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Bio: Ørjan Bergan just completed writing his Master’s thesis at the Centre for Peace Studies (CPS) at the Arctic University of Tromsø (Norway). The title of the thesis is “Letting Go and Getting Closer: A Constructive Critical Study of the Experienced Application of Buddhist Understanding and Practice of Emptiness in Peace and Conflict Transformation Work.” Ørjan  is a trained Gestalt therapist at the Norwegian Gestalt Institute College (2016-2020), and has a clinical practice.  He plans to continue with the themes of his Master’s thesis in a PhD program.  During his studies, he worked for the Norwegian Gestalt Institute College (NGI) as a research assistant. Ørjan has practiced meditation within the Rinzai and Soto traditions since 2002, and as a former residential practitioner at the San Francisco Zen Center (2014–2015), and has also participated in numerous longer meditation retreats, as well as having taught and led meditation sessions on several occasions since this stay.  He has a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of Tromsø, a master's degree in sociology from the University of Chicago, and now a Master’s in peace and conflict studies from the Arctic University of Tromsø. LinkedIn page https://www.linkedin.com/in/oerjanbergan Email  [email protected]

Santiago was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia, and came to the United States in his teens with his mother and brother, first living in the Boston area and then moving to California. He became interested in Buddhism and served on the staff at Vajrapani Institute in Boulder Creek, and then was one of the stewards for a tour of Buddhist relics throughout Latin America in México, Trinidad & Tobago, Colombia, Uruguay, Chile and Argentina. For the last twelve years, he has been engaged in indigenous spiritual traditions, taking part in retreats and ceremonies guided by traditional wisdom keepers. He currently lives in the Bay Area and works as an engineering technologist and is teaching himself robotics to be implemented at his work in a Silicon Valley technology company.

sujatha baliga’s work is characterized by an equal dedication to crime survivors and people who’ve caused harm. A former victim advocate and public defender, baliga was awarded a Soros Justice Fellowship in 2008 which she used to launch a now nation-wide restorative youth diversion program. For her decades of work in conflict transformation and restorative justice, she was named a 2019 MacArthur Fellow. During her many years as the Director of the Restorative Justice Project, sujatha helped communities across the nation implement restorative justice alternatives to juvenile detention and zero-tolerance school discipline policies. Today, she's dedicated to using this approach to end child sexual abuse and intimate partner violence. sujatha is a frequent guest lecturer at universities and conferences; she speaks publicly and inside prisons about her own experiences as a survivor of child sexual abuse and her path to forgiveness. She is working on her first book, Angry Long Enough, to be published by One World/Penguin Random House in 2026. sujatha earned her A.B. from Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges, her J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, and has held two federal district court clerkships. Her personal and research interests include the forgiveness of seemingly unforgivable acts and Buddhist notions of conflict transformation. sujatha’s faith journey undergirds her justice work. A long-time Buddhist practitioner, she’s a lay member of the Gyuto Foundation, a Tibetan Buddhist Monastery in Richmond, CA, where she leads meditation on Monday nights. She makes her home in Berkeley, CA, with her partner of 28 years, Jason, and their 19-year-old child, Sathya. Links: sujatha’s website: https://www.sujathabaliga.com/ The upcoming Spiritual Fitness course: https://www.sujathabaliga.com/spiritual-fitness Interview with Ezra Klein in 2020: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1T4fC2pl0mCRPxIylK64an MacArthur Fellow information: https://www.macfound.org/fellows/class-of-2019/sujatha-baliga Gyuto Foundation: https://gyutofoundation.org/ Be Angry, by His Holiness the Dalai Lama

It’s Time to Talk About Peace with Rabbi Paula Marcus I met Rabbi Paula Marcus, senior rabbi of Temple Beth El in Aptos, CA, not long after returning to the Santa Cruz area in 2018. I was looking for ways to connect to interfaith social justice work in the area, and in every group I joined, Rabbi Paula was there! I remember our first meeting at an event organized by Partners in Caring, a project of the Hospice of Santa Cruz County to support faith leaders offering end-of-life care. It was like meeting an old friend, and I’ve treasured our connection and the meaningful interfaith events we’ve been part of together in the years since. In this conversation, Rabbi Paula speaks about her childhood and some important early influences in her life, her decision to move to Santa Cruz and become involved in the community here in various ways, and her lifelong commitment to social justice activism and its expression through music and creativity. We talk about our commitment to bridge building and peacemaking, even when progress is difficult to see, and what gives us hope to continue with this work. Rabbi Paula has been active for years (26 to be exact, as I learned during this conversation) in working for peace in Israel/Palestine. She has been leading pilgrimages in conjunction with a tour agency called MEJDI, (Arabic for “to honor”) and has been supporting the work of two peace activists, Palestinian Aziz Abu Sarah and Israeli Maoz Inon, who both lost family to the conflict. A book about their collaboration called The Future is Peace is forthcoming (see the links below for more information about Aziz and Maoz and peacebuilding organizations that Rabbi Paula is involved with). Rabbi Paula Marcus’s bio: Senior Rabbi Paula Marcus has served Temple Beth El since 1979, first as a teacher in the religious school and the preschool, then as a co-principal of the religious school, then as a congregational cantor, and as Rabbi beginning in May 2004, upon being ordained by the Academy for Jewish Religion in Los Angeles. She has apprenticed with cantors in the U.S. and Israel, and she received her BA in Judaic studies from SUNY at Binghamton. She also has a masters degree in Rabbinic studies from the Academy of Jewish Religion. Rabbi Marcus chairs the Ethics Committee of OHALAH-The Association of Rabbis for Jewish Renewal. She demonstrates her commitment to exploring spiituality and learning as rabbi, cantor, worship service leader, teacher, peacemaker and social justice activist. Please click here to read some of Rabbi Paula's sermons and writings. Links: Temple Beth El website:https://www.tbeaptos.org/clergy-and-staff.htmlRecent article by Rabbi Paula about her peace work:And links to some of the people and organizations mentioned in the podcast: Aziz Abu Sarah, who is Palestinian, is the co-owner of MEJDI, a tour company that hosts Rabbi Paula’s tours to Israel/Palestine. Aziz is also the co-director of InterAct.  He and Maoz Inon are the co-directors. And a forthcoming book by Aziz and Maoz: The Future is Peace: A Shared Journey Across the Holy Land by Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon“It’s Time”is a coalition of over 60 peacebuilding and shared society organizations, working together with determination and courage to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a political agreement that will ensure both peoples' right to self-determination and secure lives.The Parents Circle (people who have lost family members in the conflict)Combatants for PeaceStanding Together (they have chapters in the US and Europe)Introducing “Standing Together,” a new global youth anthem.  The Jerusalem Youth Chorus and Uniting Voices Chicago teamed up with the grassroots movement Standing Together to share our stories, our visions, and our determination to build a better future - together. Standing Together | The Jerusalem Youth Chorus x Uniting Voices Chicago

Andrew Purchin is a citizen artist whose practice is rooted in mixed media art, dance improvisation, film and psychotherapy. He graduated with a B.A in his own major, “The Arts and Social Action” from UC Santa Cruz in 1985 and a Masters Degree in Social Work from San Francisco State University in 1990.  With his Creative Listening Project, Purchin paints, listens and encourages creativity at sites where there can be grief, discord and celebration.  A  creative listening internet friendship led Purchin to travel Pakistan to create and exhibit  "Encounters on the Frontier” with artist Mohsin Shafi at the National College of Arts in Pakistan in 2014 and for Shafi to join Purchin to create and exhibit “Upsidedownland” at the Radius Gallery in Santa Cruz in 2015. Purchin collaborated with the public as they marked on The Curious Scroll at the Republican and Democratic National Conventions in 2016 and in Santa Cruz County before the 2018 election. Purchin received the 2020 Ron Kovic Peace Prize for his short documentary, The Curious Scroll.  Purchin is a 2022 recipient of a Santa Cruz City Arts Recovery and Design Grant for his social practice and documentary project about our housing crisis, “What’s Home? Creative Listening Across Differences.”  This project also garnered a grant from the Awesome Foundation of Santa Cruz in 2023.  Links to Andrew’s projects: https://www.andrewpurchin.com/ https://www.youtube.com/aPurchin https://www.instagram.com/apurchin/

Tenzin Chogkyi  (she/her/hers) is a teacher of workshops and programs that bridge the worlds of Buddhist thought, contemplative practice, mental and emotional cultivation, and the latest research in the field of positive psychology. Tenzin is especially interested in bringing the wisdom of Buddhism into modern culture and into alignment with modern cultural values such as racial and gender justice and environmental awareness. She feels strongly that a genuine and meaningful spiritual path includes not only personal transformation, but social and cultural transformation as well. She has been exploring the presentation of traditional teachings using modern pedagogical methods such as experiential exercises, dialogue and small group interaction. Tenzin is a certified teacher of Compassion Cultivation Training, a secular compassion training program developed at Stanford University. She also teaches the Cultivating Emotional Balance program, a secular program using contemplative techniques drawn from Buddhism for managing emotions, developed at His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s request.   Greg Morris (pronouns: any) is a student and practitioner of bhakti yoga and Advaita Vedanta, as well as a student and devotee of the Tao Te Ching and the four gospels of the New Testament. A lifelong peace advocate and bridge-builder with childhood grounding in Unitarianism, Greg offers their spiritual practice as the foundation of their work as a teacher, as a coach, and as a management consultant specializing in diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.  Greg is grateful to be the recipient and beneficiary of several healing modalities, most notably Rosen Method (Marion Rosen, Robert Harry Rovin), Transformational Bodywork (Stephen Allario, Fred Mitouer), Holistic Sexuality (Marina Romero), Interpersonal Dynamics (David Bradford), and psychotherapy. Greg is a certified teacher of Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT™), a secular program developed by Stanford University’s Department of Neurosurgery under the guidance of Geshe Thupten Jinpa and at the request of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. Mathew Divaris is a student of Buddhism who is deeply inspired by Tenzin's multidisciplinary approach of bringing the teachings to our troubled times in truly relevant, actionable ways.    When not helping out with the Unlocking True Happiness project, Mathew works as a marketing consultant.

Tenzin and Eden spoke of a number of different resources in this episode which are listed below: Eden's website: https://www.deborahedentull.com/And the video of her home after the hurricane: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jH32y0ooVYQ&ab_channel=DeborahEdenTullThe GoFundMe page to help her after the disaster:https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-eden-and-mark-rebuild-after-heleneThe Othering and Belonging Institute: https://belonging.berkeley.edu/

Back by popular demand, Deborah Eden Tull joins Tenzin for a timely conversation about how to hold space and stay present in deeply challenging times. Recorded at the beginning of the renewed conflict between Israel and Hamas, this episode shares deep insight on how we can navigate polarization and difficulty with compassion and engagement with our shared humanity.

We're often led to believe that our highly-structured, thinking-oriented sides are what make us human, that "hard work" is of value above all else, and that play is simply something that young children do. However, research shows that play has incredible power is developing social bonds, fostering creativity, sparking joy and even helping to make positive changes to our epigenetics. In this episode, Tenzin explores the many types of play, the positives benefits, and how we can bring a sense of play to our own spiritual practice to make it more joyful.

No matter how mindful we are of our thoughts, speech and actions, being human means that we can sometimes act unwisely or hurt someone's feelings. Whether these mistakes are unintentional or not, they can lead to rifts in our relationships; and ultimately damage both our own contentment, as well as the cohesion of our community. In this episode, Tenzin shares the power of apologizing as a roadmap for forgiveness, healing and reconciliation; and then leads a reflection on the impact of both giving and receiving a wholehearted apology.

Nina Simons is the co-founder and Chief Relationship Officer at Bioneers, and leads its Everywoman’s Leadership program. Bioneers is a nonprofit that uses media, convening, and connecting to lift up visionary and practical solutions for many of our most pressing social and ecological challenges, revealing aregenerative and equitable future that’s within our reach today.  Nina is a social entrepreneur who is passionate about reinventing leadership, restoring the feminine, andco-creating a healthy, peaceful,and equitable world for all.  She speaks and teaches internationally at schools, conferences, and festivals, and co-facilitates transformative workshops and retreats for women that share practices for regenerative leadership through reclaiming wholeness and relational mindfulness Her book Nature, Culture and the Sacred: A Woman Listens for Leadership offers inspiration for anyone who aspires to grow into or inhabit their own unique form of leadership with resilience and joy. The book draws on Simons’ own personal learning and extensive experience with women’s leadership development... to reconnect and defend people, nature and the land, both practically and spiritually.

Nina Simons is the co-founder and Chief Relationship Officer at Bioneers, and leads its Everywoman’s Leadership program. Bioneers is a nonprofit that uses media, convening, and connecting to lift up visionary and practical solutions for many of our most pressing social and ecological challenges, revealing aregenerative and equitable future that’s within our reach today.  Nina is a social entrepreneur who is passionate about reinventing leadership, restoring the feminine, andco-creating a healthy, peaceful,and equitable world for all.  She speaks and teaches internationally at schools, conferences, and festivals, and co-facilitates transformative workshops and retreats for women that share practices for regenerative leadership through reclaiming wholeness and relational mindfulness Her book Nature, Culture and the Sacred: A Woman Listens for Leadership offers inspiration for anyone who aspires to grow into or inhabit their own unique form of leadership with resilience and joy. The book draws on Simons’ own personal learning and extensive experience with women’s leadership development... to reconnect and defend people, nature and the land, both practically and spiritually.

In this episode, Tenzin explores the many gifts that gratitude can bring to our lives, helping to offset our natural negativity bias and bring more richness to our experiences and our relationships. She then shares some simple ideas on how we can cultivate our own practice of gratitude with an experiential meditation.

Luminous Darkness: An Engaged Buddhist Approach to Embracing the Unknown by Deborah Eden Tull is a resonant call to explore the darkness in life, in nature, and in consciousness—including difficult emotions like uncertainty, grief, fear, and xenophobia—through teachings, embodied meditations, and mindful inquiry that provide us with a powerful path to healing. Darkness is deeply misunderstood in today’s world; yet it offers powerful medicine, serenity, strength, healing, and regeneration. All insight, vision, creativity, and revelation arise from darkness. It is through learning to stay present and meet the dark with curiosity rather than judgment that we connect to an unwavering light within. Welcoming darkness with curiosity, rather than fear or judgment, enables us to access our innate capacity for compassion and collective healing. Dharma teacher, shamanic practitioner, and deep ecologist Deborah Eden Tull addresses the spiritual, ecological, psychological, and interpersonal ramifications of our bias towards light. Tull explores the medicine of darkness for personal and collective healing, through topics such as: • Befriending the Night: The Radiant Teachings of Darkness • Honoring Our Pain for Our World • Seeing in the Dark: The Quiet Power of Receptivity • Dreams, Possibility, and Moral Imagination • Releasing Fear—Embracing Emergence Tull shows us how the labeling of darkness as “negative” becomes a collective excuse to justify avoiding everything that makes us uncomfortable: racism, spiritual bypass, environmental destruction. We can only find the radical path to wholeness by learning to embrace the interplayof both darkness and light. About the Author Zen meditation and mindfulness teacher, author, activist, and sustainability educator. Eden teaches the integration of compassionate awareness into every aspect of our lives. She spent seven years training as a Buddhist monk at a silent Zen monastery and has been teaching dharma for 19 years. Eden has also been living in, and teaching about, sustainable communities for over 25 years. Her teaching style is grounded in compassionate awareness, experiential learning, inquiry, and an unwavering commitment to personal transformation. She teaches engaged awareness practice, which emphasizes the connection between personal awakening and global engagement. Eden draws upon teachings from the natural world and an embodied understanding of animism. She is author of “Relational Mindfulness: A Handbook for Deepening Our Connection with Our Self, Each Other, and Our Planet” (Wisdom 2018) and “The Natural Kitchen: Your Guide for the Sustainable Food Revolution.” Her work has been featured in The Los Angeles Times, Tricycle, Yogi Times, GOOP, Shambhala Times, and The Ecologist. She also teaches The Work That Reconnects, a program created by Buddhist scholar Joanna Macy, and teaches for UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center. Eden offers retreats, online courses, and consultations internationally. Readers can connect with Deborah Eden Tull on Facebook, Instagram, and Goodreads. To learn more, go to DeborahEdenTull.com.

Sara is a contributing author to the book The Neuroscience of Learning and Development: Enhancing Creativity, Compassion, Critical Thinking and Peace in Education, and writes for Deepak Chopra’s Center for Wellbeing website.   Sara’s new book, A Case for Compassion: What Happens When We Prioritize People and the Planet, is available now.