by Mekhi Abbott

The Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire once said that without conversation, there is no room for understanding. Yet for meaningful conversations to be had, people must be willing to show up and listen. 

That’s the concept behind a program at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County that gathers people to talk openly and honestly across the racial divide. Sponsored by a philanthropic foundation and supported through a higher-education nonprofit, it’s billed as a low-cost, engaging way to facilitate mutual understanding and advance progress. 

The program — healing circles, hosted at UMBC — aims to create inviting spaces that bring students, faculty, and members of the community together to talk about the different perspectives individuals have based on lived experiences. These lived experiences vary based off of bias, socioeconomic status, and cultural background, among other factors. 

At the most recent healing circles, however, the number of staff and faculty members has outnumbered students. It’s a challenge that Emily Sugrue, the organizer of UMBC’s healing circles, takes seriously.

“I do see that as a problem. Our hope is to get students trained as facilitators of these circles so that they can encourage their fellow students to attend,” she says. “Another goal of ours is to get community participation. Circles serve as open forums and we don’t just want UMBC folks but as people from the wider community in the greater Baltimore area.”

One way to meet that goal, she says, is to “simply cast a wider net and see who shows up.” 

The healing circles are evidence of UMBC’s participation in Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation Campus Centers, a network of facilitators and programs designed to help undo harmful stereotypes, rewrite damaging narratives, and train people to dismantle toxic racial hierarchies at the grassroots level. 

Sponsored in part by the American Association of Colleges & Universities, Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation Campus Centers host a broad range of programs, workshops, and healing circles. UMBC has been a member of the network since 2017.

Nusrat Tusi, a social media and public relations intern at UMBC, says Sugrue’s monthly healing circles create an environment “where the goal is to recognize shared values, establish common ground, and inspire collective action, promoting healing from racism’s impacts.”

As the vice president of UMBC Sisterhood: Women of Color Coalition, Tusi’s experience and background became an asset when she participated in a TRHT event titled “Amplifying Student Voices.” The event, she says, was particularly timely.

“Student leaders on campuses across the U.S. came together to discuss how college campuses can still uphold diversity, equity, and inclusion after the Supreme Court’s decision to reverse affirmative action,” Tusi says. During the forum she says she met several students involved with the Shriver Center, a hub for community engagement and social change.

“We discussed to a great extent how much the center plays a role in campus social justice and belonging,” she says, “because of the various student service learning that happens for students to see outside of themselves and be more connected to the larger community, creating a larger sense of belonging.”

The Shriver Center aims to get students and faculty to participate in community engagement in order to foster an environment to dismantle racism. 

Healing circles “provide safe spaces for students to connect on a personal level, share their experiences, and learn from one another,” Tusi says. “Student leadership forums [have] empowered students to find their voice and advocate for change.” 

A Safe Space for Sharing Lived Experiences

Healing circles are an environment for students and staff to come together and learn from one another. 

“We have had a number of circles so far this year,” Sugrue says. “It’s typically a group of six to 20 people who gather to talk about moments where they experienced a shift in the way they see the world — or see themselves — as it relates to some aspect of their identity. The idea is to uncover harmful narratives around race and around poverty.”  

Sugrue’s objective was to dismantle preconceived notions about the racial divide, using community and conversation to unpack prejudiced notions and stereotypical assumptions. 

“The biggest thing is getting participants to come to the realization that we have more in common than what separates us,” Sugrue says. “A good example is food stamps,” which is typically associated with people of color.

In reality, government food assistance “actually benefits more white people rather than people of color,” Sugrue says. The first step in racial healing, she adds, “is really just getting people to understand that when we fight amongst ourselves, we’re only hurting ourselves.”  

To get younger and broader community involvement, Sugrue is working to get the word out,  encouraging people with different interests, backgrounds, and knowledge bases to join in. 

“One model is to simply cast a wider net and see who shows up,” she says. 

By doing that, “we can hopefully build stronger relationships.” 

Another goal is building strong coalitions that can tackle some of these issues in more direct and concrete ways. “We need to get beyond simple conversations and start moving in the direction of policy change,” Sugrue says. 

My friend Sasha was banned for life from the Providence Place Mall when she was 20. She and her friends would sneak into movies at the mall’s theater through the maze of back hallways and tunnels. They climbed onto the mall’s roof. I imagine them like the subterranean ants in an ant farm: constantly scurrying, unseen and underfoot. 

The only thing deterring people from entering these halls was social convention. We live in a society. We don’t walk through doors with signs that say “authorized personnel only.” That is, unless you’re a young person with a palpable disregard for authority and the social conventions upon which our society is built. 

The day after Elon Musk suffered a beautifully humiliating political defeat, the news about his primary source of wealth is similar, and apparently Trump is beginning to understand that he’s a liability:

Deliveries of Elon Musk’s Tesla vehicles dropped about 13% compared to a year ago, according to a new release from the company. The decline comes amid criticism of Musk and increased competition.

On Wednesday, Tesla reported it produced over 362,000 vehicles and delivered over 336,000 in the first quarter of 2025. That performance marked a decline compared to the same period one year ago, when Tesla produced over 433,000 vehicles and delivered about 387,000.

Tesla stock fell nearly 3% in early trading on Wednesday following the news of the decline in deliveries. But the stock reversed those losses after reports that President Donald Trump told advisers that Musk may leave his White House role.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Tesla shares were up about 5%.

The company has faced fierce backlash — including violence and vandalism against its cars and dealerships– as Musk, the company’s CEO, works in Washington alongside Donald Trump to slash the federal government.

If I may be permitted to question the wisdom of the market that massively overvalued Tesla in the first place, even if Musk does actually leave his current job as CEO of the United States, I don’t think the damage with Tesla’s core customer base can be undone — the gutting of critical government functions has already been done, and will be using his social media site to remind people about his unpopular reactionary views while amplifying those of others. And certainly people involved in #TeslaTakedown shouldn’t back off:

Musk cannot take the heat. He has not just the taste and sensibilities of a boy, but the temperament of one. He throws a fit when things don’t go his way. He wilts. This is someone who can be beat. In another context you might call this terminal inability to take a punch a “glass jaw.” The term “keyboard warrior” comes to mind. But I can think of another word for something that’s so ostentatious and in-your-face except for when it needs to be—a symbol of decadence and insecurity and deregulation that boasts bulletproof toughness, but which breaks into pieces at the first sign of stress. 

Elon’s not unstoppable, Wisconsin voters showed on Tuesday. When the rubber hits the road, he’s nothing but a Cybertruck.

…LOL:

And in Wisconsin, they suffered a crushing defeat in a record-breakingly expensive Supreme Court race. After Musk’s money and personality dominated the contest, liberal Judge Susan Crawford secured a 9-point victory against Trump’s endorsed candidate, Brad Schimel.

“I’m honestly shocked. I thought we had it in the bag,” said Pam Van Handel, chair of the Republican Party of Wisconsin’s Outagamie County. “I thought [Musk] was going to be an asset for this race. People love Trump, but maybe they don’t love everybody he supports. Maybe I have blinders on.”

Maybe!

The post Rapid unscheduled disassembly appeared first on Lawyers, Guns & Money.

Try to imagine that foods are neither good nor bad. Carrot is as perfect as carrot cake. Gummy bear is no other than avocado, and broccoli is no other than Wonder Bread. It’s tricky to have that mindset, right? 

The Buddhist concept of nonduality teaches us that there’s no inherent separation between seeming dichotomies that shape our perception of reality, such as self and other, or mind and body. As meditation practitioners, we apply nondualistic thinking to complex subjects like strong emotions, identity, and thought itself. Yet many of us find it difficult to extend this contemplation to the food we eat. 

Part of the culture we live in—what folks in my field call the “diet culture”—tells us that there are good foods and bad. Good foods are low in calories and high in nutrients, while bad foods are the reverse. Eating good foods leads to well-being, fitness, thinness, and virtue, while bad foods portend ill health, weight gain, and poor quality of life. With those messages, why wouldn’t we think dualistically about how we feed ourselves?

“A nondualistic approach to food might allow us to discover the bliss of a Greek salad with French fries or to fully enjoy a movie with our favorite candy and popcorn without recrimination.”

Our dualistic thoughts about foods (and the behaviors that stem from them) reflect our hopes and fears. We wish for a long, happy life—to feel well, to look well, to belong, to be loved. We fear exclusion, pain, illness, disease, and death. We also may fear fatness, the experience of pleasure, and our own desires. Dualistic thinking might offer an illusion of safety, but it grossly oversimplifies the true nature of food. 

If you recall, there was a time when we demonized fat. In the eighties and nineties, we thought the fat in our food increased the fat on our bodies, so we removed the fat from dairy, snacks, and basically everything, and we placed a “health halo” on foods that were naturally low-fat or fat-free. What we didn’t realize was that removing the fat removed satisfaction, caused us to eat more to approximate satisfaction, and distorted our relationship with satiety and eating in general. Eating a very low-fat diet in many cases also caused spikes in blood glucose levels, increases in triglyceride levels, and changes in metabolism. 

We’ve since remembered that fat is necessary for the manufacture of sex hormones, the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins, the health of our cell walls, neurons, and blood vessels. Even body fat is essential for life: It cushions organs, insulates our bodies, and provides stores of energy for when we aren’t getting enough or when healing from injury, illness, or infection. Sure, a high level of saturated fat may contribute to heart disease for some people, and a high level of body fat may for some make daily life more challenging, but it’s important not to lose touch with nuance. This requires rejecting the black-and-white thinking of duality. 

Dualistic thinking about food doesn’t just affect the individual. One dangerous form of dualistic thinking about food is the suggestion that individuals are primarily responsible for their own health. That is, eating “good” foods makes you well, while eating “bad” foods makes you ill, so if some health condition should befall you, it’s likely due to a dietary misstep. This is a naive interpretation of reality. The fact is, genetics and social determinants of health, such as geographic location, race, class, and access to health care, social resources, and nutritious foods, determine a far greater proportion of health outcomes. This juxtaposition of individual responsibility versus systemic influence is an area of social justice health advocacy that relates strongly to Buddhist teachings on interdependence and a nonsiloed approach to physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. 

It’s worth highlighting that nutrition is not the only relevant aspect of food. Food is a way to connect, express ourselves, show love, celebrate our lineage, explore other cultures, and even soothe our aching hearts at times. Food must also be affordable, functional, realistic, and accessible. The illusory hierarchy that has been created by the diet culture misses this complexity. The diet culture has risen in influence (and profits) during the last five decades precisely because of our confusion about food and our bodies. This may be partially due to Judeo-Christian influences that tell us to mistrust the body (and pleasure) and turn our allegiance to certain people and organizations that supposedly know better than we do what is best for our own bodies.

What attracted me to Buddhism in my own recovery from alcoholism and disordered eating was the concept of buddhanature or basic goodness. The idea that my body was innately good and intelligent gave me the courage to shift my allegiance away from what I was taught about health, eating, weight, and goodness and toward what I felt in my own body—hunger, fullness, satisfaction, pain, bliss, dis-ease, contentment. I’ve since realized that this is the most central teaching in both eating and life. 

To start thinking about food nondualistically, acknowledge that all foods are just different combinations of protein, carbs, fat, fiber, water, and micronutrients. There are endless possibilities for these combinations that may have different consequences in different bodies at different points in time. 

Regarding all foods on an equal moral ground takes some of the charge out of eating. And by “charge” I mean guilt, shame, deprivation, superiority, and proselytizing. When you take good and bad out of the food equation, you might start to recognize how different foods work for you both while eating them and in the short- and long-term aftermath. 

Here’s an example from my own life: Cacio e pepe is a sumptuous dish of spaghetti, pecorino, and black pepper. There are those who say it’s a “bad” food—a heavy, high-fat, high-carb combination of dairy and gluten. Others would say it’s a “good” food—delicious, satisfying, and a way to experience Rome and its traditional foods. For me, it’s both and neither. I’ve tried it several times. Each time it has been delicious and has caused me severe stomach pain. At the most, I can enjoy one bite without hours of agony. This is not a good food I’m missing out on or a bad food that’s dangerous for any reason. It simply is what it is—in my personal body—and because of my relationship with it, I choose not to eat it. Taking a nondual approach to cacio e pepe has allowed my relationship with the food to become clear and undistorted. 

In looking at your relationship with food, start slowly. Notice how your thoughts and feelings about certain foods affect whether and how you eat them. Consider the following questions: 

• Are there foods you don’t enjoy that you eat because they’re considered “good”? 

• Are there foods you enjoy that you don’t eat because they’re considered “bad”?

• Does restricting certain foods ever lead you to eat them uncontrollably?

• Do you ever overeat foods you think of as “good” to make up for the satisfaction lost from restricted foods? 

• Do you judge people who eat certain ways, whether “healthfully” or “unhealthfully”? 

• How might your judgments of other eaters cause you to diminish their whole humanness?

• How might your judgments about yourself as an eater distort your relationship with food, body, and life in general?

Begin with a food you label as good, for example, some sort of vegetable. It’s low in calories, high in water and fiber, supports good glycemic control and bowel function, and is rich in vitamins and minerals that prevent deficiency and support well-being. However, many are expensive, inconsistently and inequitably available, spoil unpredictably, require preparation methods not known to all, and require proper refrigeration not everyone has. (One of my favorite memes of all time is “I forgot to buy spring mix, so I just threw three dollars in the trash.”)

Eventually you might work your way up to more challenging contemplations. Perhaps one of the most difficult is the current public enemy number one: ultraprocessed foods. On the one hand these are foods that are easy to disparage, and they’re often portrayed in ways that provoke fear and shame. However, it’s important to remember that processing also makes possible the fortification and enrichment of foods to increase vitamin and mineral content, the creation of many so-called “health foods” such as protein powders and meat alternatives, hospital tube feedings that keep patients alive, and foods that are treated to eliminate foodborne, illness-causing microbes to protect immunocompromised individuals. Processed foods are often inexpensive, calorically dense options that feed families on a budget, or convenience foods—frozen meals, salad kits, shelf-stable items—that save families time in a culture obsessed with productivity. Choosing not to eat processed foods is often an expression of unacknowledged privilege. 

I’m not suggesting that you eat a diet of processed foods, only that you consider the duality in your thinking about them and its ripple effect on your direct relationship with these foods and your opinions about the people who eat them. In practicing the dharma, we intentionally expand our perspectives and challenge fixed thoughts. If food happens to be a rigid area of thinking for you, you may wish to examine that. 

I personally have found that relating to food from a nondualistic standpoint has allowed me to discover what works for my body, what I enjoy, what nourishes me, and how those factors change over time. With some foods, less is more. Certain foods might form the foundation of a diet, while others are more occasional. 

A nondualistic approach to food might allow us to discover the bliss of a Greek salad with French fries or to fully enjoy a movie with our favorite candy and popcorn without recrimination. Perhaps most importantly, we might release the judgments about ourselves and others as eaters and acknowledge the ever-changing complexity in food.

The post Let Go of Harmful Ideas About Food appeared first on Lion’s Roar.

Jealousy can appear suddenly at the most unexpected moment, such as, for example, while you’re watching a show on Netflix. Even if you have no intention of becoming an actor, you might still feel jealous of a person you don’t even know because of their appearance or talents.

According to the Buddhist psychological explanation of how the mind functions, jealousy is an emotion rooted in attachment and ego-clinging. It arises when we feel threatened by the success, happiness, or possessions of others, often because we mistakenly believe that their gain diminishes our own. In other words, we mistakenly believe that happiness or achievements are limited resources.

“In the grip of attachment, we believe that others’ success detracts from our own.”

Jealousy arises when we compare ourselves to others, often leading to anger or resentment. In the famous verses of the Dhammapada, the Buddha talks about how harmful jealousy is to the mind and how beneficial it is to eliminate it: “If one is troubled by what others receive, their food and drink or other gifts, such a person, day or night, will never find a calm and focused mind. But those who have cut off envy, uprooted it and destroyed it completely, will find, both day and night, a calm and focused mind.”

So, how do we eliminate jealousy? Three practices that are particularly helpful are loving-kindness meditation, tonglen meditation, and recognizing impermanence and interdependence. 

Loving-Kindness Meditation

Loving-kindness (metta) is the sincere wish for others to be happy and always encounter the causes of happiness. Metta is also related to compassion, which is the aspiration for others to be free from suffering. Loving-kindness meditation involves wishing others happiness, including those we are jealous of. By recognizing their suffering and wishing for their happiness, we let go of our jealousy

To practice metta, start by thinking of yourself, and say silently or aloud, “May I have happiness.” Imagine yourself free of jealousy and with a harmonious, peaceful mind.

Next, think about the person toward whom you are experiencing jealousy, and imagine that this person receives exactly what they need to alleviate their suffering. Say silently or out loud, “May you have happiness.” Wish for this person to encounter the peace and joy that come from mental clarity. 

Finally, try to expand this wish. With loving-kindness, bring to mind all beings, and say silently or aloud, “May all beings have happiness.” For a few moments, rest in this experience of mental freedom.

Tonglen Meditation

We often think that focusing on ourselves will make us happy, but it doesn’t. As Shantideva, an eighth-century Buddhist monk, scholar, and poet, said: “All the suffering there is in this world arises from only wishing ourselves to be happy. All the happiness there is in this world arises from wishing others to be happy.”

Tonglen, which literally means “giving and taking,” is a practice that helps us let go of the human impulse to put ourselves first and, instead, focus more on the happiness of others. So, tonglen shifts our perspective and strengthens our positive connection to the world around us. By focusing on the well-being of others, we counteract our self-grasping and jealousy.

Here are some simple instructions for how you can practice tonglen: Take a moment to picture a black rock, representing your ego attachment, nestled at the center of your chest. Then, picture the suffering of others as a black cloud in front of you. As you breathe in, take in all their pain, suffering, and problems. When the black cloud touches the rock in your chest, it explodes, releasing a bright flash of light. As you breathe out, this light spreads and brings happiness, goodness, and abundance to every being. Repeat this visualization as many times as you’d like, at least three times.

Recognize Interdependence and Impermanence

Jealousy is driven by the three poisons of ignorance, attachment, and aversion. In the grip of attachment, we believe that others’ success detracts from our own. Attachment is a mental state that leads us to amplify the positive attributes of an object, person, place, or situation, creating a desire for it and leading to expectations. Attachment and anger are closely related; when we fail to fulfill our desires, our attachment often transforms into anger or aversion.

In ignorance, we can fall into jealousy because we overlook the transient and interconnected nature of existence and the fundamental goodness or buddhanature present in ourselves and others. In other words, jealousy arises from a fundamental misunderstanding of reality—from a misguided belief in a solid, permanent “self” that needs to protect its status or image. So, not understanding impermanence and interdependence, we are preoccupied with our sense of self-worth, and this leads us to engage in comparison and competition.

Here is a simple practice for recognizing the truth of impermanence and interdependence: When you feel jealous, take a break, sit down, and observe the thought, “I feel jealous.” Now, try breaking the thought into moments—shorter and shorter moments until you reach an indivisible moment, a point that can no longer be divided. In this moment, arising and ceasing happen simultaneously, showing that arising is ceasing, and ceasing is arising. Observe: What remains?

This practice helps us understand subtle impermanence, revealing that jealousy, as something seemingly solid, is a misconception. Here we find a gateway to realizing emptiness or interdependence, and the perfect antidote to see how jealousy has no real existence or power over us.  

By repeatedly cultivating this view, we find that jealousy reduces its intensity and frequency, leading to greater peace and harmony. Over time, jealousy can be transformed.

The post 3 Practices to Overcome Jealousy appeared first on Lion’s Roar.

By Lauren Burke

At a moment when the nation is looking to take the political temperature of a country rocked by rapid-fire decisions on the federal level, Louisiana residents overwhelmingly rejected four ballot initiatives put in front of voters on March 29. The moment was a defeat for Republican Governor Jeff Landry. Grassroots organizers in Louisiana running the Power Coalition for Equity and Justice, led by Gary Chambers and Ashley Shelton, led a series of town hall meetings from February 20 to March 11 to educate voters on the four initiatives and encourage them to “just say no” to all of them. Voters appeared to have listened. Close to two-thirds of voters in Louisiana rejected all the amendments. The moment takes place against the backdrop of raucous and packed town halls across the nation featuring citizens asking pointed questions about what they can do to protect democracy.

Amendment 1 in Louisiana would have allowed the Louisiana legislature to create trial courts with specialized jurisdiction and allowed the state Supreme Court to discipline out-of-state lawyers. The voters rejected the idea.

Amendment 2 would have changed Louisiana’s tax policy and cut funding for early childhood education, according to a flyer prepared by the Power Coalition for Equity and Justice. The voters rejected the idea.

Amendment 3, which was rejected by 66% of voters, would have made it easier to place children in adult jails and prisons and for longer sentences. National justice reform organizations including the Southern Poverty Law Center, spent over half a million dollars in opposition to Amendment 3.

Amendment 4, also rejected, would have allowed election dates for court vacancies to occur at the earliest date allowed by state law — which could be a date likely to result in a very low turnout.

The March 29 defeat of all four constitutional amendments in Louisiana is followed by other signs that voters may be registering discontent regarding GOP policy decisions more broadly. On March 25, Democrat James Andrew Malone won a special election in a Pennsylvania state Senate district President Trump won +15. On March 27, Trump pulled Rep. Elise Stefanik’s nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations because polls were showing the GOP was going to lose her NY seat to a Democrat. Another political test will emerge from Wisconsin on April 1. The results of a vote for a State Supreme Court race are widely being viewed as a referendum on President Trump.