Online: Ungendering the Heart – The Brahma Viharas are Contemporary Medicine for Modern Times
with Arisika Razak
Wednesday, August 3rd, 2022 | 7:00pm – 9:00pm ET
In the Buddha’s teachings on the Brahma Viharas, or Divine Abodes, we are instructed to firmly direct the body-mind towards the states of metta (loving kindness), karuna (compassion) mudita (sympathetic joy), and upekkha (equanimity), the states in which all enlightened beings rest.
While metta is the quality most associated with the heart, these qualities, when taken together, are aligned with the fourth stress response, that of “tend and befriend”, a strategy found in many mammalian species where care for the young involves not only the birth parent/s, but the kin who provide care as socially engaged uncles, aunts, grandparents, etc.
The Brama Viharas encourage us – regardless of sex or gender – to cultivate the qualities of the heart that have often been described as “feminine” in patriarchal societies, but which are actually human qualities that have supported human survival over the many millenia of our existence.
Emphasis on the Brahma Viharas can provide an antidote to patriarchal assumptions about “male” and “female” behavior, remindings us that these constructions are culturally scripted rather than biologically based – and they can provide a sense of freedom and wholeness that is both modern and timeless.
Join us for this special evening discussion! All are welcome.
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Teacher(s)
Arisika Razak
Arisika Razak is Professor Emerita and the former Chair of the Women’s Spirituality Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies, in San Francisco, California. Formerly a nurse-midwife, she believes that we are all embodiments of the sacred, and her teachings incorporate diverse spiritual traditions, multicultural feminisms, embodied healing modalities, queer theory and diversity theory. She is a graduate of the Spirit Rock Dedicated Practitioner Program and a core teacher at the East Bay Meditation Center where she regularly offers workshops and teaches in the POC Sangha and the Mahasangha for All Beings. Arisika has led healing workshops, ritual celebrations, meditative movement and spiritual dance sessions, nationally and internationally for over forty years. She is a regular contributor to books, journals, and online offerings, particularly on the subjects of African Wisdom Traditions, embodied healing, and diversity, equity and inclusion. Her work on Buddhism has been published in Lion’s Roar, The Arrow, and Afrikan Wisdom: New Voices Talk Black Liberation, Buddhism and Beyond. She has presented the 2019 Gathering of Buddhist Teachers of Black African Descent at Spirit Rock, the 2021 Black and Buddhist Summit; and the Activating Hope Summit with Jane Goodall. Her film credits include Fire Eyes, the first full length feature film produced by an African woman on female genital cutting/mutilation; Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth; and Who Lives Who Dies? a PBS special on health care for the underserved.