About
Kaira Jewel Lingo is a meditation teacher in the Meditation tradition.
Teaching focus
Kaira Jewel Lingo's teaching brings together the Plum Village school of engaged mindfulness, Insight Meditation, and contemplative work with grief and ancestral healing. From Plum Village she carries the practices of mindful breathing, walking meditation, deep relaxation, and the touchings of the earth, along with Thich Nhat Hanh's insistence that meditation is inseparable from how we treat each other and the planet. From the Insight world she's drawn metta and the four foundations of mindfulness as additional anchors. Her own contribution sits at the intersection of practice and social context, particularly around race, grief, and what she calls being made for these times, the recognition that the disruptions of the present aren't aberrations to wait out but the very ground of practice. She works carefully with the body, with breath, and with collective practices like guided walking and group inquiry. Talks often include poetry, storytelling, and reflections drawn from her years in monastic life and her years since. She's also a thoughtful teacher of metta and forgiveness practices, particularly for students working with intergenerational grief and trauma. Across her work runs a steady, unsentimental compassion and a willingness to hold both personal and political dimensions of suffering without flattening either.
Background
Kaira Jewel Lingo is a former nun in the Zen tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh and one of the most widely respected Black women teaching Buddhism in the English-speaking world today. She entered Plum Village monastic life in 1999, was ordained as a novice and then full nun by Thich Nhat Hanh, and lived in robes for fifteen years before stepping out of monastic life in 2015 to teach as a layperson. Since then she's emerged as a teacher whose work crosses Plum Village mindfulness, Insight Meditation, and the wider field of socially engaged dharma. She's the author of We Were Made for These Times: Ten Lessons for Moving Through Change Loss and Disruption and a co-editor of Healing Our Way Home: Black Buddhist Teachings on Ancestors Joy and Liberation. She teaches widely at retreat centers including Spirit Rock, Insight Meditation Society, and Plum Village, and her talks frequently address racial justice, ancestral healing, and the integration of contemplative and embodied practice. Her Dharma Seed archive holds dozens of recorded talks, and her own platform at kairajewel.com publishes additional retreats and online courses. She's a sought-after voice on grief, change, and what practice has to offer in conditions of social and ecological disruption. Students describe her teaching as warm, lyrical, and direct.
Lineage
Lingo was ordained as a nun in the Plum Village tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh in 1999, lived in monastic life for fifteen years, and disrobed in 2015. She's authorized to teach in the Plum Village lineage and also holds standing as a teacher in the Insight Meditation tradition through Spirit Rock and IMS. She studied with Larry Yang, Marlene Jones, and other senior Insight teachers in addition to her Plum Village training. She teaches as a layperson and publishes through her own platform, kairajewel.com.
What to expect
Retreats with Lingo tend to draw on both Plum Village and Insight forms. Expect mindful walking, slow communal meals taken in attention, sitting practice paired with deep relaxation lying down, and dharma talks that move between classical teachings and contemporary application. She often integrates writing, group sharing, and embodied practices like gentle movement. The atmosphere is warm and communal rather than austere, in keeping with Plum Village. Many of her retreats explicitly hold space for practitioners working with grief, racial trauma, or large-scale change, while remaining accessible to anyone drawn to her work.