In this ninth live interview in the New Horizons in Engaged Buddhism series, host Julia Sagbien interviews Kaira Jewel Lingo. Kaira Jewel is a senior Dharma teacher in the Plum Village Zen lineage and teaches Vipassana in the Insight tradition. She is a member of the Plum Village North American Dharma Teachers’ Council of Elders. She has been practicing mindfulness since 1997 and teaching since 2007, and completed the four-year Spirit Rock teacher training in 2020. Her work continues the Engaged Buddhism developed by Thich Nhat Hanh, drawing inspiration from her parents’ lives of service and her father’s work with Martin Luther King Jr.

After living as an ordained nun for 15 years in Thich Nhat Hanh’s monastic community, Kaira Jewel now teaches internationally in the Zen and Vipassana traditions. Based in New York, she is faculty in a Buddhist Eco-Chaplaincy training and a guiding teacher of One Earth Sangha. With her partner, Adam Bucko, she is founding a center for engaged contemplation, The Beloved Community for Engaged Spirituality, in the Hudson Valley of upstate New York. She is the author of We Were Made for These Times: Ten Lessons in Moving Through Change, Loss, and Disruption and co-author of Healing Our Way Home: Black Buddhist Teachings on Ancestors, Joy, and Liberation.

In this eigth episoide of New Horizons for Engaged Buddhism, Host Julia Sagebien interviews Tara Brach. Tara is a spiritual teacher, psychologist and author of the internationally bestselling books Radical Acceptance, Radical Compassion and Trusting the Gold. She blends Western psychology and Eastern spiritual practices, mindful attention to our inner life, and a dedication to creating a more just, equitable and loving world. Tara is the founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington and, together with Jack Kornfield, has co-founded Banyan and the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training Program, which serves participants from 74 countries around the world.

Host Julia Sagbien interviews Mushim Patricia Ikeda.   Mushim is a Buddhist teacher, poet, author, social justice activist, and mother based in Oakland, California. She teaches at the East Bay Meditation Center, where she leads the award-winning yearlong mindfulness program for social change agents, Practice in Transformative Action. Mushim is the recipient of the Gil A. Lopez Award for a peacemaker of color from the Association for Dispute Resolution of Northern California, and the recipient of an honorary doctor of sacred theology degree from the Starr King School for the Ministry. She has been featured in two documentary films: “Between the Lines” (on Asian American women poets) and “Standing on Faith: Women and the New Religious Activism in America,” distributed by the Pluralism Project at Harvard University.

Host Julia Sagebien interviews Ellen Korman Mains — daughter of Holocaust survivors and student of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche — focusing on how we can move on from trauma patterns to finding our own best way of healing and repairing the world. 

In this fifth episode in the New Horizons in Engaged Buddhism series, Host Julia Sagebien interviews Village Zendo Abbot Sinclair Shunryu Thomson about his understanding of engaged Buddhism

In this episode, host Julia Sagebien interviews Asian-American feminist Buddhist scholar Dr. Sharon A. Suh. Dr. Suh is professor of Buddhism at Seattle University. She received her BA from Trinity College in Asian Studies, M.T.S. from Harvard Divinity School, and Ph.D. from Harvard University. She specializes in Buddhism, race, and gender and the intersections of trauma and mindfulness. Sharon is President of Sakyadhita International Association of Buddhist Women, serves on the board of directors of The Center for Mindful Eating, and served on the board of directors of Yoga Behind Bars. Dr. Suh’s remarkable book, Emerging Dharma: Asian American Feminist Buddhists on Practice, Identity and Resistance, has just been published.

In this third of a series of live interviews with engaged Buddhist thought leaders, host Julia Sagebien interviews Francisco “Paco” Genkoji Lugoviña Roshi  about his vision for engaged Buddhism.  Roshi Paco is a Dharma heir to Bernie Glassman Roshi and a board member of the Zen Peacemakers organization. He co-founded the Hudson River Peacemaker Center: House of One People, in Yonkers, New York. He has worked with gang members and youth and participated in Bearing Witness Retreats and pilgrimages to Tibet, Auschwitz-Birkenau, India, Sri Lanka, Rwanda, as well as on the streets of New York and other U.S. cities.

In the second of a series of live interviews with engaged Buddhist thought leaders, host Julia Sagebien interviews Daiken Nelson Roshi about the foundations of and his vision for engaged Buddhism. Daiken is the guiding teacher of the Pamsula Zen Center in NYC, Pamsula Zen of Westchester, and the Iowa City Zen Center. Before receiving Dharma transmisison, Daiken practiced for over three decades with teacher in the White Plum and Zen Peacemaker lineages. He founded the Mandala Cafe, a nonprofit that offers free culinary training to people having trouble finding and keeping employment as well as offering free weekly meals in central Harlem.

In Today's episode, host Julia Sagebien interviews Zen Buddhist priest Seth Zuihō Segall.  Seth is a cofounder of the Buddhist Coalition for Democracy, and contributing editor to Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.  He is also a clinical psychologist, and the author of many books, chapters, and articles including The House We Live In: Virtue, Wisdom, and Pluralism (2023) and Buddhism and Human Flourishing (2020).

This interview series is an educational program of the Buddhist Coalition for Democracy (www.buddhistcoalitionfordemocracy.org)