social justice – Page 3

special event {6/18}: 18th annual allied media conference

On June 18th, I’ll lead a healing session at the Allied Media Conference in Detroit. This opportunity has given me pause to pick up an old thread + follow it back to the faded memory of my former life as a graduate student at NYU, where I studied media through a sociological lens — examining race, gender, culture, representation + impact — and earned my M.A. from the Tisch School of Arts/GSAS.

Now, I have the deep honor of helping to cultivate a healing justice practice space for artists, educators, activists, and radical media-makers + offer them an immersion in mindfulness to foster compassion, skillful understanding + authentic connection.

Learn more about the AMC Conference: http://www.alliedmedia.org/amc

Winter Immersion: February + March Study Schedule

To “blow the dust” from each other’s eyes as we walk the path of love and understanding is indeed the suchness of sangha!

Join in the practice of seeing clearly and listening deeply to foster compassion, wholeness, and safety through these important and often difficult explorations into matters of inclusion, freedom, belonging, and healing.

Study Schedule

February 14th ~ Beginning Anew : A Mindfulness Practice in Celebration of the Buddhist Lunar New Year

February 21st ~ Toward Wholeness: Inclusion + Freedom + Belonging [Part I]

February 28th ~ Toward Wholeness: Inclusion + Freedom + Belonging [Part II]

March 6th ~ Toward Wholeness: Race, Sexuality, Gender + Spirituality [Part I]

March 13th ~ Toward Wholenes: Race, Sexuality, Gender + Spirituality [Part II]

March 20th ~ Toward Wholeness: Race, Sexuality, Gender + Spirituality [Part III]

HEAR HERE [for deep listening]: Opening The Question of Race to the Question of Belonging | On Being with Krista Tippett

And I think being human is about being in the right kind of relationships. I think being human is a process. It’s not something that we just are born with. We actually learn to celebrate our connection, learn to celebrate our love. And the thing about it — if you suffer, it does not imply love. But if you love, it does imply suffering. So part of the thing that I think what being human means to love and to suffer, to suffer with, though, compassion, not to suffer against. So to have a space big enough to suffer with. And if we can hold that space big enough, we also have joy and fun even as we suffer. And suffering will no longer divide us. And to me, that’s sort of the human journey.

~ john a. powell

I was invited to facilitate a dharma discussion for my root sangha to address the wellspring of emotions and concerns members have expressed following the tragedy in Charleston last week. Drawing on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, I entitled the talk “Good Spiritual Friends: Taking Care of Ourselves & One Another in the Face of Racism, Bias, & Injustice” and asked that we actively investigate our own perceptions, intentions and behaviors as we reflect on how to apply and cultivate the dharma in response to such devastation. We expressed our confusion, anger, shame, fear, helplessness, outrage. We cried. We breathed. We sat with our discomfort.

I asked that we continue to find refuge in practices that help to nourish and ground us as well as those that illuminate unskilfulness, awaken clear comprehension, and inspire compassionate actions.

That sweet space of refuge is fleeting: Our hearts burst open with the victory of the Marriage Equality Act last Friday. Then they are crushed once more with every church that goes up in flames at the hands of racist terrorists.

For sanity and nourishment, I am mindful about what I consume–attempting to combat this madness by sharing this dose of sustenance (clear, compassionate understanding) for the mind and soul.

Hear Here: john a powell ~ Opening the Question of Race to the Question of Belonging

toward wholeness: nurturing interdependence {in honor of mlk jr}

We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality,

Tied in a single thread of destiny.

Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

brown gurls healing circle [18 jan 2014]

Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial “outside agitator” idea.

Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.

~Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
Letter from a Birmingham Jail
[April 16, 1963]

[Project 60/50] Toward Wholeness: Race, Faith + Gender Matters in Mental Health

breathing beauty into the world: a mindfulness practice for children (who are learning to see with eyes of compassion)

Each day I rise, waking to a world of possibilities.

I breathe and smile, happy and ready to learn, grow and share.

I see the sky, sun, clouds above me.

I see the earth, plants, water below me.

I feel the air around me.

I breathe and smile, knowing that I am in the world and the world is in me.

I choose to see beauty in myself, my family, my friends, my neighbors, my teachers, my community, and all living creatures.

I choose to speak words from my heart that are true, helpful, inspiring, necessary, and kind.

I choose to act from my heart in ways that are helpful, healthy, inspiring, and kind.

Even when I do not feel or act my best (whether I am sad, scared, confused or angry), I remember to place my hands on my heart and breathe.

I smile, knowing I can begin anew.
I can ask for help and comfort from those I trust and love.

Each night, I rest, thankful for all that I learned and shared.

I see the sky, moon, stars above me.

I see the beauty all around me. I breathe and smile, knowing that I am in the world and the world is in me.

[originally written Fall 2012 + published on dhamma4mama* 2013]

This writing has multiple sources of inspiration:

My experiences as an aunt, mother, and substitute teaching assistant for a preschool program;
My experiences as a practitioner and teacher of yoga and meditation, which is rooted in my practice of Zen Buddhism in the lineage of Thich Nhat Hanh;
My dear friend TaNesha Barnes, who asked me some time last year to create an affirmation for Beyond The Surface, the critical thinking and social justice academy she literally built in her own backyard! A 21st-century embodiment of Wonder Woman, TaNesha is a mother, entrepreneur (t. barnes beauty), educator and social justice advocate with a clear heart-driven mission to empower students to become “global thinkers for equitable living.” When she recently posted the draft version of this piece (typed one late-night and stored as a memo on my BlackBerry) on Facebook, I was not only honored that she announced it would be recited daily in her upcoming program, Breathing Beauty Rites of Passages for Black Girls, but also compelled to add some long-awaited finishing touches! I am so deeply grateful to have lived, learned and grown up with TaNesha over the last 19 years and, on this 50th anniversary of the March on Washington (#MOW50), am excited to continue collaborating with her on programs that merge spirituality and wellness with social justice.

embodied practice: a perspective on “engaged” buddhism

It is hard to define engaged Buddhism.
But I think it has to do with a willingness to see how deeply people suffer; to understand how we have fashioned whole systems of suffering out of gender, race, caste, class, ability, and so on; and to know that interdependently and individually we co-create this suffering…
Some days, I call this engaged Buddhism; on other days I think it is just plain Buddhism — walking the Bodhisattva path, embracing the suffering of beings by taking responsibility for them.

Study Schedule

Recommended Group Readings

~ john a. powell

We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality,

Tied in a single thread of destiny.

Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial “outside agitator” idea.

Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.

~Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Letter from a Birmingham Jail [April 16, 1963]