We each have the capacity for true compassion—including all beings in our heart. This requires facing the ways we create separation, holding our inner life with great kindness, and learning to recognize the vulnerability in others. This talk includes a reflection allowing us to bring these teachings to a situation in our own life where we would like to live from our full potential for love and wisdom.

The world’s heart is on fire, and race is at its core. The bitter racial seeds from past beliefs and actions are blooming all around us, reflecting not only a division of the races that is rooted in ignorance and hate, but also, and more sorely, a division of the heart. Racism is a heart disease. How we think and respond is at the core of racial suffering and racial healing. If we cannot think clearly and respond wisely, we will continue to damage the world’s heart. In this talk, my hope is to ignite your imagination and help you discover your voice in the song of racial healing, and how we could live in this world if every one of us aimed our energy toward awakening, non-harming, generosity, and kinship—a world with race but without racism. It all begins with an examination of our habits of harm.

This talk explores six hindrances to racial harmony and six principles that support a culture of care, as well as the Buddha’s teachings on the Two Truth Doctrine and Misperception. Enjoy a blog written by Aryenish Birdie after attending the talk: "Why People of Color and White Folks Think About Race Differently." http://encompassmovement.org/why-people-of-color-and-white-folks-think-about-race-differently/

In the Buddhist teachings, these four practices–loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity–are considered the highest qualities of heart and emotional wellbeing.