Love letter to an ICE Agent
Kaira Jewel's January 2026 Newsletter
Dear friends,
I am grateful to be on this path of transformation and love with you as we enter 2026.
Already, in these first weeks of the year, there is a quickening of violence and chaos. Like many of you, I have been deeply troubled and saddened by the recent ICE killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis and the ICE shooting of a couple in Portland the next day. It has been heartbreaking to witness this needless escalation of violence.
I woke the next morning thinking of Thầy Thích Nhất Hạnh’s encouragement in 2006: he asked us each to write a love letter to a suicide bomber as an exercise in seeing with the eyes of interbeing. He insisted that those who cause great harm are also suffering greatly themselves, and that we must look deeply to understand the roots of the situation. Writing a love letter to someone who is oppressing others is a practice to help us look deeply.
I wondered: how might I write a love letter to an ICE agent?
When I consider extending myself across the abyss of misunderstanding and polarization, memories from my own life arise—stories of people who have victimized others but later awakened and changed.
At about age nine, I attended the annual conference of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) with my dad and brother. My dad had worked with the SCLC during the civil rights movement and regularly brought us to these conferences. I had the honor of spending time with venerable elders like Coretta Scott King, Rev. C.T. Vivian, Congressman John Lewis, the Honorable Andrew Young, Hosea Williams, and others who had worked closely with Dr. King. I remember sitting with my family in an office with Rev. C.T. Vivian, listening to his animated and precise expression and his unbounded, infectious laugh.
One memory that has always stayed with me is of a white man who took the stage at one conference. He shared that he had once been a member of the KKK. He told of chasing a young Black man one dark night, intending to beat him, and when they locked eyes, something in him shifted. He saw the humanity in someone he had been indoctrinated to see as sub-human. He suppressed this awareness for years until he met a Black woman civil rights organizer who spoke to him in a way that reminded him of his own humanity—the same humanity he had to forget to brutalize others. He spoke of that moment of awakening, when he realized what he was doing was wrong, repented, and changed. I never forgot his story.
My parents fell in love across the racial divide in the 1960s. My white grandparents initially rejected us because we were not white, though we were their only grandchildren. Eleven years after my elder brother was born and eight years after I was born, they came to see their own ignorance and opened their hearts to my brother and me. They did their best to love us generously for the rest of their lives.
People can change—even when they have hurt us deeply or acted in ways we disagree with.
This may be what Thầy was pointing to in asking us to write a love letter to someone we feel disconnected from, someone whose actions we abhor. Even when people commit acts that are horrific, they are still human. Our spiritual path calls us to remember this, to resist hatred, and to continue to call upon their humanity and goodness.
Here are the elements that seem essential in such a love letter, which aims to speak the truth while reaching across the abyss to sow seeds of transformation:
1. Understanding them and what motivates them
In Thầy’s letter to a suicide bomber, he expresses understanding for why they act as they do. They believe they are helping their people; they are living out of a story of what is right, just as we all do.
I’ve learned more about ICE agents beyond the headlines. Workforce data suggests they are mostly male and mostly white, with many Latino and Black staff as well, and many hold college degrees in law enforcement or related fields. There is no reliable survey of ICE agents’ political views; we cannot claim to know the ideology of those inside the agency. What we do know comes indirectly: public opinion about ICE is deeply polarized. Law enforcement culture emphasizes patriotism, security, and duty, and ICE recruitment often draws from military and patriotic communities. Patterns emerge around the institution, but each agent’s inner landscape is far more complex than their role.
I read a USA Today story from Dec. 16, 2025, in which Trevor Hughes and Lauren Villagran spent three days with ICE agents in Kansas City. What struck me most is how clearly the agents see themselves as acting from care, duty, and loyalty: former police officers and military personnel who deeply love the country and believe they are serving it by enforcing immigration laws. For them, the work is less about ideology than obedience to shifting political winds: “The pendulum swings back and forth between presidents… and so there is this sense… that they now have the opportunity to enforce the laws that are on the books.” They see themselves as instruments of democratic process, not its authors.
At the same time, public distrust complicates their work. One agent explained that as trust in immigration enforcement has eroded, it has become hard to trust the public in return, contributing to the decision to wear masks while on duty. Experts warn that current ICE and Border Patrol tactics are “fraying the bonds between communities and police agencies” that had spent years rebuilding trust after George Floyd. Immigration raids affect entire community ecosystems, not just those detained.
Yet the Kansas City agents describe an ethic of care within their constrained roles. They are trained in due process and constitutional rights, and treat pregnant people and single parents with care. The agents are described as deeply aware of “how much power they have when it comes to pulling families apart,” and of the impact this has, even as they feel bound by their obligations as enforcement officers. And still, they operate in a larger, tense, evolving system where law, fear, loyalty, trauma, and humanity collide.
I recall a conversation with a CBP agent on a flight during the Biden administration. He spoke of doing his job ethically, showing compassion to minors he encountered without legal guardians, and trying to reunite them with family in the U.S. —without threatening the adults who may or may not be in the country legally. He was doing his best to make a difficult situation better, in a complex, often contradictory system.
All of this is not to excuse or enable the deeply immoral behavior of some ICE agents that we have heard so much about in the past year (and beyond), but to invite us to dig deeper. Those working for this agency are the tip of the candle as Thầy used to say when speaking to Vietnam veterans. They are not solely responsible for what is going on. Surely the Trump administration is a huge cause, and we are all part of this whether we voted for the current administration or did everything in our power to prevent it. Our taxes pay for their salaries. Our whole society is implicated and the roots of this current situation stretch far back in time.
For those of us looking for practical ways to engage friends or family on the right about these issues, I really appreciate Locke Peterseim’s work with Smart Politics, especially his recent article: How to Talk About the ICE Killing with Folks on the Right. It offers thoughtful guidance on listening, bridging divides, and having conversations grounded in understanding rather than polarization.
2. Letting them know we care and that we are connected
In Bát Nhã, a Plum Village monastery in Vietnam that was shut down by the Vietnamese government in 2009, monks and nuns persecuted by the government wrote love letters to the police harassing them, saying things like: “We know you don’t earn enough money, you are stressed, and you must follow orders you may not agree with. We are the age of your children. Please see us clearly; we are not trying to harm our country, we just want to practice the Buddha’s teachings and live deeply to serve our country.” Sister Chan Khong, a senior nun in the community, wrote that the monastics offered the police gentle speech, tea, and songs when they came to harass the community to relieve tension.
In the earlier examples of people committing violent acts who later repented, it’s clear that while they must be resisted and stopped, meeting them with care and an understanding of their humanity—and the predicament they are caught in—can go a long way toward catalyzing the shift needed in their psyche.
3. Seeing that they are caught in systems and structures
This is from Thích Nhất Hạnh’s letter, Bát Nhã: Rekindling the Sacred Fire
“The life of the police officers and those who work in the Department of Justice is often full of stress and suffering. Do you know that each year in the U.S., there are about 300 police officers who commit suicide with their own guns? This, they refer to as “eating their own guns.” The number of police officers committing suicide with their own guns is twice as many as the number of police officers being shot by criminals. The prison guards are so full of stress, because they have to confront frequently the energy of violence in the prison and in themselves. Statistically, after 20 years of serving in this field, most prison guards only have an average life span of 58 years.
If the policemen suffer, then the people will also suffer. When the police officers have internal suffering and they cannot resolve it, then their pain will be released onto their families and to the people. When police officers are corrupt and abuse their power, then not only is this a pity for the police officers and for the government, but also especially, a pity for the people. We should educate in such a way that the policies of the departments can respond to the real needs of the people, then that education is truly beneficial.”
Bát Nhã: a Koan is Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh’s compassionate response to the persecution of his students in the Bát Nhã monastery he founded in Vietnam. In it he puts himself in the shoes of a monastic at the temple, being forced to leave, but also he speaks from the perspective of the chief of police, struggling to come to terms with the lies, harassment and manipulation he is forced to inflict on the monastics by his superiors. Though he is part of the mechanism of oppression, he is also caught.
4. Point out the contradictions in their actions
In Letter from a Birmingham Jail Dr. King tells his white clergy members who were criticizing the efforts of the Civil Rights movement about why it was right to disobey unjust laws that debase people and how if he were to follow their advice and wait for the white establishment to change, change would never come because as he wrote, “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” So a love letter should clearly lay out the moral contradictions that the oppressors are engaged in.
5. Letting them know we will be here if they choose to shift
Rev. C.T. Vivian was the founder of an anti-Klan network. He mentored Loretta Ross in this work when she was a young woman. She is a long-time activist, author and a professor at Smith College. I heard her speak recently and she said C.T. Vivian instructed her in their work white supremacists, saying, “When you ask people to give up hate, you need to be there for them when they do.”
She said
“My family had been shot at when I was 10 in Mississippi in acts of racial terrorism so I had deep scars. I participated in deprogramming Klan members and hate groups. But Rev. Vivian kept repeating those words. So muttering under my breath I took on that work, not happy at all. I found that talking to them [white supremacists], how often alienated young white men are radicalized into hate movements, and it transformed how I saw them. Because no baby comes out of the womb saying ‘I’m gonna be a hater’.”
We must resist and protest the unnecessary violence of numerous ICE tactics. I am grateful for the many brave people across our country defending neighbors from ICE abduction, banging pots and pans around their hotels all through the night, and bravely blocking ICE vans from leaving their parking garages on their way to immigration raids. In Minneapolis, hundreds of people marched recently in silence and song to protest the killing of Renee Good. These are creative and needed forms of nonviolent protest. I hope they continue and that many more can join them.
I also want to see in each ICE agent the possibility of redemption that I have witnessed before: in the story of the ex-KKK member and in my grandparents’ transformation.
So, what could I say in a love letter to an ICE agent to touch their humanity, to help them feel seen and understood, and to remind them they still belong and that another way is possible?
Here’s my attempt:
***
Dear ICE agent,
You and I are made of the same elements of life. We are part of the same human family, and so I begin by extending my regard and respect for your humanity.
I see you as a child, playing and laughing, showing your gap-tooth smile as you held up your puppy, kitten, or favorite toy. I see you in your family of origin, desiring to belong and to be loved—maybe you were, maybe you weren’t—and you still carry those wounds.
I see you as an adult, struggling like many in our country to make ends meet, feeling that this country has not always had your best interests at heart. Perhaps your family lost jobs as factories moved overseas. Perhaps the 2008 recession shook your faith as homes were foreclosed while banks “too big to fail” were bailed out. Perhaps you lost friends and loved ones to the fentanyl crisis.
Perhaps you heard the call—from Trump, DHS, or the MAGA movement—to join ICE. Perhaps you believed it would give you purpose, belonging, and a way to respond to the distress you saw in your country. Perhaps you believed you were protecting resources, upholding law and order, and keeping your country safe. And perhaps the employment, with its sign-on bonuses, promised the stability you sought. None of that makes you evil. It makes you human.
Then, in the rush to expand ICE, you received only eight weeks of training instead of five months. You were sent into immigrant neighborhoods, masked, without badges, in unmarked cars, to pull parents from cars and schools, to raid workplaces, processing plants, and farms—affecting people of every race, ethnicity, and language. You were asked to take people into custody, even U.S. citizens, and to question them later, even when they could prove their status. You learned to humiliate and dominate, to zip-tie children, break down doors in the dead of night—like a secret police or paramilitary force untethered from normal laws or protocols. And you were permitted to use lethal force when you felt threatened, against your fellow citizens.
This is not what you joined ICE to do. You know it. We know it. A neighbor and eyewitness of Renee Good’s murder, who self-identified as “right-leaning,” said, “This is not how we’re supposed to be doing things in America.”
Some of you may feel ill at ease with what your colleagues are doing. Chaos and polarization make it hard to see clearly without reactivity. You recognize that this is not the way to make the country safer. You see how the public distrusts you, and you distrust the public in return. This is not the way.
There are better ways to address this crisis than creating war zones in our cities, schools, hospitals, and workplaces. You know this. We know this. We share a love for this country and a desire to keep it safe.
I imagine you once as a child, laughing, wanting to belong, to be safe, to matter. I imagine you as an adult navigating a country that has often felt unstable and morally confusing. I imagine the pull toward work that offered structure, dignity, purpose, and a way to protect something you love. I can understand why law enforcement, and even ICE, might have felt like a place to stand when so much else felt uncertain.
Many ICE agents say they want to protect the country, uphold the law, and keep communities safe. I believe many of you truly mean that. Yet the methods now being used are creating fear, division, and mistrust. The tools meant to produce safety are eroding it. Agents fear the public, and the public increasingly fears agents in return. Local police worry that years of relationship-building with immigrant communities are being undone. Communities feel targeted. Families feel unsafe. Officers feel isolated and under siege. This mutual fear protects no one.
When agents pull people from cars, homes, and workplaces in sudden, masked, militarized ways, they do not create safety. They create fear. They enact a country forgetting how to recognize its own people. And when officers take lives, regardless of legality, we lose something sacred that no court can restore. Public trust is eroding. This is not a moral accusation; it is a painful contradiction.
You may feel it too—the dissonance between the values that brought you into this work and the reality of what it now asks of you. You may feel how far the daily practices have drifted from the deeper ends you once hoped to serve. I believe you know that fear cannot be the foundation of a healthy nation. Dignity cannot be produced by domination, and trust cannot be created through terror. Obedience to systems is not the same as loyalty to conscience.
We are living in a time when politics tells us to choose sides instead of choosing care. But our deepest values are not so far apart. Many of us want safety, dignity, fairness, and a country where people do not have to live in terror of one another.
So I ask gently: How does this work feel in your body now? What parts of it sit easily, and what parts trouble you? What kind of country do you want your children to inherit? What kind of protection do you wish you could offer that goes beyond enforcement?
If any part of you is uneasy, conflicted, or quietly grieving what this work has become, you are not alone. You are not broken for feeling that way. You are human. And if you ever choose to step differently, to speak differently, to act differently, you will not be abandoned. People will walk with you. Communities will welcome you. A future exists that does not require you to betray your deepest values to survive.
I am not asking you to abandon your identity. I am asking you to remember your humanity. I am not asking you to renounce your love for this country. I am asking you to let that love grow deeper, wider, and more honest.
We can meet where our care intersects. I believe in your capacity to remember who you are beneath the uniform, beneath the orders, beneath the fear. I believe we can hold love for this country and still ask it to do better. I believe we can protect one another without losing our souls.
If you are willing, I want to stand with you in imagining a way forward that does not rely on fear, humiliation, or division, but on courage, accountability, and shared dignity.
If you ever want to speak from that place, I will be here.
With respect and hope,
Kaira Jewel Lingo
***
Further down is a full list of my upcoming events but here I want to highlight a few key ones, many coming up soon!:
January 15, What is Freedom? An evening of Dharma and InterPlay, in-person and online
January 16 - 18, I will offer an online retreat through Insight Meditation Society, Love Made Visible: Embodying Courageous Compassion with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Ven. Thích Nhất Hạnh
January 18 - February 8, I’m offering an online course with Sangha Live Growing the Good: Cultivating Courage, Clarity, and Care
May 24 - 29, I will offer an in person retreat Finding Refuge, Finding Home: A Retreat in Nature at Spirit Rock with Mark Coleman and Susie Harrington
June 20 - 24, And save the date to join me in person for our Annual Retreat for Black, Indigenous, People of Color at Garrison Institute with Dr. Marisela Gomez and Joe Reilly
More info on these below.
May we be able to pause and look deeply to see the pain of the oppressed and the oppressors, and open our hearts to help all of us find a way out of violence and separation,
Kaira Jewel
Upcoming retreats, day longs, and talks:
January 15, What Is Freedom?
Rest, Wise Effort, and Nourishing What We Want to Grow
Part of The Body Remembers Freedom series, in-person (and online)
Freedom is not something we make happen—it’s cultivated. Drawing on the Four Right Efforts and the story of Siddhartha resting beneath the rose-apple tree, this session explores how rest, play, and wise effort support liberation. As we begin a new year that so often invites striving and self-improvement, we ask: what if we started instead with rest and relaxation—tuning our lute so it sounds beautiful, without tightening the strings too much or letting them go slack? Through meditation, movement games, poetry, and moments of stillness, we practice nourishing what brings clarity, joy, and ease, while trusting the mind’s innate capacity for freedom.
Monthly on 1st or 2nd Thursdays · 6:30–8:30pm · New York Insight Meditation Center
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.
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. Come as you are. No performance, experience, or flexibility required — just a willingness to be curious and present.
More info and to register here for January 15.
In person and online
January 16 - 18, Love Made Visible: Embodying Courageous Compassion with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Ven. Thích Nhất Hạnh
An Online Weekend Retreat with 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.
More info and to register here.
https://ims.dharma.org/courses/mlk-tnh
January 18 - February 8
Growing the Good: Cultivating Courage, Clarity, and Care
Live Online Course Kaira Jewel Lingo sponsored by Sangha Live
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 Buddhist psychology, Insight practice, and the Engaged Buddhism lineage of her teacher, Thích Nhất Hạnh, Kaira Jewel guides us in learning how to:
Meet difficulty with kindness and skill
Let go of what no longer serves
Tend to the inner garden of the mind while staying deeply connected to our collective life
Each of the four Sundays will include meditation, a teaching, interactive practice and time for live questions and responses with Kaira Jewel.
More info and to register here.
Online
Saturday, January 24, 11 am - 12:30 pm
Examen with Kaira Jewel and Adam
We will begin by coming together for our yearly examen and shared practice on Zoom. This will be a time to look back on the past year with honesty and tenderness, acknowledging moments of gratitude and blessing, times when the sacred felt near and alive in our lives, as well as experiences of alienation, loneliness, and the loss of hope. Together, we’ll listen deeply for what wants to be born in us now: the qualities we feel called to cultivate in the coming year, the way we want to show up in the world, and the kind of support and courage we need to do so faithfully.
We will gather monthly for our Beloved Community for Engaged Spirituality from January through June, on Saturdays from 11-12:30pm ET, for teachings and shared practice.
We will meet monthly this spring and the following dates are: Feb 28, March 28, April 25, No gathering in May, and June 13
Online
Saturday, January 25, 3:30 to 5 pm
The Still Point That Turns the World: A Buddhist–Christian Path from Presence to Action, Closing Keynote by Kaira Jewel Lingo and Adam Bucko
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. With what feels like uncertain times, join the 5th annual online Centering Prayer Summit for a time to honestly and courageously face the darkness while opening to the quiet hope already alive within us.
More info and to register here.
Online
Weekdays, February 2nd – 27th
Living An Ethic of Love – Celebrating Black Dharma Teachings sponsored by New York Insight Meditation Center
Throughout Black History Month, participants will receive a short, prerecorded video dharma teaching each weekday, delivered by a wide range of renowned Black dharma teachers, including Lama Rod Owens, Jan Willis, Bhante Buddharakkhita, Rhonda Magee, Devin Berry, Pamela Ayo Yetunde, Leslie Booker, Vimalasara Mason-John, Gina LaRoche, Lopön Karla Jackson-Brewer, and others.
These teachings draw from lived experience, ancestral wisdom, and long-standing contemplative traditions that show how practice can support resilience, ethical clarity, and care for one another in everyday life. Together, they explore how grief and joy, struggle and beauty, can be held side by side, and how love functions not as a feeling alone, but as a way of living in relationship with the world.
The series is open to people of all backgrounds and levels of experience, whether you are returning to practice or encountering these teachings for the first time.
For more info and to register here.
Online
Friday, February 6, 12 to 1 pm ET
Educating for Interbeing panel sponsored by Thich Nhat Hanh School of Interbeing
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
Saturday, February 21, 9:00 am to 5 pm ET
BIPOC Day of Mindfulness at Brooklyn Zen Center
In person at the Brooklyn Zen Center. Boundless Mind Temple is located in the Parish House of Christ Church Cobble Hill, next to 326 Clinton Street.
For more info and to register here.
In-person and online
Tuesday, April 14, 2 to 4 pm ET (program begins March 24)
Embodied Presence: A session of Kazu Haga’s course Fierce Vulnerability Kinship Lab.
Kaira Jewel is a guest speaker in this three-month journey to inspire collective action rooted in healing, emergence and deep care, focused on the book Fierce Vulnerability
For more info and to register here.
Online
Wednesday, April 15, 2 to 4 pm ET
Befriending Consciousness: Transforming the Mind from Within
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.
Join Kaira Jewel Lingo the guest speaker for monthly practice sponsored by The Lotus Institute
SAVE THE DATE.
Online
Thursday, April 30, 2 to 3:30 pm ET
Growing the Good, Cultivating Freedom
Sponsored by London Insight
What does it mean to be truly free in a complex and uncertain world?
This session explores how mindful awareness and compassion help us grow what is good in our lives and communities, supporting a sense of freedom rooted not in control, but in presence, responsiveness, and care.
More info and to register here.
Online
Tuesday, May 12, 7 to 8:30 pm ET
Kaira Jewel Lingo offers an evening of meditation, reflection and connection with Third Act, as part of the Hope and Joy Series
Antonique Smith sings “Here Comes the Sun” at Sun Day in NYC. photo by David Fenton
Online talk.
SAVE THE DATE.
May 24 - 29
Finding Refuge, Finding Home: A Retreat in Nature at Spirit Rock with Kaira Jewel Lingo, Mark Coleman, and Susie Harrington
In the storms of our lives, we need refuge—a place of nourishment and support where we can replenish our tired bodies and troubled hearts. When the Buddha taught meditation, his first instruction was to go sit under a tree. We will practice together in the age-old tradition of being outside in the company of the natural world. Together, we will tap into the natural stillness and dynamism that surrounds us and teaches us balance. As we integrate stillness and movement, we move toward being active participants in the world while maintaining balance and ease in our hearts and minds.
This retreat is silent except for teacher-led Q&A, small groups, or other practice meetings.
For more info and to register here
In person retreat
June 20 - 24
Annual Retreat for Black, Indigenous, People of Color at Garrison Institute with Dr. Marisela Gomez, Kaira Jewel Lingo and Joe Reilly
In person retreat. SAVE THE DATE
June 24-30
Teen Retreat with Kaira Jewel Lingo, Cara Lai, Jean Esther, Anthony "T" Maes, nico hase, and movement with Monica Williams
The retreat is especially designed for young adults, aged 15-19 who, as of August 31, 2026, will be at least 15 years of age. The course offers 1/2 hour periods of sitting and walking meditation with ample instruction, along with two daily facilitated discussion groups. In addition there will be daily workshops offered in the field of meditative arts, music, nature as well as other focused topics pertinent to teens. Daily periods of free time for socializing or rest are also included. This retreat allows young adults to develop and value their natural spirituality within a supportive environment committed to inclusivity of all. Along with the teaching team, a group of trained and dedicated adult mentors will support the teens’ experience. Extensive supervision is provided.
More info and to register here.
In person retreat.
Weekly BIPOC Meditation Sangha Online
Ongoing every Thursday at noon ET
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, and other guest teachers, who alternate teaching every Thursday from 12 - 1pm ET.
By donation. More info here and to register here.
Good things I’m spreading the word about:
Thich Nhat Hanh School of Interbeing
My dear friend, Meena Srinivasan, just shared with me about the opening of the Thich Nhat Hanh School of Interbeing, a spiritually rooted K–8 independent school devoted to nurturing mindfulness, compassion, presence, and a deep sense of belonging in the next generation. The school is scheduled to open in August 2026 at the foothills of Deer Park Monastery in Escondido, California.
This beautiful effort is being lovingly guided by two of our senior monastics, Thay Phap Dung and Thay Phap Luu. You can watch a short video that shares more about the school’s vision.
We share the below message from Meena:
How You Can Support the School of Interbeing
“Share with your sangha and your wider networks/community. We invite you to share the school with your local sangha. This “share page” includes a social media image, sample text, a short video, and information on our fundraising needs to make it easy.
Consider a donation. If appropriate for you, we welcome your support in addition to any unrestricted giving you already make to the Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation. The school is fiscally sponsored by the Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism, and all donations are tax-deductible and acknowledged through the Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation. You can donate here and for large donations please email: meena.s@tnhschool.org
Spread the word to families. If you know parents or caregivers who might resonate with this learning environment, please feel free to pass the website along.
Invite your sangha to adopt the school as a Dana project in early 2026. We are entering our Planting Seeds Campaign and need to raise 1 million dollars by June (we have already raised 250K through community support). This will allow us to hire our founding teachers and head of school, offer scholarships, and prepare to welcome our first children. You can learn more about our fundraising needs and what these funds will support here.
Share with potential philanthropic partners or donors who may resonate. We are seeking supporters who feel called to help plant this seed through major gifts. As Lynne Twist reminds us, “Money given to make a difference does make a difference. It becomes blessed money.” When offered with intention, generosity becomes part of the great river of interbeing, nourishing children, families, and future generations.
Our heartfelt hope is that one day there may be a School of Interbeing in our practice centers around the world, and anywhere children and families are longing for a learning environment rooted in mindfulness, compassion, and belonging. I feel so blessed that my own son will be among the first students.”
Don’t Cuddle with Your Thoughts: How to Escape the Spiral of Difficult Emotions
My dear friend Georg Lolos is an old friends and a long time Plum Village practitioner. He has helped many people find greater freedom and ease in their lives.
An ingenious diagnostic tool to recognize painful emotional states and an effective manual to live a life of inner freedom.
A person’s emotional state determines their wellbeing and all their actions. Wouldn't it be great if we had an effective tool on hand to overcome painful emotions such as worries, loneliness, and anger? With his inventive, simple model of the Ego House and its 10 rooms, mindfulness teacher Georg Lolos offers exactly this. Each room represents a difficult emotional state, such as the Room of Inferiority or the Room of Denial. Depending on which room we enter, we inhale the atmosphere of this dreadful space and are bombarded by its negative emotions. It's high time to exit our inner prison. Georg Lolos guides us through this house of pain and helps us with mindfulness exercises that are easy to implement so that we can leave the Ego House for good.
Georg Lolos is a skilled and deeply relatable teacher. Don’t Cuddle with Your Thoughts offers a clear and compassionate exploration of how our difficult emotions arise and how we can transform them with understanding. A valuable guide for anyone seeking greater freedom and ease – I highly recommend it.
Kaira Jewel Lingo, author of We Were Made doe These Times and Co-author Healing Our Way Home.
EcoDharma Teacher Certificate Course
I want to share an opportunity that may resonate with you. One Earth Sangha is offering a new EcoDharma Teacher Certificate Course, an online training for Buddhist and mindfulness teachers who want to bring ecological awareness and climate realities into their practice and teaching.
This course is led by One Earth Sangha co-founder Kristin Barker and Adam Lobel, Ph.D, with contributions from sixteen inspiring Buddhist EcoDharma teachers, climate justice advocates, and authors along with deep ecology and systems thought leaders from around the world.
Throughout the course, participants will be supported to:
Explore the truth of ecological unraveling and process its personal and collective dimensions, examining the underlying historical, political, and cultural causes.
Integrate key elements of climate psychology to skillfully address ecological grief, anxiety, and anger within themselves and their communities.
Cultivate a relationship with the sacred guided by insights from Buddhism and indigenous ways of looking, animism, and eco-psychology.
Build capacity for collaborative action within both human and more-than-human communities, fostering watershed-level resilience and response.
If this speaks to you or others in your community, you can find more details and registration info available here.
SUPPORT KAIRA JEWEL
You are invited to support Kaira Jewel's work to continue to offer transformational teachings to diverse groups of people. Thank you!
CONNECT WITH KAIRA JEWEL
This is a beautiful piece, Kaira. I find myself wishing that we had Thay alive right now and then I remember that he did not disappear when he died, we are his continuance. Thank you for being that in this moment.
What a beautiful and needed teaching, Dear Friend.
Deep bows of gratitude, respect and love.