Yesterday, Kaira Jewel Lingo joined George for a Golden Civilization Conversation via Facebook Live. Kaira Jewel, mindfulness teacher, mentor, dharma teacher, is one of the co-trainers of the Mindful Engagement webinar series. This conversation is a great discussion of activism and the path to a Golden Civilization through a mindfulness lens.
Kaira Jewel opens by sharing a little about her childhood, which shared so many similarities to her later monastic life and why she pursued a spiritual path instead of continuing on with the one she had been pursing through higher education. This leads to a timely discussion of fierce compassion, peace in crisis, and the difference between the unconscious nature of perceived “negative” emotions and feelings and the conscious and preventable actions that may stem from them.
Kaira Jewel Lingo was born in Chicago and grew up there and in Nairobi, Kenya, in a multi-racial family within a residential spiritual community. She graduated from Stanford University with a B.A. and M.A. in Anthropology and Social Sciences and speaks fluent Portuguese, French, German and Italian, and rudimentary Spanish.
She teaches Buddhist meditation, mindfulness, and compassion internationally, with a focus on activists, people of color, artists, educators, families, and youth. She began practicing mindfulness in 1997. An ordained nun of 15 years in Thich Nhat Hanh’s Order of Interbeing, she is now a lay Dharma teacher based in Washington, DC. She edited Thich Nhat Hanh’s, Planting Seeds: Practicing Mindfulness with Children and helped to start and develop Wake Up Schools, bringing mindfulness to education. Kaira Jewel currently teaches educators in the Mindful Schools year-long certification program, she shares mindfulness with parents, educators and students in DC public schools through Minds, Inc, and teaches teen and young adults' mindfulness retreats with Inward Bound Mindfulness Education (iBme). For more information about Kaira Jewel, read more here.
The article on drawing on the strength of peace during times of crisis which Kaira Jewel wrote for Lions Roar is available here.
More information about John Makransky’s latest book is available here.
Interested in hosting a Golden Civilization Conversation yourself? The format is easy to learn and can be adapted to work in a variety of locations and/or audiences. Check out our hosting resources here.