Prepared Remarks for Panel at Shantideva, Castro Valley on Saturday, August 16, 2025
I grew up learning to fight to be right because I perceived that being right meant more love and attention from my parents. I grew up learning to criticize and fix things in my external environment because I did not know how to find comfort and safety in my own body.
As an adult, the seeds in my store consciousness from childhood arise in moments of anger, sadness, terror, overwhelm. I can instigate fights with people I love and can allow my emotions to drive reactions that can cause harm to myself and to others. And over time those harms, when unaddressed, become fault lines, deep wounds, that can contribute to cycles of violence.
A few days ago, I was sitting down for dinner with a bowl of curry udon when my partner Ryan remarked, “That’s a big bowl of food you have.” My mind immediately jumped to, you’re greedy. You’re taking more food than you need. What’s wrong with you? An innocuous comment running through fault lines created in years past, caused tension and anguish in my body.
The first step in caring for myself and my partner would be to recognize the pain and to be present with it, this immense grief that emerged unexpectedly over dinner. Unfortunately, that’s not what I did. I lashed out at my partner in response - I told him he was being rude and asked him to promise not to comment about my food again. I tried to control the situation and blame Ryan rather than feeling my own pain. And this control and blame over time can create a lack of safety at home.
While this is a small example, it touches on a deep wound in me and the criticality of repair. The tenderness and vulnerability of that repair, the bravery and the integrity of it. To turn towards myself and recognize that I have caused harm, not in a way that shames or isolates, but in a way that is kind, compassionate, and honest. In a way that allows space for healing – that honors the grief and shame I’ve felt over my body and acknowledges that I do not want to cast this shame onto anyone else.
While I don’t have time now to talk about all the facets of repair in detail, I will say that it requires incredible honesty and courage to see oneself as we are. To recognize that we are beings that do so much good and still we can say and do things that create more suffering in the world.
What is possible when we are able to accept our own suffering without acting from it? What I’ve found is the possibility of healing generational trauma - the anger and control I learned in childhood transform over time into softening, opening, true letting go. And this care for self and loved ones ripples out into the world.
When I recognize that I am capable of causing harm, I see that the same is true of every other person. And because I know and can hold my own suffering with compassion, even when I may act in ways that hurt others, I can also develop compassion for others who cause harm because I know that they too are suffering. At the same time, generating compassion for people actively causing harm must come in parallel with efforts to stop the harm, and to protect the people at risk of violence. There can be no repair until active harm is stopped and those causing harm can acknowledge the violence and begin the act of repair. This acknowledgment and repair must also happen at a societal level for collective healing to be possible.
