Essays

As I have practiced, I have seen monumental and exponential change for me both immediately — and over time. One of the biggest shifts came last year when I took a deeper dive into the Fifth Mindfulness Training: Nourishment and Healing. I started looking at my consumption — yes, this meant what food I was taking into my body; how much I was drinking or smoking; but it also meant looking at what I was taking into my consciousness.

Brother Trời Bảo Tạng is able to strike a balance between strong advocacy and loving gentleness when talking about charged topics that have often been ignored in Buddhist communities. This nonviolent and mindful and often surprisingly joyful approach is how he has created an inclusive community for the Rainbow Family, queer members within Plum Village. He has facilitated open discussions about homophobia and made practical structural changes, like providing gender-neutral bathrooms at various practice centers.

My daily mindfulness practice looks like what you might expect when you hear the words daily mindfulness practice: I pray at my altar and then sit and meditate for 15 minutes. But through the years, I have tried a menu of different centering modalities. This has ranged from quirky to incredibly rich experiences.

What has struck me most about the film is its deeper explorations of female suffering. The journey of Stereotypical Barbie, played by Margot Robbie, is in many ways akin to the historical Buddha’s journey toward enlightenment. The movie starts with Barbie living in an almost picture-perfect Barbieland. Her morning routine is effortless. She has no cellulite. She is living in an abundance of pink. 

Growing up, I mostly saw Queer representation through gay men, which is fab, but I rarely saw stories of Queer women — much less Queer API women. I came into my Queerness later in life, and it makes me wonder — as a kid who bathed herself in pop culture — if I would have discovered myself earlier in life had there been more characters like Joy.

I chose my Vietnamese name. And, perhaps for the first time in my life, I felt the embodiment of its meaning: gold. I was no longer a watered-down version of myself, but instead a bright, soft, precious resource from and for the world.

I couldn’t help but notice the irony — how my shame of my own culture made me push it away, and now, here I was, sitting with the shame of my aversion. But as I looked around the movie theater filled with an audience of people from all backgrounds and all ages, practically yelling at the screen how awesome someone who looked like me was, it was a deeply needed moment of validation and empowerment, especially after feeling powerless in the last 18 months, amid the rising hate crimes against our community.

The toxic, poisonous power of racism is this: It is not enough to grieve for our community or to walk in our own neighborhoods constantly looking over our shoulders. Racism makes us prove our pain, scream it from the rooftops. Otherwise, it will be hidden in the shadows, intentionally and viciously ignored.

But the thing about silence is that it can be used against you. Events, experiences and people cease to exist. There is no changing of the narrative, no twisting of the truth, no alternative facts, because there is not even a story to begin with.