Six Buddhist Practices To Stay Calm In A Tumultuous World | Kaira Jewel Lingo, Valerie Brown and Marisela Gomez
This episode features Buddhist teachers Kaira Jewel Lingo, Valerie Brown, and Marisela Gomez, who share six Buddhist practices to help listeners stay calm and sane amidst a tumultuous world. They also discuss their new book, "Healing Our Way Home."
Deep Dive Analysis
11 Topic Outline
Introduction to Buddhist Practices for Calm
Understanding the Four Chairs Practice
Valerie Brown's Experience with Reactive Anger
The Practice of Pausing (Shamatha and Vipassana)
Mindful Listening in Polarized Situations
Mindful Engagement with Electronic Devices
Integrating Journaling with Meditation Practice
Reflecting on Early Spiritual Influences
Meditation for Loving Our Own Skin
The Genesis and Goals of 'Healing Our Way Home'
The Concept of the 'Inner Chad'
6 Key Concepts
Four Chairs Practice
An exercise based on nonviolent communication to process painful past exchanges. It involves mentally replaying an interaction and responding from four different perspectives: anger, self-blame, self-compassion, and compassion for the other person.
Shamatha (Stopping/Pausing)
A Buddhist practice of deliberately creating space, taking a breath, and slowing down. It helps to turn down internal noise and prevent habitual, reactive responses to external triggers.
Vipassana (Looking Deeply)
A practice that follows shamatha, where one observes deeply into what arises after pausing. It allows for insight, understanding of emotions, and seeing situations more clearly without immediate reaction.
Mindful Writing/Journaling
A practice of discernment that helps connect with one's feelings, values, and life purpose. It can alleviate suffering by providing clarity and strengthening one's inner authority, even in short daily sessions.
Ontological Expansiveness
A term describing the act of taking up space and claiming one's rightful presence and confidence. It refers to developing an inner sense of solidity and self-worth, particularly in environments not designed for one's identity.
Inner Chad
A humorous and searing term coined by a woman of color in corporate law, referring to the development of an inner sense of unearned confidence and presence. It's about claiming space and projecting self-assurance in professional settings that may not be inherently welcoming.
6 Questions Answered
The pause practice (shamatha) involves physically stopping and taking a breath, which creates space to observe deeply (vipassana) without reacting habitually, allowing for a more grounded and stable response to triggers.
Begin by pausing and calming oneself, then visualize something positive about oneself to build foundational joy, and then extend that positive visualization to the other person to reduce separation and foster compassion.
Before engaging with your phone, pause and notice your motivations (e.g., boredom, loneliness, escape). Then, interact with intention, trying to do only one thing and observing the urge to get distracted, reclaiming your attention.
Journaling, or mindful writing, can be done before or after meditation to foster discernment, connect with feelings, values, and life purpose, and help alleviate suffering by clarifying one's inner authority and direction.
This practice helps individuals reconnect with their initial experiences of spirit, recognize the interconnectedness of spiritual teachings, and see how different traditions can guide them toward freedom from suffering.
It's a meditation to appreciate the biological reality of skin, acknowledge ancestral experiences and societal messages about skin color and texture, and then reclaim a sense of ease, beauty, and confidence in one's own body, free from external narratives.
8 Actionable Insights
1. Pause and Stop Habitual Reactions
Make a deliberate effort to create space by pausing, taking a breath, and slowing down, especially when triggered. This helps to stop automatic, habitual reactions, prevent responding out of enmity or violence, and allows for a more grounded and stable response instead of being hijacked by emotions.
2. Practice Deep Looking (Vipassana)
After pausing, look deeply into what is happening, observing flashes of emotion like anger. This practice allows you to see clearly, understand the need to care for your own emotions, and eventually extend empathy and compassion to others, moving from reactive patterns to conscious, grounded responses.
3. Process Conflict with Four Chairs
To workshop painful exchanges, imagine responding from four perspectives: first, express all anger and blame towards the other person; second, take all the blame onto yourself; third, offer yourself compassion for the emotions and pain experienced; and fourth, extend compassion to the other person to understand their suffering. This helps to process buried emotions, heal old wounds, and gain a broader perspective.
4. Mindful Listening in Polarization
When facing polarized situations, first pause to calm yourself and create spaciousness. Then, bring to mind something triggering, but instead of dwelling on it, focus on something that brings you joy. After settling, extend this settled state to the other person or situation, visualizing positive aspects to reduce separation and foster understanding from a place of depth and love.
5. Mindful Engagement with Devices
Before interacting with your electronic devices, pause to feel the device’s weight and notice your body, rather than immediately getting pulled into its content. Reflect on your motivations (e.g., boredom, loneliness, escape) and decide if you want to feed those drives. When you do engage, try to do only one intended task slowly and intentionally to reclaim your attention from habit energy and external pushes.
6. Journal for Clarity and Discernment
Dedicate a few minutes (e.g., 3-5 minutes, several times a week) to mindful writing. You can start by reading something inspiring, then ask yourself: “What am I feeling? What’s coming up for me? How do I really want to be on this day?” This practice helps alleviate suffering, develop inner authority, connect with your feelings, and set an intentional direction for your day.
7. Meditate on Loving Your Skin
Reflect on the physical reality of your skin, appreciating its intelligence and healing capacity. Then, acknowledge messages received about your skin (e.g., color, texture) from society and ancestors, holding any associated emotions with compassion. Claim the truth that your skin is beautiful and nothing is inferior about it, honoring ancestral endurance and feeling fully at ease in your own body from within.
8. Cultivate Inner Solidity and Confidence
Develop an innate sense of inner okayness, solidity, love, and self-confidence by reclaiming and excavating your capacity for wisdom, pausing, and seeing things clearly. This practice helps you take up space, remember your purpose, and navigate systems that may cast doubt, rather than sabotaging yourself with unearned confidence.
8 Key Quotes
This stuff can be done by anyone, anywhere, anytime.
Dan Harris
But it was really about acknowledging, oh, wow, this thing really hurt me. And I never gave voice to this part of it.
Kyra Jewel Lingo
I don't have to be enslaved to my automatic, habitual patterns of reaction.
Valerie Brown
Compassion is something of taking care of what needs to be what needs to be taken care of.
Maricela Gomez
The pause allows you to hold that, just to notice it, to notice all the ways where we're being pushed.
Kyra Jewel Lingo
It's about reclaiming our sense of attention in an attention deficit economy.
Valerie Brown
We don't have to go to the store and buy that. We come built with that.
Valerie Brown
You have to develop your inner Chad. You know, it's like your inner white boy, quite frankly, and you just have to develop that.
Valerie Brown
5 Protocols
The Four Chairs Practice
Kyra Jewel Lingo- Bring to mind an exchange that you've had with someone that was painful, where you felt insulted, hurt, or harmed.
- Chair 1 (Anger/Blame): Respond back to the person with all your anger and upset, blaming them for everything and releasing pent-up emotions.
- Chair 2 (Self-Blame): Hear the terrible thing again, then turn the blame inwards, exploring what you might have done to be at fault for being spoken to in that way.
- Chair 3 (Self-Compassion): Hear the terrible thing again, then turn towards your own emotions, feeling the pain and offering yourself compassion for the emotional fallout of that exchange.
- Chair 4 (Compassion for Other): Imagine them saying the terrible thing again, then reflect on what kind of pain they were experiencing that led them to say that, extending compassion and understanding to them.
Mindful Listening When Polarized
Maricela Gomez- Pause by taking some breaths in and out, or sensing into your body, to calm down and create spaciousness.
- Bring into mind whatever has polarized you or caused upset, such as a triggering statement or occurrence.
- Bring into mind and your heart something that makes you happy or feel good about yourself, watering the seeds of joy to build a foundational joy.
- After settling, bring the other person into mind and visualize something good about them, or invite them to share a happiness about who they are.
- Through this practice, reduce the sense of separation and recognize the compassion, understanding there's more to the situation than the trigger.
Mindful Engagement with Electronic Devices
Kyra Jewel Lingo- Before reaching for your phone, get in touch with what is motivating you to do this (e.g., boredom, loneliness, wish to escape).
- Pick up the phone, but don't look at it yet; just feel the weight of it in your hand and notice your body.
- Turn on the phone, but pause before clicking anything; notice all the things that jump and where your eyes are drawn.
- Do only one intended action on your phone (e.g., open one chat, send one text, check the weather).
- Put the phone down and notice the urge to then do more, reclaiming your attention from habit energy and external pushes.
Reflecting on Early Spiritual Influences
Maricela Gomez- Ask yourself when you first touched 'spirit' or heard the word 'spirit' and what it conjured up for you.
- Reflect on what your early spiritual teachings or influences were.
- Notice what is influencing you now and what influenced you then, seeing the interconnection and non-separateness of all spiritual teachings.
- Journal about these reflections, or use other means like moving your body, breathing, singing, or playing an instrument to connect with and express the teaching.
A Meditation for Loving Our Own Skin
Kyra Jewel Lingo- Appreciate the biological and physical experience of having skin, recognizing how it formed, grew, heals, and its inherent intelligence.
- Meditate on the messages received from ancestors and society about skin (e.g., too dark, too light, too hairy, or that there's something wrong with it).
- Behold whatever emotions arise from these messages very lovingly and compassionately, recognizing all that ancestors have endured due to racism, white supremacy, and colonialism.
- Claim the truth that there is absolutely nothing inferior or divergent about any of our skin, honoring its beauty, wisdom, creativity, resilience, and power.
- Open up the possibility to feel fully at ease and good in your own body, from the inside out, regardless of external societal narratives or media images.