#103 Justice & Joy: Kamilah Majied === Michael Reiley: Today on the show, I'm in conversation with Dr. Kamilah Majied. She is a contemplative inclusivity and equity consultant, mental health therapist, clinical educator, researcher, and internationally engaged consultant on building inclusivity and equity using meditative practices. She is the author of the new book, Joyfully Just: Black Wisdom and Buddhist Insights for Liberated Living, which we discuss at length All today on the Sounds of SAND podcast, presented by Science and Nonduality. ​ Michael Reiley: I'm here with Dr. Kamilah Majied for the Sounds of SAND podcast. Thanks so much for being here today. Dr. Kamilah Majied: Oh, it's my absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me. Michael Reiley: Yeah, I've really enjoyed your book, your new book, Joyfully Just. And we'll talk about that, but I'm sure it'll unfold into other topics as we were talking about. Saying before we pressed record that the sort of path of Buddhism allows for this kind of unfolding. It's like holographic unraveling of so many different Possibilities, so I'm looking forward to this conversation Dr. Kamilah Majied: Yes, likewise. I really feel like that's been I've been practicing Buddhism for about, what, almost 42 years now. And, so that means I was a teenager when I started and , thinking about what's my path in life. And one of the greatest benefits of decades of Buddhist practice is just, daily clarity about the next way to live a contributive and meaningful life. That's what my daily practice has guided me towards. And then opportunities and challenges have unfolded that helped me both deepen my practice and expand my realms. in which I can make a contribution, whether it's as a, therapist, as an educator, as a researcher, as a scholar activist, that's so many different avenues that if I were to name one of the greatest benefits of practicing Buddhism it would be that just the inner expansion that led to an expansion of ways in which I could make a positive impact in the world. Which is what the Bodhisattva vow is in Buddhism, right? Michael Reiley: Yeah, and at what point during that 42 year path that you're on Did you begin to see that it can intertwine your interests and the things that you mentioned including, Social justice and liberation Dr. Kamilah Majied: That's the wonderful thing about Buddhist practice is that you learn that, that, that notion of dependent origination, right? This is because that is, and that everything has always been an interdependent, that nothing has ever existed in isolation. So having that as a foundational worldview as a teenager made me realize that, okay, it's, there's no separation, for example, between science and the wisdom of varied contemplative traditions. And since that's true. Then the paths are unlimited in terms of, where you want to make your contribution. And for me, my mother was a scholar and a deep spiritual practitioner herself she introduced us to Islam. And then she introduced me to Buddhism, as a 17 year old but even before she introduced me. us to formal practices of any spiritual tradition. She, or I'll say in tandem with that, she also had us reading. My mother, Viola Majid, was, the kind of person who was like, okay, you should read the Bhagavad Gita, you should read, the Siddhartha, you should read the Buddhist sutras, you should read the Torah, you should read the Bible, you should read Yoruba traditions, you should read. Indigenous traditions so that you understand how people come to have expansive inner states of life and how people navigate the sufferings that come with existence and grow wise from them instead of growing bitter from the sufferings. And I did that. And having that, Reference point early on made me see that whatever I was going to do in life, that I would want it to be fueled by this awareness of of the purpose of inner growth. The inner growth is its own reward, right? You have a, you have wisdom and you have courage and you have a kind of undefeated joy in life. And that is expanded and enhanced when you act to alleviate suffering and injustice for others. Like for example, I'll just give the example of Siddhartha. I remember being, maybe nine or 10 years old and reading, the story of Siddhartha and just thinking about that, that he left the palace, that he, was born to privilege, but he understood that privilege itself was a blinder and that he had to Exit the realm of privilege in order to both grow as a human being and to help alleviate suffering in the world, which are related. Growing as a human being is very much related to alleviating suffering in the world. As I mentioned in the book, minds nurture justice and just minds nurture wellness. And as a mind scientist, I think the Buddha really understood that We can't grow and we can't advance the growth of the world around us if we stay locked in privilege and if we don't work for justice. Michael Reiley: That's beautiful. I'd never heard that framing of the other story of Siddhartha leaving the walls, his walls of privilege. That's such a valuable lesson for so many of us in this modern world. Dr. Kamilah Majied: Yeah, that he grew up a prince and, but if he could have just lived the life, of a prince and stayed ensconced in the wealth of his family and, not going out and witness these, sufferings, birth, aging, sickness, and death, and even come to understand these as fundamental human sufferings, that also could be pathways, are pathways to our enlightenment. Yeah. Michael Reiley: Beautiful. And you were mentioned, you mentioned the word joy earlier, and of course we're going to hopefully really dive into the importance of that. It seems as though someone like yourself, who's been on the spiritual path for many decades now is able to hold paradox, what we think of as paradox or opposition. And we don't often. Think about joy and justice the way you title it joyfully just as being Let's say Complementary to each other supporting each other, we think of justice is really hard You know frowning like difficult grief and anger and all of that stuff not related to joy So how did that realization come to you? Dr. Kamilah Majied: I was raised in a real, in a family and, I'm, my grandfather is coming to mind. My grand aunt is coming to mind and they, were people who had survived profound injustice, right? That, that there was just no way to be born in the, 1920s in this country and not just have navigated profound injustice. I think when I looked at them and listened to them and realized that they had these undefeated minds, these very free spirits, I understood that there is an aspect of human joy that Is really only accessed when injustice is overcome so that you know they faced the injustice of life, and they did it in a way that was grounded in their own kind of transcendent spirituality, and that's not always around a religion like my grandfather James Haynes was there. musician and I really feel like music was how he part of how he transmuted suffering and that there is a long lineage of doing that in and in African American culture which is why in Joyfully Just I put attention on Black, different genres of Black music and other aspects of Black life as wisdom traditions, like a lot of the times people will say, okay this culture has this wisdom tradition that we can learn from in these contemplative practices. But I think even partially because of racism, that the wise practices that come from Black, particularly Black American cultural life. Have often been just dismissed as, oh, that's entertainment, but if you think about how the blues began or how gospel began in this country, it was enslaved African people singing, singing as communication and code about escape and how to, get out of this horrific situation and also at times singing themselves and one another through it and creating like this notion of singing one's blues itself is a concept. It's a concept that's about transform transmuting suffering. That is exactly what it is to sing the blues, right? To actually make something beautiful and creative out of your suffering that Grounds you and others in awareness of our interdependence and of the undefeated aspects of the human spirit, so I see that lineage of Black wisdom, particularly in gospel in blues. But it also exists in jazz. Herbie Hancock is, and Wayne Shorter and Buster Williams, so many African American artists, particularly jazz musicians. Esperanza Spaulding are Buddhists, Terry Lynn Carrington, and they talk about, especially Herbie Hancock, Buster Williams, and Wayne Shorter are co authors of a book with Daisaku Ikeda, who's a renowned Buddhist philosopher and educator who recently passed away. But they, in this book I think it's called Reaching Beyond, they talk about how jazz itself is a way of expressing the ineffable aspects of life and particularly grew out of African American culture. And now all of these genres are now, you know, practiced internationally, but they grew out of African American culture and jazz became a way of speaking what there were no words for. It was, it's also a manifestation of that transmutation. My point is, though, that I really want to invite people, what I do in Joyfully Just is invite people to practice with various Black wisdom traditions, not just music, but to practice with them in a way that is outside of cultural appropriation, because a lot of the times, unfortunately, there's an extractive approach to Different cultural wisdom traditions, and we see this happen with yoga, right? It gets commodified, it gets, it gets sold, and it gets packaged as something, for the elite, for White people, for able bodied people only, and that Really distorts the or it compromises the value of it, and it compromises our insight about our relationalities. So if we practice with Black wisdom traditions and recognize ourselves to be students of Black culture in everything, in many things, in language, in music, in literature, like there's so many ways that Black Americans have influenced global Ways of thinking and being, but it's not so what I do in the book is I shine a light on it as wisdom practice, and, it's always been that, but it's not always been appreciated as such. Sometimes it's dismissed as, oh, that's just entertainment, and those people are musical, or they have a great way with words, but it's more than that. Like Black dialect and Black idiom are emulated the world over, and they have been. For centuries, like you could just go back a few decades and look at the ubiquitous use of the word cool. That's cool. That came from Black musicians in the jazz age, right? That's hip or that's lit now in the more contemporary era. That's lit or saying something is lit. Actually also came from jazz musicians talking about having an illumined in what they meant when they coined that phrase about something being lit is that they have an illuminated state of mind where their creativity is flowing. But again, when we don't understand the lineage of Black dialect and Black expressions, then we use them in ways that don't reflect the full insight and breadth of Of their origin or meaning. Michael Reiley: Wow. You touched into so many things that are super interesting to me. You can see the instruments behind me. I'm a musician as well. And you mentioned so many of my heroes and that, and I'm going to definitely, I looked up this book that you mentioned as you were talking, reaching beyond improvisations on jazz, Buddhism and a joyful life. And we can add that in the show notes. I'm definitely going to read that one. Dr. Kamilah Majied: It's wonderful. It's wonderful. And I, I've had an opportunity to, to meet with Herbie Hancock at the Memorial for Wayne Shorter, and, and with Carolina Shorter, Wayne Shorter's wife. And, just the richness and expansiveness of spirit that, they've cultivated and that they talk about as. As something that's really enhanced their artistry is so clear. Carolina shorter was kind enough to talk with me in great detail about Wayne shorter. Shortly after his passing and I wrote an article for tricycle magazine about. Wayne Shorter's life and, how his practice of Buddhism really helped him express his Bodhisattva vow through music. I think the title of that article is The Glorious, Victorious Life of Bodhisattva Wayne Shorter or something like that I titled it. Michael Reiley: Yeah. The one I found here, it's called the wonderful sounds of Wayne Shorter. Dr. Kamilah Majied: Oh Michael Reiley: maybe they changed the title. I don't know. Dr. Kamilah Majied: Yeah, because they, that's true. They had one title for the print version because they published it on their web and then they also published it in the version of the magazines. Michael Reiley: see the second one here. The glorious victorious life of Bodhisattva Wayne Shorter. Wow. So cool. We'll share that on the website too. One of the things I love about Buddhism is that, as we've seen it expand over the millennia, that it often infuses with the culture of a certain land. Like when it went to Tibet, it infused with the Bon religion and became what we think of now as Tibetan Buddhism, Vajrayana in far East Asia and infused with Taoism and took on this new flavor of Zen. And what you're talking about now, I'm just like, wow, this could be the beginning of a new form of Buddhism, of a Black cultural Buddhism that includes all of these different Black wisdom traditions. Is that something that you resonate with this idea? Yeah. Dr. Kamilah Majied: I say this better in the book, but I'm going to try it now. But, the truth of it is that we understand the tremendous value of Buddhism, more when we see the expression. Of Buddhahood manifest in various cultural context, right? So you as a bodhisattva, you as an enlightened being, just manifest different wisdom insights, because it blends with your experiences, your cultural experiences, cultural being region, cultural being ethnicity, cultural being whatever spiritual background you might have had before practicing Buddhism, if it wasn't your original kind of family practice and, with your gender and all the other things. I don't think it's a, it's like you're not practicing like a European Dharma and I'm practicing an American Dharma. I don't think it's that. I think that the Dharma is itself so capacious, limitless, actually, that it finds more of its expression, the more diverse people who are practicing it. And that we can say, Oh, that's the Buddha Dharma being expressed in this cultural context, right? In in a different article, in an article about Daisaku Ikeda, who's the Buddhist leader that I I mentioned earlier, the former president of the SGI, Soka Gakkai International, and, author of just hundreds of publications on Buddhism. The last name is spelled Ikeda, I K E D A. But anyway writing I wrote an article about him also and in the article I talk about how, you just don't really for example in, in Africa, in Ivory Coast, there's a there's a Buddhist community center that seats like 1700 people. And, to see, 1700 or not, maybe not even that many people in that particular meeting, but just to see hundreds of African people singing and dancing after a Buddhist meeting, because in the Soka Gakkai, we often have cultural presentations after the study presentations at a given Buddhist meeting, because we understand this, that the, that culture is like the flower of humanity that The Dharma nurtures right so same in Trinidad and South Africa so many places I've been in the world and, seen Buddhist practitioners manifesting their enlightenment. Through the embodiment of their own cultural heritage, and that in that we get to see the universality of the Dharma. Yeah, that it doesn't look one way. And that's the piece where in the book I talk about White supremacy and how, there's a lot of books or a couple of books now, like Beyond White Mindfulness, and John Kabat Zinn handed me one at Omega when we were leading a workshop this summer something about extracting mind, extracting White supremacy from mindfulness, because what White supremacy has done is to again, commodify and really constrict the These Buddhist derived interventions such as mindfulness and strip them of their necessary parts like compassion, like to justice, right? If we just extract the mindfulness and say, Okay, I'm going to just focus on my breathing and get blissed out. Then we're not really accessing all the benefit of mindfulness or contemplative practice, and certainly not in the Buddhist tradition. So what I love, what I. What I realized is that I can do, some of my, Cherokee nature breathing practices as part of how I express. and engage my enlightened aspect, right? So our cultural wisdom traditions are only enhancing and complementary to our Buddhist practice. And they help people understand the varied expressions of the Dharma that exists, the limitless expressions of the Dharma that exists. And that is very joyful and very beautiful. Michael Reiley: , you've mentioned so many things I would love to go deeper on. I appreciate too, that you're bringing up this. There's this book you mentioned, Beyond White Mindfulness, because that is the tradition I came from. It's the Jack Kornfield, Tyra Brock, and these are all brilliant teachers. I'm not saying anything wrong with them, but a lot of them were psychologists, and it became this very distinct White kind of psychological version of Buddhism, as you said, that was devoid of, not devoid, but didn't focus on, meta and compassion and certainly was extractive. It said things like, no, karma and rebirth, that's nonsense. That's superstition. We're not even going to talk about that stuff. Let's just talk about the psychological benefits of mindfulness and didn't even occur to a lot of people practicing in, in my circles that was a colonial attitude to just be like, no, we're just going to take this out of Asia and we're going to get rid of the parts we don't like. And, it's you know, it's like saying, yeah, I like Thai food, but I don't like it spicy. So can you take all the spice out and just make it the way I like it? And we'll still call it Thai food, Dr. Kamilah Majied: exactly. And it's also like saying, but I don't really like Thai people. It's like that the racism is in there too. It's if the part about cultural appropriation that's, one of the parts of it that's most damaging is that the extractive mindset. Of it makes us feel like we can take the people's thing and we don't need to awaken to our connection to the people. We don't need a gratitude practice. We don't need anything in relation to the people and that really compromises insight. So a lot of people, for example, emulate Black dialect or other aspects of, Black cultural wisdom, and they do so in the, in, without acknowledging the, their, any relationality with Black people and without, recognizing Wow, I really learned a lot like literally, a good portion of the words that come out of my mouth are words from Black dialect and Black idiom. And so what if what I offer in the book is what if we really notice the ways that our lives are enriched by Black dialect and Black music, and actually. Lived with some appreciation for that and even occasionally said, instead of just using the language and the dialect of African Americans to say, as African Americans say, and these subtle practices like that, just awaken insight and awaken our own sense of interdependence. And it's not something that I encourage people to do necessarily for African Americans or for Black people. It's for our own insight. So just like any gratitude practices, right? Because it helps me wake up when I do a gratitude practice, it helps me wake up to, oh I learned this from someone. This comes from a lineage and I am connected to the people of this lineage as I express gratitude for what I learned from them. And as I deepen relationships with them and not just use their practices. Michael Reiley: Yeah. That's a beautiful invitation. Something to consider. I know, in the past, years, it's become on Zoom meetings or meetings in general for people to do land acknowledgements to talk about the indigenous people that live there. And sometimes it's just people cut and paste from Wikipedia and they don't really think about it. They're just saying the words, for me, it, where I grew up in Philadelphia, I thought about, the Lenape people who lived there and it sent me on this journey of, recognizing. Their contributions to the culture and to to the land there. And, sometimes we think of these things as empty and hollow, but just like you said, to, as to, to include the phrase as, as people of also something else from your book I really enjoyed was your framing of the people of the global majority as well. Dr. Kamilah Majied: Yes, and thank you for saying that about that land acknowledgement because, it does at times feel like it just depends on your intent and your resolve as you do it, just like anything, just like the deep breathing that goes along with mindfulness, right? It has meaning if you have resolve and intention, connected to it. So if I'm, acknowledging myself to be here on Ohlone land, in what's now called Monterey, California, then I'm recognizing that the Ohlone people are with me. And I also am recognizing that I have an opportunity to continue to be a resource for the remaining Ohlone people, which there are many of, and to think about how I can be in what I call reparative relationality in the book, right? A lot of times people think about reparations as, oh, that's something that the government has to do. But if I'm benefiting from, White supremacy or from a particular type of privilege then I also can be thinking about, wow, I can use this privilege to elevate The end up to uplift, elevate and acknowledge those who have sustained and made possible this privilege in my life. Those who have been harmed so that I could have this privilege that I can repair that in how I relate to them. If I'm given an opportunity to appear somewhere. And, there is an indigenous person from the Esalen tribe, which is, one of the core tribes around here that can appear with me, then I make that invitation and I share the money, right? And the same thing, I encourage folks to do this because a lot of times I'll be talking to, folks who are racialized White and they're like what can I do? And I'm like, use your privilege to, sometimes take the back seat and say, actually, let me let someone who is from this cultural this marginalized cultural community, take center stage. Because so much of what I do anyway, I have learned from their cultural and, I benefit from their cultural Wisdom, I benefit from being on their land in whatever ways, recognizing that, yes, people of the global majority have been exploited. So if we decide, okay, I can repair that through how I relate, then we are taking back our power and really experiencing the joy of it. Challenging and overcoming injustice in our very contemporary lives. It's not something we have to wait to the future. We can do it in, in, in how we relate to one another now. And the reason I use the term people of the global majority. which was coined by Dr. Barbara Love at Amherst University of Massachusetts Amherst to talk about and to reframe the way that we think about contemplative, the way that we think about people who have been marginalized, the way that we think about Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and Asian people. Because, and the, so Dr. Love introduced that concept in, in that context. But the reason that I bring it to the contemplative world is because One of the ways that insight is both refined and reflected is through language, right? So if we can continue to refine our language, then we are continuing to refine our insight, right? It's part of the eightfold path, right? Speech. So when I use the term people of the global majority, I'm acknowledging that Over 80 percent of the population of the world is not of European descent, aka White so that we stop already we've stopped using the term minorities because it's it's invalidating, just like we don't use the term invalid anymore because, no, no human is minor. But also in terms of population and viewing humanity from this interdependent lens, we really come to recognize that yes, the global majority people of the global majority are also the people who are often most exploited throughout the global majority. And it gives us insight into how much we need to consistently adjust our understanding of how resources should be shared and how insights and cultural wisdom just really abounds from places that we have in our minds minoritized, right? So there's just a really cognitive, to create this little cognitive shift and to say, Oh, okay. These folks are, the global majority. These are global majority folks. And those of us who are racialized as White are the global minority. It's a humbling way to, to look at, It's certainly, it's been humbling for folks who are racialized White and also very valuable because, finally to step out of this notion of supremacy and recognize, wow, this is profoundly off and I can live a life that's about reparative relationality and, that's part of my bodhisattva vow. That's how I manifest my own wisdom and enlightenment in the world. Michael Reiley: Like you said, language, words have such a power, we often, especially when we're I think White people dismiss words, you'll hear people talking about political correctness and wokeness and all this stuff. And we say, Oh, these words, it doesn't matter. People are just being too sensitive, but words are magic, words are the things that we do to manifest our thoughts and emotions into the world and affect change and relate to other people. It's the primary way. Not primary, but an important way that we relate to other people is through our words and our language. Yeah. Dr. Kamilah Majied: Yes. And what we, it's also how we relate to ourselves, right? Because it's, these words we are saying to one another. We also, say in our internal conversations, right? So paying attention to the language in our internal conversations as well. As well as those in our kind of relational conversations is a way that we refine our insight. That's why that piece about right view and right speech right to be able to right view and right speech. All of the aspects of the Eightfold Path are connected, but right view and right speech in particular because right speech can lead us to right view. So that's part of what I'm thinking about when I'm using terms like PGM people of the global majority. And, I. I think there's just a tremendous opportunity for growth and you're right that a lot of the times people use terms like woke. Now, the word woke, it actually came again from African Americans saying to one another. Michael Reiley: Yeah. Dr. Kamilah Majied: Stay Black and woke means a constant state. It's it basically means stay connected to your insight. Stay, stay enlightened, so when I always look like, really, people say I don't want to be woke. I'm like, really, Michael Reiley: you want to sleepwalk through life? Dr. Kamilah Majied: Yeah, Michael Reiley: yeah. I think Michelle Obama held up a sign about stay woke. And I think that's how it got pinned to like liberal ideology. And then it spiraled into this really pejorative term of whatever, Dr. Kamilah Majied: Yeah, and that's the other place though where you know when a term gets culturally appropriated, because this is something that Black people said to each other, because the intent was to affirm one another's capacity to see beyond the trickery of White supremacy. This was around, this was coined, this term was coined like in the 50s. In the fifties, Black people were saying to each other, stay Black, stay woke. Actually a piece of it came out of a musician. I think his name is Lead Belly, had a song around staying woke and staying Black. And it was in response to some boys, some young men who had African American youth who had been falsely accused of doing something. And, so it was, Staying woke came out of the stay Black lineage and what people meant when they said stay Black stay woke what Black people meant was stay aware of the ways that oppression is operating in the world, and don't allow yourself to be tricked or defeated by it. And that's the origin of it. There's a part of. me that says, that recognizes the resistance to to being woke because it is resistance to social justice oriented insight. It's like, it literally is exactly the same mindset that says we don't want to learn critical race theory and children shouldn't have to learn about enslavement or colonization of Native Americans and genocide. The children, that's just, and including high schoolers, shouldn't know we should all just move on. It's we don't need to understand. It's like saying we don't understand how the earth was formed or, like we don't need, we don't need to understand reality. So yeah, it's important to to wake up. And at the same time, I understand the fear that drives the, we don't want to know, right? Because People feel like I don't want to feel the shame. I don't want to feel the guilt. I don't want to feel the despair. But what I posit in Joyfully Just is that there is an aspect of our joy and our freedom, our emotional and psychological freedom, as well as our relational freedom that cannot be accessed unless we face the injustices that humans have perpetrated amongst one another. And we all have some types of privilege that we need to face and consider being how we daily are in reparative relationality with one another around that. I understand the fear. I understand the feeling of I don't want to feel bad about my privilege. So that's what drives that, I'd rather sleepwalk. I'd rather not wake up, cause it's fear. And my invitation is that. We can transcend that fear and have really expansive state of lives, states of life for doing so Michael Reiley: Wonderful. One of the things I wanted to ask about is another one of these seemingly paradoxical relationships between grief and joy. And in the science and non duality, the sand community, we've been really focused on Palestine over the past year, and particularly Gaza and our new film, Where Olive Trees Weep. And a lot of people are feeling grief. We're talking about grief a lot in our community gatherings and on this podcast. So for people that are really. Feeling the sadness and the grief and the horror of this genocide. How can they transform that into joy and work with joy and see joy as connected to grief somehow? Dr. Kamilah Majied: through collaborative action. The first thing I'll say is through practicing right and whatever I offer a wider array of practices to just ground us and bring us to awareness. And when you're grounded and aware. Then you can set an intention, right? A resolution. And in the book, I talk about making a new moment's resolution. So maybe up to this point, you've just been feeling like, oh, this is appalling. There's nothing I can do. What if in this moment, We made a resolution, whatever I can do, I will do, and it is doing something to bear witness, and it is doing something to participate in the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement, and it is doing something to speak about it in public forums such as this. It is doing something to donate funds for people to flee the most impossible regions and to resource families who have fled right that there are actually countless things that each of us could do, can do. And, obviously continuing to speak for the cessation of funding and resources to continue to bomb the Palestinian people that these are the actions that we can continue to take and There's something about I really appreciate the use of a film that really tells the historical story, like, where olive trees weep does, and to help people to develop empathy because part of the problem, again, is this, kind of separation that people are experiencing us and them, and not realizing that, we are being hurt by this harming of other people, whether we know it or not. So I might think, okay, I can just bury my head in the sand and I won't think about it and I'll watch TV and I'll just zone out and not think about it. But it's still having an energetic effect on us because we're aware that it's happening and we're aware as Americans that it's being funded with. Money we earn and pay our taxes with. So there's a particular sense of responsibility and outrage that, many Americans have around this and are using that outrage in a positive way to speak for, boycott divestment and sanctions, and to acknowledge the ways that this is, this is a genocide and it's a It's, and it's something that we can do something about, but it's really, I think that there's a lot of instruction in it also that we are at a time in history when we can really see the harm, because people are recording their own stories and recording what's happening to them. And we're seeing very up close and personal, for example, how sexual violence, how rape is becoming a part of how. The Palestinians are oppressed and brutalized and tortured, right? It's just right there in your face. So that's forcing us to look at how toxic masculinity and exploitation of women is just this. thing that is related to White supremacy and is related to the oppression of the Palestinian people. So it's excruciating and there's also joy in resistance. Sonia Sanchez, this poet, oh my goodness, she has this beautiful poem about resistance and she does it as many African American poets do in the spoken word, where she's saying resist. And then she invites people to say with her resist, resist. And there's joy in that. One of the this is the last thing I'll say and then I'll stop, but one of the Post that I put on my Instagram a couple of months back was of an African American young woman at a university being carried away by for police at a palace and at a protest in support of the Palestinian people. And she's singing. She's singing as the four police carry her away and what she's singing is an African American gospel song. called this joy that I have, the world didn't give it to me and the world can't take it away. So as she is acting for justice, she's accessing this transcendent joy, just as so many African that's the lineage of African American contemplative practice with song, and particularly with gospel and blues and many other genres that, we're saying there is a transcendent joy. And because of that, because I lived there in that transcendent joy, I am empowered and guided to act for justice, right? She could have sat and sang that song on the beach, but she chose to stand at that protest and sing it, and she kept singing it as she was being carried away by the police. And so what I'm saying here is that, There is a piece of our own joy that we are also avoiding if we're avoiding speaking up in support of the Palestinian people, if we're avoiding speaking up against racial violence, against African Americans, and against all people, if we're avoiding it, if we're it's sad, but I really can't do anything about it. Then we're dismissing our power, and we're leaving some joy on the table that we could really pick up if we engaged more for justice. Michael Reiley: Wow. Yeah. And it seems, cause I think earlier when you were talking about joy, you were talking about it in a conditional sense that the joy that comes from doing something, but I feel like now you're talking about an unconditional joy that resides in all of us and is just waiting to be liberated. Dr. Kamilah Majied: Actually, they're the same thing, right? There is that unconditional joy that, you know and it's that joy, is the joy of wisdom. It's the joy of insight. So it is there. However, we need portals, we need activities, we need practice to activate it. So it's always there, but the and the condition, we create the condition for that joy to manifest and arise through the action that we take or through the practice that we, Undertake, right? So it's not it's not like you're creating it anew, right? Although joy is joy can be expressed creatively. It exists, which it exists as surely as our, as our as our being exists, it exists as a fundamental aspect of our being and as a fundamental aspect of our enlightenment. All human beings have a a Buddha life force, have innate Buddhahood or innate wisdom, innate courage, innate innate joy. And how we live our lives Matters in terms of how much of that we're able to access. Does that make sense that it's not like you're Michael Reiley: Yeah. Dr. Kamilah Majied: it's not, you know what I mean? You're doing things that kind of, let's say, cause it to be in your awareness, right? That exists, but we have to take action to raise our awareness of it, right? And to allow ourselves to experience the full power and energy of it. Michael Reiley: Yeah. I think the, my question was coming more from a place of something I'm sure you've experienced. So when you meditate for a long time, you're basically doing nothing for a long time. You're allowing things to drop away, allowing thoughts, habitual patterns, all of these things to drop away. And all that's left is joy is all that's left is the euphoria of beingness itself. And I always think of that as unconditional joy, that's the Buddha nature that you're talking about that, and it's described in different ways in different cultures, Shakti, or, in Veda Vedanta as the, Atman, the self, or God, many religions call that God consciousness. Dr. Kamilah Majied: Yes, you're absolutely right about that. And, in order to get to that, you often have to cry a little bit, right? It's not like you just sit down and you're like, Oh, I'm quiet. Oh, I feel like no, first you feel anxious, you feel angry, you feel afraid, you feel tired, you feel a whole bunch of other things first, right? So that's the, and you hear the voice of your inner injustice, the ways you're self critical, right? Yeah. Like that, that we, so we've got to move through that, because that's the covering, that's what's covering your joy, that's what's covering our joy, right? So that's the place where in Chapter 5 I talk about joyful suffering and joyful grieving, it's like joy is always present. For example, when my mother passed away, when she transitioned because she had enriched my life and taught me so much about how to live an enlightened existence, I made a resolve, set an intention that I was going to experience the enlightened aspect of grief, right? And it is from that and from practicing with that intention and crying through, many hours at the altar. And. And life, crying while I cooked eggs because she taught me how to cook eggs, that I really deepened my awareness, my insight of the timelessness and the eternity of life and how, life energy and the energy of those who love and nurture us just never dissipates and exists. And it continues to embolden us and my enlightened experience of grieving really allowed me to recognize that if we allow our lives to be porous, then we can absorb and feel the energy and life force of all of those who have cared for us. And that can buoy us and sustain us and help us access that. Ever present unconditional transcendent joy, which also is part of the energy that links us to all those who, who've transitioned, who've loved and nurtured us teachers, spirit guides, parents, and then you're a part of this, that's part of the joy that we're talking about when we're talking about that unconditional joy. We're also talking about our deep awareness of our interdependence and, connection. To all life and all beings. Michael Reiley: Yeah. Beautiful. That's how we started this conversation talking about dependent origination, the interconnectedness of all phenomenon, including us, our interconnectedness and that universality of joy that we've all experienced, when we're at a comedy show and a joke before we even comprehend the joke, there's just a laughter and a joy that comes up from that shared experience of laughing together in a group or, dancing together or any kind of ecstatic pre thinking activity. We know what that joy feels like. Dr. Kamilah Majied: Yeah. And we get to share that with one another and let it be a force of energy that guides us to act towards justice, right? To let that be the ground and the commitment that we make that, that everyone deserves it. And that our commitment to acting for justice. For especially for people who are experiencing just horrific violence. People in the Congo, people in Sudan. And again, paying attention to how am I benefiting from this right that, the history of colonization in Africa, the extractive colonialism around the minerals and the cobalt and, that's why we have cell phones. Okay, so Instead of just feeling bad about that, what can I do? How can I be a resource to end the slaughter and end the exploitation? And there's always something we can do. And there is so much of our capacity, our wisdom, our freedom that is behind that doorway of doing that thing. That's the thing that a lot, like you said, when we started, A lot of people think of, taking effort, making efforts for justice as, Oh, this is going to be so hard. Now I got to do something hard. It's I invite us to think of it. Let's open a doorway to more of my joy and more of my connection to all beings. Let's do that. Let's put acting for justice on the calendar. At least once a week, I'm going to do something that makes. It's the world better that addresses injustice. I'm going to use my privilege, whatever kind of privilege it is, it's educational privilege, able bodied privilege, White privilege, whatever I've got, I'm going to use it because that is how I actualize my own freedom and liberation, that's the purpose of Buddhist practice. And, the purpose of many contemplative practices is that freedom and the joy comes from that freedom. Toni Morrison is quoted as saying in And I think this is in Beloved, but I have to check, but she says that the purpose of freedom is to free somebody else. And what she means by that is not, that, uh, that's the, what she means by that is your freedom is not operational. until you're using it, right? It's not, it's rusty and not effective if it's not actively being used to free other people, right? That the purpose of freedom is to free somebody else. So since that's true, the way that we to realize our freedom is by freeing other people, not by just saying I'm free and well, good luck to the rest of you, because then we're not actually free. Freedom is also an interdependent aspect of our reality. So it's just very exciting to think about how we can contribute and how we can dismantle injustice. And if we live lives that are committed to doing that, yeah, that's really joyful. And doing it in communities is certainly joyful. Michael Reiley: Nice. Yeah, that community piece is so important. We were talking about I was talking more about the kind of shadow side of White secular mindfulness in America. And of course, Sangha is part of it, but it's very much an individual path. But what you're talking about in this book and what we've been discussing today is really about the community aspects of whether it's joy or grief or compassion or awakening to, to do it. Let's do this together. with all of us, that's the bodhisattva path. Dr. Kamilah Majied: Absolutely. And that's what the value of sangha is, right? So that, diversity in the Sangha, diverse cultural and experiential and realities in the Sangha is actually indicative of, it shows us that it shows us the flower of enlightenment. in its many variations. So that's what we're really what if this world sangha, if we were committed to healing this world sangha that even if people are practicing Islam or whatever their religious tradition is, they're part of the world sangha that we hold in our hearts and in our minds, regardless of what, Cultural or spiritual traditions are guiding them towards that. We as bodhisattvas, as people who are thinking about elevating the enlightenment of all beings, we, we get to protect and resource all of the beautiful expressions of enlightenment that can exist in the world. So I really appreciate this conversation with you. I feel like we could keep talking for hours. Michael Reiley: I do too. Thank you so much for this, for your book and for this conversation. And I didn't ask you about this earlier, but to close, would you like to lead us and just maybe a short guided meditation or offer one of the practices from your book as a way to close the episode? Dr. Kamilah Majied: I'm absolutely happy to do that. So if you just allow, we can just allow ourselves to, be aware of ourselves as supported by the earth, letting your feet make contact with the ground beneath you, maybe tapping your toes. At whatever rhythm or cadence feels right, just making this contact with the earth that's sustaining you, that's sustaining us all, the common ground that's holding us in this perfect gravitational embrace. And then just taking a few deep diaphragmatic breaths, allowing the breath to remind us of the ways that our life is sustained by the trees and the seas. so much. through this perfect oxygen cocktail that we get to Inhale and exhale. And noticing that our lives, our bodies themselves, are these rhythmical instruments. Just allow your fingers to lightly drum, or in any way that feels comfortable, just let your fingers drum on the desk, or table, or floor, or wall, or anything that's near you. Don't try to control it, actually let the way that your fingers drum tell you something about how your life is moving in this moment, how your life force would express itself through your own finger drumming. Just take a couple of seconds and do it. And now pause and notice what was that drumming like? Was it soft? Was it really energetic? Was it off and on sporadic? Starting the drumming again, noticing it this time. What is it maybe saying to you about the rhythm of your life force right now? What's the rhythm of your life force right now? You're tapping it out. And now, try it. Considering an area of justice that you'd like to contribute to and start tapping that, tap that movement for justice out. Tap out your own rhythm of movement for justice. What's that feel like? What's that saying to you? Maybe it's changed a little bit from what it was before. Is it telling you to be methodical and really practice with how to contribute? Is it telling you to move quickly and act now? The body tells us so much. and is a way in which our natural enlightenment and natural wisdom can express itself. So we can allow the body to speak to us about the cadence at which we wish to move through life and the cadence and rhythm that will allow us to access joy and justice moving forward. Thank you for doing that practice with me. And it's something I invite us to do anytime we want to tap into the rhythm and the cadence of our own being in a given moment. It's a way to check in with ourselves. What's my rhythm right now? What's the rhythm of my energy and my life force? And you can set an intention when you recognize a rhythm or life force, you can then set an intention or resolve. So I hope that's a valuable practice that folks can benefit from. And I also do a version of it in the book. Michael Reiley: Wonderful. Thank you so much. It's Dr. Kamilah Majied: My pleasure. Michael Reiley: truly joyful encounter. So thank you. Dr. Kamilah Majied: Thank you. Have a good night and a good day tomorrow. .