By Marisela Gomez, MD, Kaira Jewel Lingo, and Valerie Brown
Writing Love is Liberation: Five Contemplations for Daily Ethical Living and Healing Our Way Home: Black Buddhist Teachings on Ancestors, Joy, and Liberation, emerged from our individual and collective grief about the state of the earth and our joyful aspiration to make the world a better place. We sought to offer Buddhist teachings in the Plum Village tradition to a wide audience of people who are on the margins of society, Black, Indigenous, and people of color, Global Majority, immigrants, LGBTQIA+, disabled, low-income people, etc.
We want these books to be accessible and readable, offering a mirror in which all people could see themselves. We hope the books will be a bridge from the teachings and legacy of Thích Nhất Hạnh to folks who may not quickly or easily identify as Buddhist and still seek access to healing through the dharma.
When the three of us, longtime students of Thích Nhất Hạnh and spiritual friends wrote HOWH in 2024, we were deeply aware of the poly or meta crisis facing the earth, manifesting through war, displacement, genocide, climate crisis, mental and emotional overwhelm and anxiety, polarization, late-stage fossil fuel addiction, driving hyper-capitalism, neoliberalism, and much more. These intersecting and intertwining catastrophes, give rise to the disease of despair and disproportionately affect people on the margins of society.
Love is Liberation, written by Valerie and Marisela, began with the writing of the Five Contemplations during the COVID-19 pandemic. It specifically named these crises and more and then offered our reflections on each of the Five Mindfulness Trainings through our Contemplations on the Trainings, as a way forward. The Contemplations are not and have never been intended to replace or supplant the Five Mindfulness Trainings but instead to serve as another lens to reflect upon the Trainings.
The Contemplations on the Five Mindfulness Trainings are:
- Contemplation on the First Mindfulness Training: Acknowledging Beauty as Reverence for Life
- The Second Contemplation on the Second Mindfulness Training: Belonging and Connecting as True Happiness
- The Third Contemplation on the Third Mindfulness Training: Cherishment as True Love
- The Contemplation in the Fourth Mindfulness Training: Vulnerability as Deep Listening and Loving Speech
- The Contemplation on the Fifth Mindfulness Training: Welcoming as True Nourishing and Healing
In both books, we offer personal living examples of how to welcome the dharma into our lives. In HOWH, each chapter speaks to issues that have often been sidestepped in traditional dharma teachings. These real-life concerns include the pain and beauty of our heritage, sexual healing, racial harm and racial justice, and self-care.
We offer both books to the world with our humble appreciation. We lift up the legacy of all our ancestral teachers and Thích Nhất Hạnh on this the year of his 100th birthday. We are deeply grateful to the monastic and lay Plum Village communities worldwide. We acknowledge the rich learning from countless retreat participants who have been our ‘teachers,’ offering us their love, wisdom, and solidity on this collective path of liberation.
Rooted in the themes of the books Healing Our Way Home and Love is Liberation, the Healing Our Way Home: A Retreat for Women of Color will take place at Garrison Institute the weekend of November 20-22. The in-person gathering led by Marisela, Kaira Jewel, and Valerie welcomes the full diversity of women of color—including trans women, gender-expansive people, and anyone who self-identifies as a woman of color, regardless of gender role, expression, or physiology.
