A Dharma teacher and ordained nun of 15 years in Thich Nhat Hanh’s Order of Interbeing, Kaira Jewel Lingo is now based in Colombo, Sri Lanka, though she will soon relocate back to the US. She leads retreats internationally, offering mindfulness programs for educators, parents and youth in schools, in addition to activists, people of color, artists and families, and individual spiritual mentoring. A teacher with Schumacher College and Mindful Schools and a guiding teacher for One Earth Sangha, she explores the interweaving of art, play, ecology and embodied mindfulness practice and is a certified yoga teacher and InterPlay leader. She edited Thich Nhat Hanh’s Planting Seeds: Practicing Mindfulness with Children and has been published in numerous other books and magazines.
Kaira has written two recent articles which showcase her unique perspective, Befriending Eco-Anxiety: A Practice of Deep Adaptation and Loving the Earth by Loving One Another.
In Befriending Eco-Anxiety, Kaira leads readers through a challenging yet honest depiction of the issues our world is facing vis-a-vis climate change, pausing to encourage meditative strategies to cope with the reader’s inevitable rising Eco-Anxiety. A natural response when confronted with the climate crisis, especially if the person is unequipped to be present through the realization is withdrawal. To those frustrated with other’s responses, Kaira advises, “Meeting the tendency to withdraw with compassion is much more effective than meeting it with judgment or shaming. There is real potential to discover and develop creative ways to adapt to this new reality together if we can accept and befriend our pain, sadness, fear and worry.” Bringing together anecdotes, quotes from various activists, scholars, and Buddhist practitioners, and works of poetry and literature, Kaira slowly brings the reader to a consciousness of the importance of togetherness with others, presence in ourselves, and connectedness to the earth. The conclusion of the article provides 5 practices of Deep Adaptation for Eco-Anxiety, including some guided meditations.
In “Loving the Earth by Loving One Another,” Kaira uses her background as a Dharma leader and One Earth Sangha guiding teacher to invite us to understand how a mind which objectifies, exploits and denies, subjects both people and planet to its harm. To meet our challenges with skillful response, we must see our practice as deeply relational, whether interpersonal, with one another or regarding the rest of nature. Kaira gives us a lens on the healing that is possible in all of these relationships.
For more information about Kaira, read more here.