This month, we are doing a special feature of a wonderful new podcast hosted by our friend Rev. Syd Yang: The Dharma of Loneliness podcast!
Rev. Syd sits down with Rev. Liên Shutt to discuss what it means to experience loneliness as a “best friend,” exploring how the idea of best friendship and relational hierarchy can feel unclear and shifting. Rev. Liên defines loneliness as a visceral sense of not belonging or being made “other,” and they discuss their experiences with othering via bullying, racism, queerness and cultural differences. They connect Zen insights and practices to befriending difficult sensations through mindful attention, metta, and embodied pause, emphasizing agency to “re-belong.”
Joy Harjo’s poems “Cricket Song” and “Remember” frame loneliness as longing that can remind one to remember inherent connection, complexity, and living with what is.
Go to www.DharmaofLoneliness.com to listen to other episodes and learn more!
HOST
Rev. Syd Yang, MDiv (they/them), host of The Dharma of Loneliness podcast, is a mixed race/Taiwanese American queer trans/non-binary Buddhist Minister, movement chaplain, spiritual counselor and writer who engages decolonial possibilities for shared liberation through their practice, Blue Jaguar Healing Arts. Syd’s work and writing finds its resonance in the stories we each hold at the intersection of memory, body, sexuality and mental health. Syd works primarily with queer and trans BIPOC as well as regularly leads workshops and facilitates community based practice spaces for wellbeing + healing justice, body liberation and recovery.
www.bluejaguarhealingarts.com / IG @bodyliberationchaplain and @bluejaguarlove
A few recent publications: (article) https://www.lionsroar.com/how-i-reclaimed-my-body/, (book / memoir) Release: A Bulimia Story, (podcast guest) Mending with Gold / Kintsugi Therapist Collective, (chapter) Emergent Dharma, (chapter) Q + A: Voices from Queer Asian North America
GUEST
REV. LIÊN SHUTT (she/they), host of Opening Dharma Access podcast, is a priest lineage holder in the Shunryu Suzuki tradition. Born to a Buddhist family in Vietnam, she received her meditation training in the Insight and Soto Zen traditions in the United States, Japan, Thailand, and Vietnam. They are the guiding teacher of Access to Zen, an inclusive, anti-oppression sangha and nonprofit in the San Francisco Bay Area. She lives in Oakland, on Huichin land, with her partner, exploring waterways and forests as often as they can.
Visit AccessToZen.org for ways to connect and practice together and to learn more about her book Home is Here: Practicing Antiracism with the Engaged Eightfold Path.
