The Beloved Community for Engaged Spirituality with Kaira Jewel Ling and Father Adam Bucko, is restarting monthly Buddhist Christian gatherings, now on Saturday mornings from 11-12:30pm ET. (This used to be called The Buddhist Christian Community for Meditation and Action)

These gatherings will include guest teachers and conversations that draw from the lives and wisdom of the saints of the beloved community—those whose lives remind us that even in difficult and violent times, groundedness, courage, and a spacious vision are possible. Their witness helps us remember that oppression and cruelty never have the final word.

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Ecumenical Spirit of our Gatherings

These gatherings are open to all. They are held in a spirit of deep ecumenism. Whatever your background or religious affiliation, whatever spirituality or practice you are exploring, you are welcome here. You do not need to belong to any particular faith tradition to take part.

At the same time, we, Kaira Jewel and Adam teach grounded in our own traditions. We offer them not as something to impose, but as resources we have received from those in whose footsteps we follow. And from there, we keep pointing toward what Howard Thurman named so beautifully: the importance of tending your inner life, listening for the voice of the genuine, and staying connected to that deep place within you that animates you with love and guides how you live.

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Generosity

Monthly gatherings are offered on a donation basis. All donations from our gatherings will go towards projects working to relieve suffering, help people flourish and support social change, as well as seed our new contemplative center, The Beloved Commmunity for Engaged Spirituality and Our Lady of the Resurrection Monastery.

Or you can subscribe to the Beloved Community for Engaged Spirituality Substack Publication for a “you choose” monthly donation.

Venmo @Kaira-Lingo
Cash App: $KairaJewel
PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/KairaLingo
Credit cards: https://donate.stripe.com/3csdUQbHU6j49Ne288
It is helpful for our records if you can note the date of the session you are donating for.

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Upcoming Gatherings

We will gather monthly from January through June, on Saturdays from 11-12:30pm ET, for teachings and shared practice. The dates of our gatherings for the first half of 2026 are:

January 24, 2026, Examen

February 28, 2026, revisiting Robert Ellsberg’s talk on Dorothy Day

March 28, 2026, Amita Schmidt author of Dipa Ma: The Life and Legacy of a Buddhist Master

April 25, 2026,

May, 2026, No gathering

June 13, 2026

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Introduction to the Examen Practice, January 24, 2025

“St. Ignatius invites us to find God—the sacred, the divine—in all things. This invitation asks us to slow down and pay attention to our lives, and to learn how to look beneath the surface of our days. Often, we move through life carried along by habit, expectation, fear, and routine, rarely stopping long enough to notice where we are or what is truly happening within us.

The Examen gently interrupts that movement. It invites us to come back to ourselves, to become present to what we have lived, and to notice how the Spirit–that Presence that gathers us into wholeness–has been quietly at work beneath the surface of our days. We give thanks for what has nourished us, and we look honestly, but with compassion, at where we may have been out of alignment, trusting that we are always being invited to begin again.

Today, we will be practicing the Examen in this way—using it to look back over the year that has passed.

While this practice comes from a Christian tradition, we hold it here in an interfaith spirit. When we use words like “God,” “Spirit,” or “the Divine,” you are invited to listen beneath the language and translate it into what you know directly—perhaps a sense of aliveness you sometimes touch or the deep presence that becomes available when you are truly here.” — Adam

Examen Questions

1. Gently place yourself in the presence of what you trust as most loving and life-giving—what some name as God, Love, the Spirit; others as the Buddha, Compassion, Deep Care, or Wisdom.

   Take a moment to quietly ask for the grace, or the clarity of heart, to look back over your year with honesty and kindness—to see it through the eyes of love and compassion rather than judgment.

   As you reflect on 2025, what are you especially grateful for?

2. Looking back over 2025, through the eyes of the Sacred—through the eyes of the Buddha, Compassion, Deep Care, and Wisdom—where did you feel especially connected to the Divine?

   Where did you touch life most deeply—where were you truly present, sensing a presence that was simply there, supporting you, accompanying you, holding you, or giving you strength?

   Where did you feel carried or quietly guided? Where did you find yourself more in the flow of life, where compassion came more naturally, or where it felt easier to show up as a healing presence in the world?

   And where did you sense yourself living from that deeper place—what some call the presence of God, others the presence of mindfulness, awareness, or deep care?

3. Looking back over 2025, through the eyes of the Sacred, where did you feel disconnected—from the Divine, from your own true self, your own Buddha Nature, from that deep place within you that gives you strength, keeps you grounded, and enables you to show up with love and compassion, even when circumstances are hard?

   Where did you struggle to welcome this care and compassion into your life, or to allow yourself to become an expression of it? Where were you closed, blocked, or defended, not allowing it in? Where did you miss opportunities to be kind, loving, or present—to yourself and/or others?

   This question is not to judge ourselves, but to be aware with love…Is there anything we feel we need to say sorry for?

4. Looking through the eyes of God, Buddha, Love, Compassion, Deep Care and Wisdom, when you think about this new year of 2026, what kind of qualities would you like to bring to greater fruition in your life this year? What kind of grace, assistance, support do you need to do that? This is an opportunity to call upon these forces (Divine, ancestral, spiritual) and ask for help, assistance, and inspiration.