Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.  

Anu Gorukanti: I’d love to hear in your own words about growing up in a contemplative community and how that impacted your relationship to faith and spirituality. 

Kaira Jewel Lingo: I grew up in a family religious order that was set out to renew the church and it was based on a monastic model. It was a family religious order but with a high level of commitment in terms of vows of poverty, vows of obedience, and really simple living in community.  

It was the kind of place growing up where I felt a very deep connection to meaning. We lived in an eight-story old insurance building on the north side of Chicago with hundreds of people, but we would all pray [together] in the morning. There would be chanting, incense and a sense of the sacred that got imprinted on me very deeply. 

The way I was raised [led me to] give a central importance in my life to spiritual practice, community and being dedicated to social change. 

AG: In the book, you talk about your search for a spiritual community during your travels in Europe. And when you came to the Plum Village community, you felt deeply aligned with the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh. I’m curious what spoke to you about the Plum Village Buddhist tradition?  

KJL: When I was finishing up my university studies, Ram Dass [a spiritual teacher] came to my school to give a talk and said, “You know you get a great education here, but you don’t necessarily learn how to be happy.” That really resonated with me. I had finished my master’s and was planning to do a Ph.D. and I thought, let me actually go find a spiritual teacher in the community. 

So, I was on a search when I graduated. I traveled in India and lived in some ashrams. My friend had told me about Plum Village in France, so I went there for their summer retreat. As soon as I saw Thich Nhat Hanh come in the hall and begin to talk, I felt so deeply in my being that this is my teacher. I felt a lot of trust and faith in the community. In that one summer retreat, I cried every day, and I was happier than I’d ever been. I was learning to come close to my own suffering and not feel like I had to hide behind any mask. And I felt other people were vulnerable and authentic in that same way. 

I canceled the rest of my trip around Europe. I decided to stay there for another four months, and at the end of that time I thought, well, why don’t I do this all the time, this is so powerful and transformative for me. After a year of working and being with my family, I came back. I lived in Plum Village for a year, and then I was ordained. 

AG: A lot of the inspiration for the book came from your period of transition, from leaving your life as an ordained nun. Now looking back on that time, what did you learn from that experience? And how is it influencing the work that you’re doing right now? 

KJL: Leaving was the hardest thing I ever did in my whole life because I expected to stay a nun for my whole life. It was very unexpected and unwanted, this voice in me, saying, “I think there might be something else that I need to do.” It was a long four years of really listening and trying to understand what I really needed to do. The biggest lesson from that experience of disrobing was learning to trust not just my own heart that felt like it was calling me out of the monastery, but also to trust life.  

There were times when I just felt so lost and my life was coming apart. What I really learned in this huge transition was that you just need to be right where you are and take the step you’re taking. You don’t need to know anything beyond that. 

I learned, thanks to a lot of practice, all I needed to do was be right in the present moment. I could trust the present moment, and the present moment would take care of me. This profound trust started to emerge that my whole life could fall apart and I could be okay.  

AG: You share how the practices in the book helped you navigate your own transition as well as your work helping people navigate the climate crisis or times of political uncertainty. Can you share a little more about that? What can people gain from these practices?  

KJL: The Buddha says, “It’s our mind that creates this world.” When we talk about this polycrisis — political upheaval, white supremacy, patriarchy, or climate change, it’s important to know it really matters how we show up in our life and what we do with our thoughts and actions. 

There are two points I’ll emphasize here.  

One is to be really discerning about what we bring into our minds. Last week, I spent a lot of time following political news. It was important but I also really need to respect the right dosage for me. And to not go over that dosage, no matter what’s happening, because more information is not going to make me a more responsive or more effective person in the world. We need to keep our balance. So making sure we spend time outside, exercise, eat and spend time with our loved ones, and, you know, get off the phone, get off the Internet. Show up and really nourish each other.  

The other piece, I’ll just emphasize, is being in a healthy grounded community. This could be your activist community. This could be your spiritual community. This could be your family. This could be your chosen family of friends. Our connections with each other and with the natural world is a huge piece of being resilient to being able to meet the demands of our times.  

AG: I think people can feel frustrated when mindfulness or meditation is brought up because it can feel like a minimization of the role of systemic forces like white supremacy and capitalism. I’m curious how you help navigate that nuance to validate that perspective and the value of these practices?  

KJL: It is so important to navigate. It’s a very narrow passage, what you’re describing, where you’re claiming the power of the human mind, but not denying the power of systemic forces. These forces can make it really hard for us to get in touch with the power of our human mind. 

It takes a lot of energy to go against the stream, right? And the system knows that. If people can be forced to work three or four jobs, they’re not going to have any time or energy to protest or try to change things. This is the time, in human history, where we need as many people as possible to have as clear a mind as possible. Because there’s so much confusion, there’s so much dissonance. Even the heroes or the movements that we feel are speaking our language are filled with dissonance. 

We need to have conviction. We need to have faith in what we’re doing. We need to have confidence. But we also need to have humility.