Where I’ll Be Next
Weekly BIPOC Meditation Sangha
A Weekly Gathering for People of Color We extend a warm invitation to Black/Indigenous/People of Color to join for an hour of meditation, teaching and sharing with Kaira Jewel Lingo and Marisela Gomez, who alternate teaching every Thursday from 12-1pm ET.
Recently we celebrated two years of connection in this sangha. Read more here.
The Power of Play: Improvisation, Trust, and The Gift of Aimlessness
The Power of Play: Improvisation, Trust, and The Gift of Aimlessness
Part of The Body Remembers Freedom Series
with Kaira Jewel Lingo and My Dung
Sponsored by New York Insight Meditation Center
In this session, we explore the power of play as a doorway into aimlessness, a freedom from striving, fixing, or achieving anything at all. Through gentle InterPlay and meditation practices, we let the body rest from effort and rediscover trust, spontaneity, and ease. When nothing is required of us, creativity naturally emerges, not as something we produce, but as something we allow.
This workshop is part of The Body Remembers Freedom, a monthly series that brings together meditation, dharma, and embodied practice in a way that is relational, grounded, and alive. Each session includes time for meditation and contemplation, a dharma talk or shared inquiry, and InterPlay, a playful and powerful practice using movement, voice, storytelling, and deep listening to access the wisdom of the body.
Participants are supported to be:
More grounded and connected to their bodies and to one another
More accountable to themselves and to community
Reconnected to joy, creativity, and inner resource
Better able to meet life, and themselves, with compassion and presence
In times that can feel scary, overwhelming, or isolating, these gatherings offer a place to put the phone down, release accumulated stress, and reconnect with what feels trustworthy and alive. We gather to remember the sacred in ordinary experience and to be held in the support of community.
No experience with meditation or movement is required. You are welcome exactly as you are, with curiosity and a willingness to be present.
The Body Remembers Freedom is offered monthly on the first or second Thursday from 6:30 to 8:30 pm ET and is offered in a hybrid format. During the InterPlay portion of the evening, My Dung guides participants joining on Zoom, while Kaira Jewel guides those attending in person. The full group then comes back together for the closing practice. You are welcome to register for a single session, select multiple dates, or join the full series at a discounted rate.
Sessions are recorded and shared with all registrants after the program, so you are welcome to sign up even if you cannot attend live.
Register for one session or the full series (at a discount!).
More info and to register Here for March 12, The Power of Play: Improvisation, Trust, and The Gift of Aimlessness
Here for April 9, Belonging to the Earth: Touching Interbeing and Our Place in the Whole
| May 7 | June 18 | July 9 | August 6 |
In Person and Online
115 West 29th Street, 12th floor
New York, NY United States+ Google Map
We Were Made for These Times: Bodhisattva Courage in a World on Fire
We Were Made for These Times: Bodhisattva Courage in a World on Fire with Kaira Jewel Lingo.
Sponsored by Naropa University
In this Lenz Distinguished Lecture, Dharma Teacher Kaira Jewel Lingo explores what it means to live the bodhisattva vow right now.
Lenz Distinguished Lecture: In a time of profound uncertainty—when democracy, education, and human dignity feel under threat—many of us are asking how to respond without losing our hearts or our clarity. Drawing from the source of engaged Buddhism and contemporary movements for justice and reconciliation, this talk explores what it means to live the bodhisattva vow right now.
Together we will reflect on fear as a natural response to real danger, and how mindfulness helps us transform fear into compassionate, skillful action. We will examine how to speak out against injustice without hatred or partisanship, how to practice “sacred criticism,” and how to care for the whole even in polarized times. Grounded in both the historical and ultimate dimensions, this talk invites us to anchor in what is good, beautiful, and worth protecting—becoming seeds of the future we long to see.
For more info and to register here.
This event is offered both in person and online. Choose your preferred option on the ticket page.
Naropa University - Nalanda Events Center, 6287 Arapahoe Avenue, Boulder, CO 80301
Dipa Ma—The Life and Legacy of a Buddhist Master: Beloved Community for Engaged Spirituality March Gathering
The Beloved Community for Engaged Spirituality with Kaira Jewel Lingo 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.
We invite you to join us on Saturday, March 28, from 11 am-12:30 pm ET for our Saints of the Beloved Community series, featuring Amita Schmidt speaking about the life of revered Buddhist teacher, Dipa Ma.
Amita Schmidt has been teaching Vipassana meditation for over 30 years and she was a resident teacher at Insight Meditation Society (IMS). She is a licensed Clinical Social Worker in Hawaii and a certified IFS (Internal Family Systems) therapist. She is also the author of Dipa Ma: The Life and Legacy of a Buddhist Master.
You can listen to this interview Amita gave about Dipa Ma and access more of her free teachings on Dharmaseed here.
When we come together, Amita will be interested in your favorite story of Dipa Ma and you are welcome to visit the Dipa Ma facebook group where you can read some stories about her: https://www.facebook.com/groups/27379854925
***
Our monthly gatherings are offered on a donation basis.
Recording will be available.
Register for March here.
Online
We will gather monthly through June, on Saturdays from 11-12:30pm ET, for teachings and shared practice. The remaining dates of our gatherings for the first half of 2026 are:
March 28 with Amita Schmidt author of Dipa Ma: The Life and Legacy of a Buddhist Master
April 25, Guest speaker TBA
No gathering in May,
and June 13, Guest speaker TBA
Belonging to the Earth: Touching Interbeing and Our Place in the Whole
Belonging to the Earth: Touching Interbeing and Our Place in the Whole
Part of The Body Remembers Freedom Series
with Kaira Jewel Lingo and Linds Roberts
Sponsored by New York Insight Meditation Center
This session explores what it means to belong to the Earth, rather than stand apart from it. Through InterPlay and meditation, we deepen our felt sense of interbeing and our relationship with the more-than-human world. We practice kincentric ways of being that invite humility, care, and a remembered place within the web of life.
This workshop is part of The Body Remembers Freedom, a monthly series that brings together meditation, dharma, and embodied practice in a way that is relational, grounded, and alive. Each session includes time for meditation and contemplation, a dharma talk or shared inquiry, and InterPlay, a playful and powerful practice using movement, voice, storytelling, and deep listening to access the wisdom of the body.
Participants are supported to be:
More grounded and connected to their bodies and to one another
More accountable to themselves and to community
Reconnected to joy, creativity, and inner resource
Better able to meet life, and themselves, with compassion and presence
In times that can feel scary, overwhelming, or isolating, these gatherings offer a place to put the phone down, release accumulated stress, and reconnect with what feels trustworthy and alive. We gather to remember the sacred in ordinary experience and to be held in the support of community.
No experience with meditation or movement is required. You are welcome exactly as you are, with curiosity and a willingness to be present.
The Body Remembers Freedom is offered monthly on the first or second Thursday from 6:30 to 8:30 pm ET and is offered in a hybrid format. During the InterPlay portion of the evening, Linds Roberts guides participants joining on Zoom, while Kaira Jewel guides those attending in person. The full group then comes back together for the closing practice. You are welcome to register for a single session, select multiple dates, or join the full series at a discounted rate.
Sessions are recorded and shared with all registrants after the program, so you are welcome to sign up even if you cannot attend live.
Register for one session or the full series (at a discount!).
More info and to register here for April 9, Belonging to the Earth: Touching Interbeing and Our Place in the Whole
| May 7 | June 18 | July 9 | August 6 |
In Person and Online
115 West 29th Street, 12th floor
New York, NY United States+ Google Map
Embodied Presence: Guest Speaker for Fierce Vulnerability course
Embodied Presence with Kaira Jewel Lingo as guest speaker at a three-month intensive on the book Fierce Vulnerability
This three month program begins March 24.
In this session, we will review chapters 7-10 of the book and hear from guest speaker Kaira Jewel, author of Healing Our Way Home as well as the foreword for Fierce Vulnerability, who will speak to the importance of a spiritual foundation and guide us in some practice
Online
For more info and to register here.
Befriending Consciousness: Transforming the Mind from Within
Befriending Consciousness: Transforming the Mind from Within sponsored by The Lotus Institute, please join me online.
Our thoughts and reactions arise from deep layers of consciousness shaped by habit, experience, and collective inheritance. This talk explores mind and store consciousness, and how befriending what lives within us allows seeds of understanding, compassion, and freedom to grow.
Our time together will also include guided meditation and group sharing.
Online
For more info and to register here.
Positively Adapting to Climate Change; An uplifting trilogy of talks
Sponsored by The Resurgence Trust, with Kaira Jewel Lingo on May 19
While much else about the subject can cast big shadows, we look at climate breakdown from three uplifting perspectives in the areas of science, action and healing. These amazing international experts give us positive insights for our heads, our hands and our hearts, offering knowledge, practical advice and inner nourishment.
21 April – discover the fascinating and incredible things happening in the animal and plant world in response to climate breakdown, from biologist, conservationist and author Thor Hanson.
5 May – TBC
19 May – social activist and Zen teacher Kaira Jewel Lingo, a nun for 15 years with Master Thich Nhat Hanh, teaches us how to move through change, loss and disruption.
Please note that you can still sign up for the whole series even after one or two of the talks have passed, as you will then receive a link to recordings of all three once the series is over.
This is a series of Zoom webinars with interactive Q&A sessions. If you would like to submit a question before the event, please email events@resurgence.org
Thor Hanson is a biologist and author, a Guggenheim Fellow, a Switzer Environmental Fellow, and winner of the 2013 John Burroughs Medal. His book Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid inspired this trilogy of talks. Other works by him include Close to Home, Buzz, The Triumph of Seeds, Feathers, The Escape Artist and The Impenetrable Forest.
Thor Hanson has studied Central American trees and songbirds, nest predation in Tanzania, and the habits of African vultures. He served as a volunteer in Uganda to help establish the mountain gorilla tourism programme in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, and helped manage a brown bear tourism project for the U.S. Forest Service in Alaska. He often works at the interface between natural and human systems, and has conducted research on habitat fragmentation, endangered species, and the ecological impacts of warfare. You can find out more about his work here.
Kaira Jewel Lingo guides people to transform and heal through embodied presence, stillness and play. After spending 15 years as a nun with Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, she sees her work as a continuation of the Engaged Buddhism he developed, as well as her father’s work with Martin Luther King Jr. Having lived for four years in one of Africa’s biggest slums on the outskirts of Nairobi, she is on a lifelong journey of weaving contemplative practice with social justice.
The talks will be hosted by Rowena Wilson, who is a creative teacher, composer and broadcaster living in North Cornwall. Initially trained as a mindfulness teacher with Breathworks, Rowena devises and delivers Green Meditations, Earth Treasure Meditations and others, all inspired by Nature. You can find out more about her work here.
These events are free. Any donations will raise money for The Resurgence Trust, an educational charity (no. 1120414) that seeks to connect people to Nature, to each other and to themselves. It is thanks to the generosity of supporters of The Resurgence Trust that we are able to offer free events.
For more events from The Resurgence Trust, head to www.resurgenceevents.org
Online
For more info and to register here.
With thanks to Pierre Bamin @unsplash for the image
The Universe in a Hand – Encountering Our True Nature through the Four Immeasurable Minds of Love
The Universe in a Hand – Encountering Our True Nature through the Four Immeasurable Minds of Love
Part of The Body Remembers Freedom Series
with Kaira Jewel Lingo and Linds Roberts
Sponsored by New York Insight Meditation Center
The teaching of Indra's Net reveals a universe of radiant interconnection, where each of us is a unique jewel, reflecting and being reflected by the whole vast net of existence. This session invites us to feel this truth in our bodies and hearts through play and presence. We'll engage in a practice of meeting others eye-to-eye in brief, heart-opening encounters that invite us to see ourselves and each other as expressions of boundless love—cultivating kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. Then, through a simple drawing exercise, we'll map the visible and invisible elements—the people, places, and beings—that weave together to create the miracle of who we are. Together, we remember that we are not separate individuals, but a community of beings in communion.
This workshop is part of The Body Remembers Freedom, a monthly series that brings together meditation, dharma, and embodied practice in a way that is relational, grounded, and alive. Each session includes time for meditation and contemplation, a dharma talk or shared inquiry, and InterPlay, a playful and powerful practice using movement, voice, storytelling, and deep listening to access the wisdom of the body.
Participants are supported to be:
More grounded and connected to their bodies and to one another
More accountable to themselves and to community
Reconnected to joy, creativity, and inner resource
Better able to meet life, and themselves, with compassion and presence
In times that can feel scary, overwhelming, or isolating, these gatherings offer a place to put the phone down, release accumulated stress, and reconnect with what feels trustworthy and alive. We gather to remember the sacred in ordinary experience and to be held in the support of community.
No experience with meditation or movement is required. You are welcome exactly as you are, with curiosity and a willingness to be present.
The Body Remembers Freedom is offered monthly on the first or second Thursday from 6:30 to 8:30 pm ET and is offered in a hybrid format. During the InterPlay portion of the evening, Linds Roberts guides participants joining on Zoom, while Kaira Jewel guides those attending in person. The full group then comes back together for the closing practice. You are welcome to register for a single session, select multiple dates, or join the full series at a discounted rate.
Sessions are recorded and shared with all registrants after the program, so you are welcome to sign up even if you cannot attend live.
Register for one session or the full series (at a discount!).
More info and to register here for May 7
| June 18 | July 9 | August 6 |
In Person and Online
115 West 29th Street, 12th floor
New York, NY United States+ Google Map
Hope and Joy Series with Third Act
Kaira Jewel Lingo offers an evening of meditation, reflection hosted by Third Act, as part of the Hope and Joy Series
Online talk.
Save the Date.
Online
Finding Refuge, Finding Home: A Retreat in Nature at Spirit Rock
Nature Retreat at Spirit Rock with Mark Coleman, Susie Harrington and Kaira Jewel Lingo
Beyond the Separate Self – Emptiness and the Freedom of Awareness
Belonging to the Earth: Beyond the Separate Self – Emptiness and the Freedom of Awareness
Part of The Body Remembers Freedom Series
with Kaira Jewel Lingo and Linds Roberts
Sponsored by New York Insight Meditation Center
What if the aliveness we call ‘me’ is not a solid thing at all, but vast and open like the sky?
In this session, we begin with meditation on awareness itself, resting in the nature of consciousness and touching the spacious freedom that is always already here. From this ground, we explore the teaching of not-self through playful group forms that invite us to hold and be held by one another’s stories. Together, we discover that when the sense of a separate self softens, what remains is not emptiness as absence, but emptiness as connection, intimacy, and belonging.
This workshop is part of The Body Remembers Freedom, a monthly series that brings together meditation, dharma, and embodied practice in a way that is relational, grounded, and alive. Each session includes time for meditation and contemplation, a dharma talk or shared inquiry, and InterPlay, a playful and powerful practice using movement, voice, storytelling, and deep listening to access the wisdom of the body.
Participants are supported to be:
More grounded and connected to their bodies and to one another
More accountable to themselves and to community
Reconnected to joy, creativity, and inner resource
Better able to meet life, and themselves, with compassion and presence
In times that can feel scary, overwhelming, or isolating, these gatherings offer a place to put the phone down, release accumulated stress, and reconnect with what feels trustworthy and alive. We gather to remember the sacred in ordinary experience and to be held in the support of community.
No experience with meditation or movement is required. You are welcome exactly as you are, with curiosity and a willingness to be present.
The Body Remembers Freedom is offered monthly on the first or second Thursday from 6:30 to 8:30 pm ET and is offered in a hybrid format. During the InterPlay portion of the evening, Linds Roberts guides participants joining on Zoom, while Kaira Jewel guides those attending in person. The full group then comes back together for the closing practice. You are welcome to register for a single session, select multiple dates, or join the full series at a discounted rate.
Sessions are recorded and shared with all registrants after the program, so you are welcome to sign up even if you cannot attend live.
Register for one session or the full series (at a discount!).
More info and to register here for June 18
| July 9 | August 6 |
In Person and Online
115 West 29th Street, 12th floor
New York, NY United States+ Google Map
Wisdom for Meeting the Storm Together: Holding and Transforming Our Fear with Compassion and Collective Care ~ Annual Retreat for Black, Indigenous, People of Color
Hosted by Garrison Institute: Annual Retreat for Black, Indigenous, People of Color with Dr. Marisela Gomez, Kaira Jewel Lingoand Joe Reilly
In person retreat
Save the Date
Teen Retreat: Insight Meditation Society
Hosted by Insight Meditation Society with Kaira Jewel Lingo and others
In person retreat
SAVE THE DATE
More info to come
Annual BIPOC Women's Retreat: Garrison Institute
Hosted by Garrison Institute: Annual BIPOC Women’s Retreat with Dr. Marisela Gomez, Valerie Brown and Kaira Jewel Lingo
Save the date.
Dorothy Day and the Spirituality of Holy Disruption: Beloved Community for Engaged Spirituality February Gathering
The Beloved Community for Engaged Spirituality with Kaira Jewel Lingo 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.
We invite you to join us on Saturday, February 28, from 11 am-12:30 pm ET for our Saints of the Beloved Community series, featuring Robert Ellsberg in conversation about the life and witness of Dorothy Day. We’ll begin by screening an interview that Adam and Kaira Jewel recorded with Robert. Afterward, we will spend time journaling and then enter into conversation together, reflecting on how her wisdom might guide us in our own time.
Dorothy spent decades housing the homeless, choosing to live in voluntary simplicity, protesting unjust systems, advocating for nonviolence, and embodying the spirit of the Beatitudes.
Robert worked closely with Dorothy Day for many years and later edited her writings, journals, and letters, helping bring her voice to new generations. He speaks of her with an intimate, lived knowing, drawing out the depth of her spirituality and the courage of her commitment as a Christian anarchist, founder of the Catholic Worker movement, and lifelong witness to nonviolence, hospitality, and social justice. His reflections feel especially clarifying for the moment we are living through.
Beyond his work with Dorothy Day, Robert is the longtime publisher of Orbis Books, a press that helped introduce liberation theology to the wider church and has shaped theological imagination over recent decades through the work of Gustavo Gutiérrez, Leonardo Boff, leading womanist theologians, and many others. He is also the author of several beloved books on the saints and the spiritual life.
Our monthly gatherings are offered on a donation basis.
Recording will be available for one month.
To register for February here.
Online
***
We will gather monthly through June, on Saturdays from 11-12:30pm ET, for teachings and shared practice. The remaining dates of our gatherings for the first half of 2026 are:
March 28 with Amita Schmidt author of Dipa Ma: The Life and Legacy of a Buddhist Master
April 25, Guest speaker TBA
No gathering in May,
and June 13, Guest speaker TBA
ICE, Empire, and Ancestral Memory
ICE, Empire, and Ancestral Memory Sponsored by Science and Nonduality (SAND) with Kaira Jewel Lingo, Lyla June and Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg of MN.
Across Minneapolis, communities are responding to ICE terror not only with protest, but with intimacy—relational networks rooted in land, lineage, and love. In this gathering, we listen to voices carrying Indigenous memory, Black freedom struggle, faith-based resistance, and poetic truth to understand how today’s organizing is part of an ancient pattern: defending beloved community/home from occupation.
Together we will ask:
What does it mean to love your neighbor when your neighbor is being targeted by the state? What shifts when we see every person (we encounter in the streets), documented or undocumented, as created in the image of the divine?
What does it mean to practice beloved community and block-by-block organizing as a daily discipline, not just in moments of crisis? How might this practice serve us whether state terror comes to the doorstep of our communities or not?
What shifts when we understand ICE repression in Minneapolis (and cities across the US) as part of a much longer history—from Indigenous genocide to slave patrols to Nazi gestapo? (ALT: How does understanding ICE repression as part of a long lineage of state violence—from Indigenous genocide to slave patrols to modern policing—change how we respond today?)
How are relationships—across race, faith, class, and culture—being strengthened through struggle in Minneapolis (and other US cities facing ICE occupation) right now?
How are systems of repression interconnected globally—through militarization, surveillance, and profit?
How do we stay present with our powerlessness without collapsing into despair or passivity?
What can we learn from mycelial organizing—quiet, resilient networks that move people from fear into courageous, coordinated action?
Why does this moment feel like a sacred reckoning rather than just another political crisis?
For more info and to register here.
Online
Holding What Hurts: Caring for Strong Emotions in a Time of Social Harm
Online through Spirit Rock Meditation Center
How do we meet moments of overwhelm when it feels like there’s no space inside? In this half-day of mindfulness, we’ll explore body-based practices that help us stay grounded with strong emotions rather than running from them or being swept away. Through mindful breathing, walking, and listening to the body’s wisdom, we return to the steadiness of the present moment.
As we learn to tend our emotions with care, we also strengthen the inner resilience needed for the larger transformation our world is calling for. These practices help loosen patterns of fear and reactivity so we can participate in the great turning toward more life-giving ways of being together.
Drawing on Buddhist psychology, together we’ll learn to recognize, accept, and gently hold difficult emotions. From this compassionate presence, emotions settle, insight emerges, and new possibilities become available for both personal and collective healing.
More information and to register HERE
Opening to Grief – Making Space for Love, Loss, and What We Carry
Opening to Grief – Making Space for Love, Loss, and What We Carry
Part of The Body Remembers Freedom Series
with Kaira Jewel Lingo and Linds Roberts
Sponsored by New York Insight Meditation Center
This session invites us to gently open to grief as a living, embodied experience. Through meditation, reflection, simple movement, and welcoming our voices, we practice meeting sorrow with compassion rather than avoidance. By honoring what has been lost while staying connected to ourselves and one another, we discover how grief, when welcomed, can deepen our capacity for love, connection, and belonging.
This workshop is part of The Body Remembers Freedom, a monthly series that brings together meditation, dharma, and embodied practice in a way that is relational, grounded, and alive. Each session includes time for meditation and contemplation, a dharma talk or shared inquiry, and InterPlay, a playful and powerful practice using movement, voice, storytelling, and deep listening to access the wisdom of the body.
Participants are supported to be:
More grounded and connected to their bodies and to one another
More accountable to themselves and to community
Reconnected to joy, creativity, and inner resource
Better able to meet life, and themselves, with compassion and presence
In times that can feel scary, overwhelming, or isolating, these gatherings offer a place to put the phone down, release accumulated stress, and reconnect with what feels trustworthy and alive. We gather to remember the sacred in ordinary experience and to be held in the support of community.
No experience with meditation or movement is required. You are welcome exactly as you are, with curiosity and a willingness to be present.
The Body Remembers Freedom is offered monthly on the first or second Thursday from 6:30 to 8:30 pm ET and is offered in a hybrid format. During the InterPlay portion of the evening, Linds Roberts guides participants joining on Zoom, while Kaira Jewel guides those attending in person. The full group then comes back together for the closing practice. You are welcome to register for a single session, select multiple dates, or join the full series at a discounted rate.
Sessions are recorded and shared with all registrants after the program, so you are welcome to sign up even if you cannot attend live.
Register for one session or the full series (at a discount!).
More info and to register here for February 12
Here for March 12, The Power of Play: Improvisation, Trust, and The Gift of Aimlessness
Here for April 9, Belonging to the Earth: Touching Interbeing and Our Place in the Whole
| May 7 | June 18 | July 9 | August 6 |
In Person and Online
115 West 29th Street, 12th floor
New York, NY United States+ Google Map
Educating for Interbeing
Educating for Interbeing panel sponsored by Thich Nhat Hanh School of Interbeing with Kaira Jewel Lingo, Meena Srinivasan, Brother Phap Luu, and Jon Kabat-Zinn.
Global Launch Event for the School of Interbeing. A conversation about the future of mindfulness in education and its pivotal role in our collective well-being.
The Thich Nhat Hanh School of Interbeing is dedicated to nurturing the next generation of curious, compassionate community builders.
For more info here and to register here.
Online
Living An Ethic of Love – Celebrating Black Dharma Teachings
Living An Ethic of Love – Celebrating Black Dharma Teachings sponsored by New York Insight Meditation Center
with Kaira Jewel Lingo, Leslie Booker, Pamela Ayo Yetunde, Devin Berry, Lama Rod Owens, Myokei Caine Barrett, Rhonda V. Magee, Bhante Buddharakkhitta, Dalila Bothwell, Rashid Hughes, Marisela Gomez, Vimalasara Mason-John, Valerie Brown, Gina La Roche, Jan Willis, Allyson Pimentel, Shanté Paradigm Smalls, Lopön Karla Jackson-Brewer, Lissa Edmond, Amana Brembry-Johnson, Peace Twesigye, and Rima Vesely-Flad
Folks of African descent carry a rich legacy of contemplation—an enduring wisdom that, even in the face of colonization and enslavement, has taught us how to pause, rest, and reconnect with what is most true.
This February, New York Insight invites you to explore that legacy through a month-long series of Black dharma teachings, offered as a daily practice of reflection, resilience, and connection.
Each weekday throughout February, participants will receive an email with a prerecorded dharma talk from a Black dharma teacher. These teachings are designed to meet you where you are, offering insight and grounding in daily life. All talks remain accessible for at least one year, allowing you to engage at your own pace.
Our ancestors dreamed of freedom, prepared for it, fought for it, and manifested it against all odds. Through resilience, joy, and deep reflection, they embodied profound truths of interdependence and belonging—wisdom we inherit not as history alone, but as a living practice that reminds us none of us stands alone.
From these traditions, the world learns how to hold paradox with care: grief and joy, struggle and beauty, existing side by side. Black dharma teachings show us how reflection becomes resilience, how community sustains practice, and how love functions not as sentiment, but as an ethic for living.
These teachings are offered by experienced Black dharma teachers whose work is rooted in lived experience, ancestral wisdom, and a deep commitment to the path. Together, they offer perspectives that speak directly to resilience, belonging, and collective care.
This offering is open to people of all backgrounds and levels of experience. Whether you’re reconnecting with your practice or exploring these teachings for the first time, you are warmly welcome.
For more info and to register here.
Online
Finding What Is Ours to Do: From Personal Calling to Collective Power
Finding What Is Ours to Do: From Personal Calling to Collective Power sponsored by the Sati Center.
In this 90-minute session, we will explore how Buddhist practice can guide us toward climate action that is rooted in clarity, care, and steadiness rather than urgency alone. Drawing on Movement Ecology and the ‘Block, Build, Be’ framework, we will reflect on where our skills, joy, and the world’s needs meet. Through meditation, teaching, and small-group dialogue, we will also consider how to move from isolated effort to organized, community-based engagement that can sustain both our hearts and our impact.
More info and to register to come.
Online
The Still Point That Turns the World: A Buddhist–Christian Path from Presence to Action
Sponsored by Closer Than Breath. Centering Prayer Summit: Learning to See in the Dark, Opening to Mystical Hope in the Collective Dark Night
A two-day contemplative journey into honest seeing, shared courage, and the deeper Light that never stops shining.
The Still Point That Turns the World: A Buddhist–Christian Path from Presence to Action, Closing Keynote by Kaira Jewel Lingo and Adam Bucko on Sunday Jan 25, 3:30-5pm ET
More info and to register here.
Online
Growing the Good: Cultivating Courage, Clarity, and Care. A four-week live online course
Growing the Good: Cultivating Courage, Clarity, and Care. A four-week live online course with Kaira Jewel
Hosted by Sangha Live
Nurture the goodness within you – and in the world around you. Even in the most turbulent of times, we can take refuge in one truth: We choose the seeds we water in our lives. Only we can nurture the qualities that help us stay clear, courageous, and connected – both for ourselves and for our communities.
In this live, month-long journey, senior Dharma teacher Kaira Jewel Lingo offers a grounded and accessible exploration of the Four Wise Efforts, a foundational framework in the Buddhist tradition that teaches us how to prevent unwholesome states from arising, befriend and transform those that have arisen, cultivate wholesome states not yet present, and enlarge the goodness already within us.
Drawing on key elements of Buddhist psychology, insight practice, the Engaged Buddhism movement started by her teacher, Thích Nhất Hạnh, and her decades of teaching across diverse communities, Kaira Jewel guides us in working with our own minds – and our collective life together – by tending the seeds of our mental and emotional states.
This course weaves individual, relational, and collective practice. Through teachings, guided meditations, reflective exercises, and a social movement ecology framework, you’ll explore how tending your inner garden becomes an act of resistance – one that nourishes not only your own well-being, but the communities and world you care about.
By grounding our attention, stabilizing our hearts, and nurturing the goodness in ourselves and others, we can meet the challenges of our moment with resilience, wisdom, and a vision of the world we truly wish to grow.
More info and to register here.
Online
Love Made Visible: Embodying Courageous Compassion with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Ven. Thích Nhất Hạnh
An Online Weekend Retreat through Insight Meditation Society. Taught by Kaira Jewel Lingo
In a world shaped by climate crisis, political division, racial injustice, and profound uncertainty, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Ven. Thích Nhất Hạnh remind us that love is not merely a feeling—it is a courageous, embodied practice. Their friendship and shared vision call us to a path where mindfulness and justice, contemplation and compassionate action, become inseparable.
During this weekend retreat, we will explore how awareness, love, and liberation can be made visible in our bodies, relationships, and communities. Through insight meditation, guided reflection, relational mindfulness, and gentle movement, we will cultivate the inner steadiness needed to face suffering without collapse, and the spaciousness to meet our lives with clarity and care.
Drawing on the teachings of Dr. King and Thích Nhất Hạnh, we will soften conditioned patterns, release internalized division, and touch a deeper belonging. There will also be dedicated space to honor and hold our grief, both personal and collective, as a doorway to greater compassion and freedom. From this ground, joy can naturally arise, not as an escape, but as a sign of a liberated heart.
Open to all, this retreat will weave silence with connection, reflection with community, and practice with the call to transform our world. Together, we will nurture the “Beloved Community” within and around us, and learn how to continue Dr. King and Thích Nhất Hạnh’s legacy of courageous compassion in our daily lives.
Info and registration here.
Growing the Good, Moment by Moment
Growing the Good, Moment by Moment with Kaira Jewel sponsored by Sangha Live
Goodness does not appear all at once; it grows through small, intentional acts. In this Sangha Sunday, we explore how mindfulness helps us recognize and tend what is already wholesome within us, offering a preview of the practices and reflections that will be covered in the course Growing the Good.
This session is freely-offered, but dana/donations are invited to help us meet our substantial running costs and to support our teachers.
More info and to register here.
Online
The Body Remembers Freedom – Meditation, InterPlay, and the Art of Coming Home to Yourself
The Body Remembers Freedom – Meditation, InterPlay, and the Art of Coming Home to Yourself Sponsored by New York Insight Meditation Center with Kaira Jewel Lingo
Offered monthly on 1st or 2nd Thursdays, 6:30 – 8:30pm ET. Open to all. In-person attendance is recommended, but hybrid participation will be available for at least this first session on a trial basis.
What if freedom wasn’t something to earn — but something your body already remembers? What if your body already carried the wisdom you need to heal, connect, and come home to yourself? What if play could be a blessing?
The Body Remembers Freedom is a monthly gathering where we explore the intersection of meditation, dharma, and embodied practice. Each session includes time for stillness and contemplation, a dharma talk or shared inquiry, and InterPlay — a playful, powerful practice using movement, voice, storytelling, and deep listening to unlock the wisdom of the body.
Together we create a space that welcomes laughter, tears, rest, and joy — a space where you can move freely, feel deeply, and be held in community. Through this practice, we remember what it feels like to trust ourselves, to breathe fully, and to belong.
Participants are supported to be:
More grounded and connected to their bodies and each other
Reconnected to joy, creativity, and inner resource
Better able to meet life — and themselves — with compassion and presence
We gather to remember the sacred in the ordinary, to bless our own aliveness, and to reconnect with community, the earth, and the truth in our bones.
The theme for December is Growing Happiness: the Physicality of Grace.
More info and to register here for December 4.
And here for Jan 15.
In Person and Online
115 West 29th Street, 12th floor
New York, NY United States+ Google Map
Healing Our Way Home: Annual BIPOC Women's Retreat
Hosted by Garrison Institute: Annual Retreat for Black, Indigenous, People of Color with Dr. Marisela Gomez, Kaira Jewel Lingo and Joe Reilly
Save the date.
Blessing Our Aliveness – Play, Rest and Practice in Beloved Community
New York Insight Center Day Long with Kaira Jewel Lingo
The wisdom available at New York Insight is grounded in the Pali Canon, the oldest extant record of the Buddha’s original teachings. For over 2,000 years, the Pali Canon has provided the foundation for Theravada Buddhist practice. NYI carries the heritage of the Theravada Buddhist tradition, providing New Yorkers a unique and modern opportunity to connect with the wisdom of these teachings to benefit their everyday lives.
Contemplative Wisdom, Transformative Action Conference
Anchored in the Fellowship’s four core pillars—contemplative wisdom, the science of interconnection, generative action, and collective healing—this convening is a space to deepen understanding, share field-leading innovations, and cultivate new possibilities for social transformation.
EcoDharma Exploration: The EcoSattva Journey
The EcoSattva Training: Becoming a Force for Nature with guest speaker Kaira Jewel Lingo sponsored by One Earth Sangha from October 2025 to May 2026
October 2025 to May 2026
Embodying Calm: Mindfulness Practice
Smith College Jandon Center for Community Engagement presents: Embodying Calm: Mindfulness Practice with Kaira Jewel Lingo. An evening of quiet sitting, mindful walking and enjoying a talk. Co-Sponsor: Center for Religious and Spiritual Life.
Held at Helen Hills Hills Chapel, 123 Elm Street, Northampton, MA
Mindfulness & Climate Change
If you’re looking for community and support to apply your spiritual practice to social justice engagement, we warmly invite you to join us for the 2025 Beloved Community Circles training! This is an opportunity for participants to gain skills in our three organizational pillars: community care, mindfulness practice, and strategies to advocate for climate and racial justice together. As we face unprecedented environmental, political, and economic challenges, we offer this training in the spirit of generosity, as a resource and a loving reminder that you and your community that you are not alone in this moment. We can create the world we want together.
Defiance as an Act of Love, Healing & Transforming Ourselves
Hosted by Garrison Institute: Annual Retreat for Black, Indigenous, People of Color with Dr. Marisela Gomez, Kaira Jewel Lingoand Joe Reilly
In person retreat
More info here.
Registration Link here.
Spiritual Radicals: Saints and Bodhisattvas of the Beloved Community
Spiritual Radicals: Saints and Bodhisattvas of the Beloved Community
A Speaker Series with Kaira Jewel Lingo and Father Adam Bucko
May 27 ~ Dr. King As a Nonviolent Spiritual Radical with Kazu Haga
Inner Transformation for Social Changemakers: Clarity, Resilience & Purpose
Sponsored by the Garrison Institute. Please join us for Inner Transformation for Social Changemakers: Clarity, Resilience & Purpose
To be led by Kaira Jewel Lingo, Dr. Dan Siegel, Yuki Imoto, Arawana Hayashi, and Annie Carpenter
In a time of profound global change, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. This 5-week online course series offers a space to pause, reflect, and reconnect with what truly matters—so you can lead with clarity, resilience, and purpose.
A Day of Practice in Nature
A Day of Practice in Nature with Kaira Jewel Lingo and Thimo Wittich at Our Lady of the Resurrection Monastery in Lagrangeville, NY
During this day of practice we will reconnect with the natural world and engage in contemplation in the heart of the living world in the abundant beauty of spring.
Register here: https://forms.gle/cp2XgQhw6BsDJSL1A
On the land and in Person only
Words for Wandering
Words for Wandering Sponsored by Parallax Press and Green Writers Press:
Join in conversation with authors Michelle Latvala and Kaira Jewel Lingo as we share our new books.
“The authors will give context regarding their writing processes, share content from their books, and answer guest questions.”
Living Ecodharma: Finding Fulfillment in Healing and Loving the Earth
Sponsored by The Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, please join me for Living Ecodharma: Finding Fulfillment in Healing and Loving the Earth by application only.
From Collective Trauma to Collective Healing: Understanding Our Past for a Future to Be Possible
Sponsored by Washington University Arts & Science, please join us for From Collective Trauma to Collective Healing: Understanding Our Past for a Future to Be Possible part of the Mindfulness & Anti-Racism Lectureship Series with Kaira Jewel.
More info here.
Online
'Hearing the Cry of the Earth: Responding Compassionately to Change, Loss and Disruption'
'Hearing the Cry of the Earth: Responding Compassionately to Change, Loss and Disruption' Sponsored by Mindfulness and Compassion Grand Rounds at Harvard Medical School with Kaira Jewel Lingo
Insight Meditation Retreat
Insight Meditation Retreat at Spirit Rock with Gil Fronsdal, DaRa Williams, Tuere Sala and Kaira Jewel Lingo
In Person Retreat
Healing Our Way Home: Ancestral Wisdom for Joy and Liberation
Healing Our Way Home: Ancestral Wisdom for Joy and Liberation sponsored by Spirit Rock, please join me for a half-day of practice.