Mixed Race Meditation Group: A Safe Space for Healing

Hapa Mag - SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

By Rebecca Lee Lerman

Adriana DiFazio and Kristina Garrity co-founded a Mixed Race Meditation Group. They meet the third Sunday of every month from 1-3 p.m. EST. I was lucky to be invited to their monthly sit and then speak to them afterward.

As soon as I was let into the Zoom room, I was overwhelmed by the diversity of faces. There was every single kind of mix you could think of (and not) in the room. It was heartwarming. I was awestruck by the beauty, and I couldn’t help but think I was staring at the future of America, where we all love, mix together, and become one.

We started by closing our eyes and breathing. Adriana and Kristina drew our attention to our feet, to ground ourselves. The meditation took us out of our heads and into our bodies. We focused on our hearts, where our guides reminded us, we want to speak from. From this heart-centered place, we were guided into smaller groups to express ourselves. 

We spoke about how we, as mixed-race people, feel during the time of Trump’s America; where hate crimes seem insurmountable. How do we fit into this equation? We were reminded that each story shared would not leave the room, so that everyone felt safe.

There were many varied thoughts, feelings, and experiences shared, but within it all there was a sense of commonality and familiarity. Each story gave us a sense that we aren’t alone in feeling like you have to suppress one part of yourself in order to belong in the fight for people of color, in experiencing the privilege of being white-passing, or struggling to embrace all parts of yourself when racism and microaggressions come from one side of the family. Not being alone gives us the courage to use our voice, and not stay silent, when we see injustices committed by family and friends, or out in the world. It encourages us to stay active; to vote, march, protest, petition, call, and continue to fight for equality and inclusion.

RL: I want to start at the very beginning and ask how you both got into meditation, how you got certified, and what sparked your interest and inspired you to become mediation guides and instructors?

ADF: When I was a sophomore at Barnard College, I was struggling with life, as many 19 to quarter age people do. I picked up a book on Buddhism and meditation, found a lot of relief in the practice, and felt really inspired to continue practicing and studying. Tina (Kristina) had already been practicing in the Shambhala Buddhist tradition, so we started going to the Shambhala Center in Chelsea. I did my meditation teacher training in 2016, then formally decided to give instruction as my full-time work in 2018.

KG: I’m technically not a meditation instructor, but Adriana and I started going to Shambhala around the same time. I’ve kind of traveled through the woods, gotten distracted, slept with a lot of different religious affiliations, and somehow come back. Adriana and I have known each other since college, and we’ve been side by side, walking along this path together in very different ways.

What are you going to do in September, Adriana? You have to include that part too.

ADF: I’m going to Union Theological Seminary to get a Masters of Divinity in Buddhism and Interreligious Engagement.

Wow, congrats! Are you actually going in person, or will it have to be online?

ADF: It’s gonna be online, but that’s OK, given the circumstances of the world.

Do you feel that being a mixed-race person has enhanced your awareness and your meditation instruction? Does being mixed-race affect your meditation?

KG: Over the years, Adriana and I have had a number of conversations about having Southeast Asian moms. Then I think, given the recent climate, Adriana’s spent a lot of time in Buddhist BIPOC spaces. She recognized the experiences that we would kind of joke about over the years and how they deserved a safe space for unpacking, discussion, and healing.

ADF: I think a lot of Buddhist philosophy deals with relative and absolute truth. In a culture where things grow more binary every day, the mixed-race experience is really important in the sense that it brings about nuance that is needed in difficult conversations.

KG: I really like the idea of nuance. I know that, at least in Shambhala, there’s this notion of a cocoon and the idea that you have stories you’re constantly weaving around yourself. I think that operates at a collective level as well. As a mixed-race person, you have the opportunity to cut through that cocoon, by seeing that the story society tells about how people should be organized or identified has gaps in it. So, one thing that you do when you meditate, you’re looking for gaps. You’re looking for moments when you can shortly be suspended in a space outside of the cocoon. As a mixed-race person… you’re hanging out in the space.

The next thing I’ll say is that in the Shambhala curriculum you have five levels, and the second level is all about touching and getting into your cocoon. As a mixed-race person, you develop a certain kind of sensitivity to situations. One of the lines that really stuck with me in level two is, you’re learning to touch your emotions. Being mixed-race, you’re hanging out in space, but you’re also constantly jumping from one world to another, so you develop that sort of awareness of emotion you're touching all the time, which aligns with a lot of what you learn through the Buddhist path.

ADF: In context of these discussions, meditation is important because we’re developing and cultivating confidence in our inherent worthiness, our inherent goodness, our “enoughness.” It requires sitting with ourselves and familiarizing ourselves with all the emotions and feelings that Tina just mentioned.

KG: I also like when you talked about unconditional friendliness. I think that attitude is important in anti-racist work because it’s about an unconditional acceptance of whatever comes up.

What is your favorite mantra for healing?

KG: I’ve been really big on imagination. I was thinking about it this morning, and I don’t love the framework of fighting. I can see why fighting is important, but I feel like so many of the things we fight against are a lack of imagination. Yes, there is a need for agitation, organizing, and fighting, but the real task is re-imagination. I think the process of inventing is really uplifting and very energizing. So, I think imagination is my mantra. When in doubt, imagine.

ADF: For me, it’s been honoring where I’m at and honoring my pain, even if it doesn’t make sense, even if I don’t feel like I’m justified in feeling hurt. The words that come to mind are honor and reverence.

Can you speak a little bit more about how you’re trying to dismantle white supremacy as a mixed-race person and how you engage in conversation with your family and community?

KG: Sure, that’s a great question. A lot of it is making my way around the question of how can you be close to the white people in your life without being complicit in whiteness? Honestly, a lot of it is deliberately creating a community where I’m around more people that look like me and have the experiences that I have.

ADF: I can echo that, creating community. I think that’s what this group was born out of. I feel like there are so many Hapas on the West Coast, and in California. I grew up in a town where there was only one other Filipino family. Obviously there are an abundance of Asians and mixed-race people in New York, but Tina was one of about 10 mixed-race people I knew of.

KG: ...and even Southeast Asians on the East Coast, I don’t know a single other half-Indonesian person living in NYC. I know it would be different if I was in California.

ADF: I think for the second part of your question, there are two parts to the same coin. One, pushing my boundaries of where I’m complicit and comfortable in not challenging people or difficult topics. Two, also knowing where the line of personal mental and emotional safety is. If a conversation doesn’t feel OK in the moment, if you feel like it could possibly be harmful to be a part of, that’s all right. You can bow out. 

I have a lot of old classmates and family members that post racist things on Facebook. I started commenting. Obviously Facebook is not the most beneficial platform to have these conversations, but I’m grappling with where I feel comfortable extending myself.

How did you come up with the format for these meditations with the Zoom breakout discussions

ADF: A lot of BIPOC meditation groups have some sort of format where either before or after introductions there’s an opportunity to sit. The reason why meditations are always at the start of these sessions is to give people the opportunity to land, especially for this type of meeting where we’re talking about race and our identities. There’s a lot of energy and nerves. We meditate and sit together so we can allow ourselves to speak and listen from the heart and our own body’s sense of wisdom. Not to say that we can’t do that automatically, but it cultivates that sense a little bit further before we jump into discussion.

I love the way you grounded all of us. We were able to speak from our breath, our bodies, and a sense of groundedness, which I really appreciated. Is there anything else you’d like people to know about this group, in case someone is a little scared or nervous about joining? What do you say to people who are hesitant to come in?

KG: The first thing I’ll say is that meditation won’t kill you. Worst comes to worst, you’ll be annoyed for 20 minutes. The second is that I’m very interested in Pathwork and Core Energetics, and group work is a big thing in those sorts of paths. You can move a lot of energy just by listening, so don’t feel like you’re signing up to bare your soul. A lot of it may be listening for the first couple meetings, if that’s what feels safe. The priority of the space is that people feel safe before anything else.

ADF: I don’t know what I would say to those people because if you’re not ready and don’t feel comfortable, that’s totally cool. I feel like a lot of people who have been joining the last few weeks really have a fire burning in them. There’s an unloading. Years of emotions and thoughts I hadn’t verbalized before were coming up. I would say you owe yourself a community of other mixed people and the opportunity to be seen and heard fully in your racial identity, however complex that may be.

In a time when we feel distant, detached, and hopeless, amidst COVID-19, Black Lives Matter and We Are Not a Virus, this space was a shining light full of people uniting. I felt seen and heard without judgement, and that’s when the healing begins. These are the types of places you can go to heal yourself in order to go out and better heal the world. 

Find out more about Adriana and Kristina’s Mixed Race Meditation Group HERE.