Reverend angel Kyodo williams has spent decades bridging Zen practice and social change, and she doesn’t offer the version of spirituality where relief is waiting somewhere down the road. She told Tami Simon that our joy lives at the center of our suffering, and Tami, to her credit, pushed back. Really? Right in the middle of my deep suffering and the world’s deep suffering?
Reverend angel’s answer is why this segment felt so powerful and transformative to us. She argues we’ve been handed a spiritual life that lives in a box: well-maintained, kept in good order, scheduled for Tuesday evenings from 6:30 to 8:30. Real practice, she says, pulls the lens all the way back to take in a whole life: the trauma, the history, the parts we’ve been trained to walk around. And when we refuse to touch our own suffering, we don’t contain it. We leave it behind us like roadkill, in how we treat each other and in what we let stand: patriarchy, racism, xenophobia.
In this episode:
- Why “radical” means whole rather than extreme, and what a complete dharma asks of us
- The cold-water method—entering your suffering ankle-deep, then further
- What joy actually is, and why it isn’t an ice cream cone in the middle of the mess
- The question Reverend angel keeps returning to in her own practice: where have I not yet looked?
- Why fearlessness isn’t something you choose, but something that surfaces once the path is clear
Taken from the full Insights at the Edge conversation with Reverend angel Kyodo williams. Find the complete interview here: Reverend angel Kyodo williams: Warrior Spirit.
