Use code SUMMERPRACTICE for a 25% discount on all On Demand Courses through August 31.

Dismantling Racism in Our Minds and Hearts

With Nina La Rosa recorded on July 15, 2017.

Found our teachings useful? Help us continue our work and support your teachers with a donation. Here’s how.

If one lives as a human on this earth one is affected by racism. Power and privilege have been unfairly awarded throughout history to certain groups of people based on race while disempowering others.

These systems function on a systemic and cultural level, but also within each of us individually when we unconsciously internalize messages about each other, ourselves, and about race. Simply growing up in a racist world causes subtle and not so subtle habits of mind and heart to take on racist patterns.

Mindfulness meditation can help one to observe preconceptions as they arise in the mind, providing space for cultivating kindness and care. Mindfulness can illuminate implicit bias, the usually unconscious prejudices that color so much of our mind’s judging nature. Uncovering these habits of mind with a generous heart can cut through the guilt, shame, hatred, and fear that cause so much contraction and suffering in us and in our relationships around race. Observing these habits of mind with wisdom can allow a healthy transcendence of self to arise that does not bypass individual and racial differences, but includes them.

This session is for you, no matter the color of your skin, if you’re interested in investigating more deeply how racism in the world has impacted your mind and heart. We practice ways to undo racism in our lives and uncover a generous, spacious heart that has room for differences and the universal.

Listen to the audio version below, or click here to download the mp3.

Discussion

Leave a Reply

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Ayala Gill – Week of December 11, 2023

    This week’s topic is “Embracing challenging emotions”. There are no negative emotions, only ones that we find challenging to embrace, like anxiety, anger, grief and fear. When we relate to them in distorted ways, their expression is indeed negative. Over this week (at a time of year where they may be particularly triggered!) we will explore how to come into a sacred relationship with each of these challenging emotions.

    Read More

  • Deborah Eden Tull - Senior Dharma Teacher

    Receptivity: Deep Listening as an Antidote to Reactivity and Violence

    In these hyped up divisive times, there is an ever-greater need for tools to de-condition ourselves from reactivity. The practice of listening – within ourselves and with others – is much more significant than we often acknowledge. The contrast of receptivity against the backdrop of a world conditioned to impose, label, judge, and solve, is…

    Read More

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Ulla Koenig – Week of September 18, 2023

    This week’s theme is “Understanding Suffering”. Dukkha, often translated as suffering, is a central concept in the Buddha’s teachings. This has led some to view Buddhism as adopting a negative outlook on life. But is this true? Why did the Buddha emphasise suffering (dukkha) and what does he mean by this concept? This week of practice we will take an in-depth look into the first noble truth around dukkha. This exploration can help us cultivate compassion, as well as extending it to the larger community. It can free us from feelings of shame and a sense of failure, and bring a fresh perspective on our practice.

    Read More

  • Daily Meditation Recordings with Christopher Titmuss- Week of June 10, 2024

    This week’s topic is “Letting Go. An Act of the Will?”

    We pick up a hot coal in the morning from the wood burner.

    Ouch, we let go immediately. No thought. No desire. Instant letting go.

    The language of letting go has entered into the mind of the meditator.

    It is often not a solution but an ambitious state of mind.

    Letting go reveals an outcome of understanding.

    We can tell ourselves a 1000 times we should let go and it’s to no avail.

    The desire to let go shows we are not ready to let go.

    We will explore the preparation for letting go and wise responses employing at times letting go.

    Read More

  • Zohar Lavie

    Pathways to Happiness

    Being human includes feeling great and feeling pain; given the changing nature of experience what kind of happiness is possible for us? Can we cultivate freedom, happiness and contentment that are less reliant on things ‘going our way’? The attitudes of goodwill, care and friendliness are some of our greatest allies in practice, and also…

    Read More

  • Sophie Boyer

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Sophie Boyer – Week of 01 September, 2025

    We’re delighted to have Sophie Boyer guiding our Daily Meditation sessions this week. May they enrich and support your practice.

    This week’s theme is: Equanimity – What Is Always At Rest

    Sophie Boyer will lead our Daily Mediations this week, inviting us to re-attune to what is always at rest, what never struggles, what never pushes or pulls. Join us to explore the non dual nature of life together.

    Our Dharma Library thrives through collective generosity. Your donation helps sustain this offering for our entire community.

    Read More

  • Stephen Fulder

    Including Diversity and Differences in the Space of Awareness

    Diversity is a challenging concept today. Yet our equanimity is developed through meeting the great range of our inner experiences, as well as staying steady in the cacophony of the marketplace. There is enough space in our hearts to welcome the wonderful richness and diversity of life and of each other. Our open awareness makes…

    Read More