias is not limited to individuals—it reverberates throughout society. The stereotypes I’d internalized about myself were not personal failures, but rather products of collective delusion. 

Through the simple mindfulness practices of mental noting, labeling, and investigation, I became more aware of the patterns of bias and committed myself to unlearning them and educating others about them. This process of self-inquiry was not easy, yet it was essential for my healing and for fostering a more just and equitable world. 

Compassion

Compassion, or karuna, is the heart of Buddhist practice. It calls us to respond to suffering—our own and others’—with kindness and a desire to alleviate it. For me, cultivating compassion began with acknowledging the depth of my own pain. I had spent years trying to numb or deny my suffering, believing it to be a sign of weakness. But the dharma taught me that turning toward my pain with compassion was the first step toward liberation.

One of the most transformative practices in my journey was loving-kindness meditation. Initially, it was difficult to direct loving-kindness toward myself. The voices of internalized bias were loud and persistent, telling me I was unworthy of love. With time and persistence, however, I began to soften these judgments and extend compassion to the parts of myself that felt most broken.

Compassion also compelled me to engage with the suffering of others. As I healed my own wounds, I felt a growing responsibility to address the systemic causes of bias and discrimination. This meant not only challenging oppressive systems, but also building connections with those who had been marginalized in similar ways. Compassion became the bridge that connected my personal healing with collective liberation. 

The Buddhist path offers profound tools for alleviating the suffering of bias. In the wake of my darkest moment, it was faith—an inexplicable sense of possibility—that propelled me to seek healing and transformation. Despite my inner turmoil, something deep within me trusted that life held the potential for liberation from suffering.

Through the cultivation of wisdom and compassion, we uncover the roots of suffering and develop the clarity to address them, and to transform our pain into a source of connection and liberation.

My own journey has been one of learning to see beyond the labels and stereotypes that once defined me, to trust in the possibility of freedom, and to extend compassion to myself and others. The suffering of bias is real and pervasive, yet it is not insurmountable. By turning to the teachings of the dharma, we can find a path toward healing—not just for ourselves but for all beings.

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