Opening Dharma Access: Listening to BIPOC Teachers & Practitioners
Welcome to "Opening Dharma Access," a podcast where we hear stories from BIPOC teachers & practitioners about their Dharma experiences and practice, and how those inform the ways they are sharing & practicing the Dharma today.
Season 3 description: Hosted by Rev. Liên & Rev. Dana Takagi
This season, we will have a new focus: Uplifting and Forwarding Asian American/Asian Diasporic Buddhist Experiences in the West.
With our guests and audience, we will explore the specificities of Asian American/Asian Diasporic experiences. We take as given that there are generational differences (hence the historical moment matters!) and we hope to also delve into Asian family norms and values, our inchoate understanding of ancestor worship, issues of identity, representation, stereotypes about sexuality and sexual identity, and Asian American depression.
A theme we'll be using to help guide our conversations is The Disquiet - a term we are adapting from writer/poet Fernando Pessoa (The Book of Disquiet) -- which, in our view, signals a complex recognition of self, mind, and body. The evidence for the foregoing includes scholarly research indexed in aggregate statistics on depression, youth suicide, and other issues in immigrant or first-generation families. While Asian Americans are not alone in experiencing trauma, the racial languages and discourses of othering are different for us than for other groups.
What do we hope is the outcome of this podcast? Our first aim is to give voice to the range and depth of Buddhism in Asian and Asian American generations. We hope, in doing so, we help to shine a light on the limited or myopic envisioning of race in primarily white sanghas. Asian and Asian American diasporic truths about practice are a teaching for contemporary dharma organizations and centers. We recognize the depth and range of Asian and Asian Diasporic Buddhists is a wisdom mirror for organized Buddhism in the West.
Thank you to the Hemera Foundation for their generous support of Season 3!
Contact us at: Info.Access2Zen@gmail.com
Further Info at: AccessToZen.org
Opening Dharma Access: Listening to BIPOC Teachers & Practitioners
Calm, Ease with Sister Peace
Enjoy this lovely practice, as Sister Peace walks us gently through a guided meditation to learn to pay attention to the quality of our breath so that we become anchored in the feelings of calm and ease.
This guided practice is also available on the Plum Village App and on YouTube.
SISTER PEACE spent five years in government work before realizing that something was missing. Feeling spiritually bereft, she began practicing at the Washington Mindfulness Community where she encountered the teachings of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh.
Compelled by his teachings, she relocated in 2006 to the Plum Village Monastery in France to deepen her mindfulness practice and where she was ordained a Buddhist nun in 2008, and received the Dharma Lamp Transmission in 2017.
She has dedicated her life to bringing the practice of mindfulness to people around the world –from educators and teenagers to artists and politicians. In particular, Sister Peace is interested in helping people understand the aspiration of Thich Nhat Hanh and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to build the “Beloved Community.”
Sister Peace has organized retreats in Asia, Africa, Europe and North America; and facilitated retreats for People of Color, Business Leaders, Silicon Valley, Educators, Artists and others. Most recently, her heartfelt focus of service and practice has been with the children in the Shelby County Juvenile Detention Center – a jail for children in Memphis, Tennessee. She is on a virtual team offering Mindfulness and the Arts during the COVID-19 Crisis with students at East High School in Memphis.
Sister Peace currently resides in Memphis, Tennessee, where she practices Engaged Buddhism.
You can find Sister Peace in Meditations on the Plum Village app, as well as articles in Lions Roar and The Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation Newsletter - The Raft, the Mindfulness Bell Magazine, and an upcoming article in the Arrow Magazine.
Here are a few links to her teachings:
YOUTUBE video
Uncomfortable Spaces - Cultivating Love & Peace for Racial Healing
Articles in the Mindfulness Bell
Ancestral Insights Article
When Giants Meet
Click here to learn more about the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh and Plum Village.
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