Kaira Jewel Lingo is a mindfulness and meditation teacher with a lifelong interest in blending spirituality and meditation with social justice.

She spent her formative years growing up in an ecumenical Christian community where families practiced a new kind of monasticism and worked with the poor.

When she turned 25 she entered a Buddhist monastery and spent fifteen years living as a nun under the guidance of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh.

Today she sees her work teaching Buddhist meditation, mindfulness, and compassion, as a continuation of the Engaged Buddhism she learned from Thich Nhat Hanh,

As well as the work of her parents, inspired by their stories and her dad’s work with Martin Luther King Jr. on desegregating the South.

In our conversation we will take a deep dive into Kaira Jewel’s story of entering the monastery

And the reasons for leaving 25 years later.

The moments she’ll describe are deeply human.

They are examples of those times we find ourselves at a crossroads, uncertain about which path to take.

Kaira Jewel will generously share some of the practices and insights that were most helpful for her as she navigated these moments:

• From finding the strength to be in a place of not knowing
• To sitting in the questions and discerning whether she was making these decisions driven by fear, or pulled by love. 
• To engaging in the practice of finding stillness and listening to her life.

As we explore these themes through Kaira Jewels story we’ll also talk about:

• What she’s learned about transforming the fear that often accompanies uncertainty into hopeful possibility
• Finding the balance between letting go and taking wise action 
• What she learned from her father and Thich Nhat Hanh about opening the heart in the face of some of the most pressing challenges of our time 
• The possibility of fighting for what we care about from a place of love. 

This raw and moving conversation was inspired by themes from her beautiful book:

We Were Made for These Times: Ten Lessons for Moving Through Change Loss and Disruption, which you can find wherever books are sold.

Did you find this episode inspiring? Here are other conversations we think you'll love:

• Meeting a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love | Oren Jay Sofer
• Neuroscience, Spirituality, and the Quest for an Inspired Life | Dr. Lisa Miller

More about Kaira Jewel:

Kaira Jewel Lingo is a mindfulness and meditation teacher with a lifelong interest in blending spirituality and meditation with social justice. She began practicing mindfulness in 1997 and at the age of twenty-five she entered a Buddhist monastery and spent fifteen years living as a nun under the guidance of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. She is also a teacher in the Vipassana Insight lineage through Spirit Rock Meditation Center. In addition to writing We Were Made for These Times: Ten Lessons for Moving through Change, Loss and Disruption, and co-authoring Healing Our Way Home: Black Buddhist Teachings on Ancestors, Joy and Liberation, she is also the editor of Thich Nhat Hanh’s Planting Seeds: Practicing Mindfulness with Children. She teaches and leads retreats internationally, provides spiritual mentoring, and interweaves art, play, nature, racial and earth justice, and embodied mindfulness practice in her teaching. Visit kairajewel.com to learn m

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