Kaira Jewel Lingo is a Dharma teacher who has a life-long interest in blending spirituality and meditation with social justice. Having grown up in an ecumenical Christian community that bridged a new kind of monasticism for families with working with the poor, at the age of 25 she entered a Buddhist monastery in the Plum Village tradition and spent 15 years living as a nun under the guidance of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. She received the lamp transmission from Thich Nhat Hanh and became a Zen teacher in 2007 and is also a teacher in the Vipassana Insight lineage. Today she sees her work as a continuation of the Engaged Buddhism developed by her teacher as well as the work of her parents, inspired by their stories and her dad’s work with Martin Luther King Jr. on desegregating the South.
She is author of the forthcoming We Were Made for These Times: Skilfully Moving through Change, Loss and Disruption (Parallax, October 2021) and editor of Thich Nhat Hanh’s Planting Seeds: Practicing Mindfulness with Children. She provides individual spiritual mentoring, teaches and leads retreats internationally, and is known for interweaving art, play, nature, ecology, and embodied mindfulness practice in her teaching. She especially feels called to share the Dharma with Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, activists, educators, youth, artists, and families. Visit kairajewel.com to learn more.