By La Sarmiento — 2019
Creating spaces where the need to assimilate, conform, and belong are no longer important
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La Sarmiento has been a leader of American LGBTQ and people-of-color Buddhist communities for close to a decade. I caught up with the trans, queer Filipino teacher before a silent retreat to discuss the dynamics of race and gender in a world that is typically White, cisgender and straight.
She likes pink, will dance to Blurred Lines, occasionally fakes an orgasm… and worries that the sisterhood would not approve. America’s brightest new essayist talks about the dark side of her fierce, funny writing.
“Vulnerability is scary. I associate bravery with vulnerability because it takes bravery to be vulnerable,” the Brooklyn wellness expert says.
In 1989, at one of the first international Buddhist teacher meetings, Western teachers brought up the enormous problem of unworthiness and self-criticism, shame and self-hatred that frequently they arise in Western students’ practice.
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In order to flower, self-compassion depends on honest, direct contact with our own vulnerability. Compassion fully blossoms when we actively offer care to ourselves.