Leslie Booker, Activism and the Dharma
Leslie Booker, a yoga and meditation teacher and activist, shares her journey from the fashion industry to integrating Dharma principles into her work. She discusses the four foundations of mindfulness, the importance of body awareness, and how practices like deep listening and loving-kindness can transform activism and personal well-being.
Deep Dive Analysis
9 Topic Outline
Booker's Name Origin and Career Transition
Journey into Meditation and Yoga
The Four Foundations of Mindfulness Explained
Cultural Disconnection from the Body
Embracing a Nomadic Lifestyle
Evolution of Activism and Dharma's Influence
Occupy Wall Street and the Urban Sangha Project
Current Activism and Reflections on Charlottesville
Anger as a Catalyst for Action
6 Key Concepts
Bodhisattva
A Bodhisattva is an individual who chooses to dedicate their life, through repeated existences, to the liberation and enlightenment of all beings. They are seen as compassionate guides who selflessly work for the benefit of others.
Four Foundations of Mindfulness
These are the fundamental teachings of Buddhism for developing mindfulness. They include mindfulness of breath and body (knowing one's physical presence), mindfulness of feeling tones (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral sensations), mindfulness of thoughts (understanding mental attitudes), and mindfulness of phenomena (investigating experiences through Buddhist lists like the three poisons or five hindrances).
Vedanā (Feeling Tones)
This is the second foundation of mindfulness, referring to the pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral sensations experienced in the body. Noticing these tones helps reveal habitual reactions of grasping (for pleasant), aversion (for unpleasant), or unawareness (for neutral), and cultivates a non-judgmental presence.
Predatory Listening
This describes a way of listening where an individual focuses solely on finding one point of disagreement out of many, using it to attack the speaker and disregard all other points of alignment. It prevents genuine dialogue and understanding.
Brahma Viharas
These are four 'best homes to live in' or sublime states of mind in Buddhism. They include Metta (loving kindness), Karuna (compassion), Mudita (sympathetic joy), and Upekkha (equanimity), serving as antidotes to negative emotions and fostering positive relationships.
Metta (Loving Kindness)
One of the Brahma Viharas, Metta is the practice of wishing well for oneself and others. It involves cultivating a boundless sense of friendliness and goodwill, even towards those one disagrees with or considers adversaries, to foster connection and reduce animosity.
7 Questions Answered
Booker was a nickname she had since high school. When she started working at the New York Open Center, there was already another Leslie, so she adopted 'Booker' professionally, and it stuck, representing the part of her that 'gets shit done in the world.'
She was introduced to meditation by her mentor, Stan Greer, while working at the New York Open Center. He connected her with Gina Sharp, who became her primary meditation teacher, leading her to teach yoga and meditation to incarcerated youth.
Mindfulness of body and breath is the first foundation of mindfulness taught by the Buddha and provides crucial information and intuition about one's internal and external state. The psyche follows the body, meaning a calm body can lead to a calm mind, and it helps ground individuals, especially when feeling disconnected or reactive.
For individuals who have experienced trauma, particularly physical abuse, there can be a dissociation or a lack of trust in the body. Creating a psychological wall between oneself and the body can be a coping mechanism to feel safe, making it challenging to reconnect with bodily sensations.
Dharma taught Booker to listen deeply rather than just shout, recognizing that many people share similar needs from different angles. It shifted her activism from burning out through anger and confrontation to fostering sustainability, compassionate dialogue, and understanding, even for those with opposing views.
The Urban Sangha Project was created to support the sustainability of frontline changemakers, offering two-hour workshops of mindful yoga, meditation, and compassionate dialogue. It provided a space for activists, educators, and social workers to rest, acknowledge their exhaustion, and connect with a community facing similar challenges.
Booker, drawing from Maya Angelou, believes anger is a vital and relevant catalyst for action, signaling it's time to move. However, she emphasizes that anger should not be allowed to consume or 'rot' the individual, but rather be channeled into constructive action inspired by Dharma principles, avoiding harm to self or others.
14 Actionable Insights
1. Investigate Anger’s Roots
When anger arises, investigate it with curiosity to break it down into underlying components like fear, sadness, or ’not enoughness,’ which fosters self-understanding and empathy for others. This practice helps connect to the human aspect of individuals rather than perceiving them as enemies.
2. Sustain Frontline Changemaking
Prioritize self-care, rest, and community support to avoid burnout and ensure long-term effectiveness in demanding work or activism, rejecting the ‘martyr’ mentality that equates self-harm with commitment. Create space to be human, acknowledge fatigue, and seek communal rest.
3. Practice Deep Listening
In disagreements or activism, prioritize deep listening over shouting to identify shared needs and find common ground, recognizing that people often approach similar needs from different angles. This approach fosters dialogue and relationship-building over unproductive confrontation.
4. Reconnect with Your Body
Combat societal disconnection by consciously bringing awareness to your body’s position in space, such as feeling your feet on the ground or sitz bones connected. This simple practice grounds you in the present moment, especially when feeling overwhelmed or reacting impulsively.
5. Cultivate Physical Composure
Maintain physical composure and connection to your body, as the state of your body influences your mind; an at-ease body promotes an at-ease mind. Sitting with composure can prevent mental agitation and help you stay grounded.
6. Mindfulness of Body & Breath
Begin mindfulness practice by focusing on the body and breath, observing their sensations and rhythms without judgment. This foundational practice provides essential information and intuition about your internal and external state, enabling deeper self-awareness.
7. Observe Feeling Tones
Practice mindfulness by noticing the ‘feeling tones’ in your body—pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral—to become aware of your habitual reactions. This helps you recognize tendencies to grasp, avert, or remain unaware, offering a path to more balanced engagement.
8. Check Your Thought’s Attitude
When engaging with thoughts, ask yourself ‘Are you okay? Will you be okay?’ to understand the underlying attitude of your mind. This simple check-in helps you acknowledge unpleasantness without being consumed by it, fostering resilience.
9. Investigate Mental States
Utilize the Buddha’s ’lists’ (e.g., three poisons, five hindrances) as tools to investigate your own mental experiences and habitual patterns. This structured inquiry helps prevent mental ‘spinning out’ by providing a framework to understand and land your experience.
10. Dharma-Inspired Activism
Approach activism with Dharma principles, using anger as a catalyst for constructive action rather than allowing it to become a destructive internal ‘cancer.’ This means channeling anger into movement and change without resorting to self-harm or harming others.
11. Practice Loving-Kindness (Metta)
Engage in Metta meditation by consciously wishing well for yourself and others, including those with whom you disagree. This practice cultivates positive energy, offers moments of rest, and can help foster connection and compassion.
12. Avoid Predatory Listening
When listening to others, especially those with differing views, avoid the habit of ‘predatory listening’ where you seek only points of disagreement to attack. Instead, listen with an open mind to understand the full message and identify areas of alignment.
13. Integrate Mindful Movement
Incorporate mindful movement, such as gentle yoga or stretching, into your daily routine or during intensive periods like meditation retreats. This helps ground the body, release tension, and create space, thereby supporting mental clarity and deeper practice.
14. Consider Nomadic Living
If your work involves extensive travel, consider a temporary nomadic lifestyle to reduce fixed living costs and embrace the idea that ’every place is your home now.’ This approach allows for flexibility and can simplify life when constantly on the move.
4 Key Quotes
If you're not angry, then you're either stone cold or you're too sick to be angry. So she's like, be angry, you know, get out there, you march it, you write it, you sing it, you vote it, you do everything about it. But when we allow our anger to kind of take over, then it becomes this cancer that feeds upon the host.
Booker (quoting Maya Angelou)
The master's tools cannot dismantle the master's house. And so these tools of hatred and greed and harm and oppression, we can't do that on our side and expect it, expect to win, to overpower. Like those are the master's tools. Like we have to find new tools.
Booker (quoting Audrey Lord)
They say that the, the psyche follows the body. So if the body is at ease and the mind is at ease, if the body is agitated and disconnected, then so is the mind.
Booker
It is the first thing that he taught. And we kind of, like, skip over that and go to the third and fourth foundation. We're really talking about the mind. And so we really have to get that body sorted first and the breath, really knowing where we are before we can move into the investigation, into the mindfulness practice.
Booker