Sounds of SAND

• #127 Buddhism Beyond the Cushion: Duncan Ryuken Williams & Funie Hsu/Chhî

  This episode is a live recording from a recent SAND Community Gathering (April 2025) facilitated by Jungwon Kim. Join Buddhist scholars and activists Rev. Duncan Ryūken Williams, Ph.D. and Funie Hsu/Chhî, Ph.D. for an illuminating dialogue exploring the intersection of Buddhist practice and social transformation. This conversation weaves together Buddhism, remembrance, healing, and liberation, examining how the dharma offers both a path to personal awakening and Social-Spiritual Liberation. Our guests shared how Buddhist teachings help transform grief into connection, particularly in response to racially motivated violence against Asian American communities. The conversation challenged conventional Western Buddhist approaches to Secularization and Individual Awakening. Duncan Ryuken Williams is a Professor of Religion and the Director of the Shinso Ito Center for Japanese Religions and Culture at the University of Southern California; previously, Chairman of Japanese Buddhism at UC Berkeley, Director of Berkeley’s Center for Japanese Studies, and Buddhist chaplain at Harvard University where he received his Ph.D. An ordained priest since 1993 in the Soto Zen tradition, he received Dharma transmission in 2024 at Kotakuji Temple, Japan. His latest book, American Sutra: A Story of Faith and Freedom in the Second World War, an LA Times bestseller, won the 2022 Grawemeyer Religion Award. He also wrote The Other Side of Zen . Funie Hsu/Chhî, Ph.D. is a transdisciplinary scholar from a working class, Taiwanese-American family, raised in a Taiwanese Humanistic Buddhist tradition. Her work melds American, Asian-American, Buddhist, and Taiwan Studies. Currently Associate Professor of American Studies at San Jose State University, she received a Ph.D. in Education with an emphasis in Women, Gender, and Sexuality from UC Berkeley. Aspects of her work explore issues of language, education and colonialism. She is a co-organizer of May We Gather, a national Buddhist memorial ceremony for Asian American ancestors and a former Board Member of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship where she advocated for the recognition of Asian American heritage Buddhist communities in the organization and beyond. Jungwon Kim is an award-winning writer and cultural worker. She is also a communications leader, organizational strategy consultant, and journalist who has dedicated her professional life to human rights and environmental advocacy. As Head of Creative & Editorial at the Rainforest Alliance, she directed a multimedia team of writers, videographers, and graphic designers. Earlier in her career, she served as the editor of Amnesty International USA’s human rights quarterly that featured the work of award-winning journalists and documentary photographers (circulation 300,000). She began her storytelling career as a newspaper reporter, magazine editor, and on-air correspondent for nationally syndicated public radio programs. Topics 00:00 Introduction and Welcome 00:41 Introducing the Conversation Topic 01:36 Meet Jungwon Kim 03:20 Introducing the Guests: Funie Hsu/Chhî, and Duncan Ryuken Williams 06:30 Funie Hsu/Chhî’s Path to Buddhism 10:19 Duncan Ryuken Williams' Path to Buddhism 13:02 Buddhism as a Cultural Ecosystem 22:16 May We Gather: A Collective Healing Initiative 32:42 Decolonizing Buddhist Practice 37:07 Lessons from Japanese American Buddhists 44:48 Bridging the Gap in American Buddhism 58:02 Concluding Thoughts and Reflections Support the mission of SAND and the production of this podcast by becoming a SAND Member

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• #126 Decolonial Wellness: Elizabeth Philipose

  Elizabeth Philipose, PhD has a lifelong passion for transformational arts and the expansion of consciousness. She has pursued this as an academic studying the causes and consequences of violence. Her focus is on healing relations between masculine and feminine, humans and nature, races, and nations. As a spiritual guide, she offers programs in decolonial wellness, spiritual principle, embodiment, meditation, and prayer. Elizabeth has been on her own journey to heal gender/racial traumas, old church wounds, and ancestral grief. She teaches from the experiential insights of this journey and the wisdom of her visionary teachers. Links Upcoming workshop with Elizabeth Philipose Instagram Linked In Academic.edu Topics 00:00 Introduction01:05 Understanding Decolonial Wellness02:32 Impact of Colonialism on Personal Wellness04:41 Embodiment and Structural Analysis07:37 Holistic Approach to Wellness14:27 Spirituality and Social Justice19:11 Challenges in Spiritual and Social Justice Communities32:39 Practical Applications and Offerings39:59 Conclusion and Upcoming Events Support the mission of SAND and the production of this podcast by becoming a SAND Member

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• #6 New Gods at the End of the World: Bayo Akomolafe & Sophie Strand (Encore)

  Today, we present a wild and flowering conversation between two poets, writers, philosophers, and theobiologians Bayo Akomalofe and Sophie Strand. This conversation is from a 2022 SAND Community Gathering. To hear the full conversation with Q&A from the live webinar you can view it here (with SAND Membership). In Greek Mythology, the Titan Kronos eats an indigestible stone and vomits up the new Olympic pantheon of gods. In our current time, people planted in stratigraphic layers of shared trauma find themselves uniquely ill – physically and mentally. We are unable to digest food and unable to digest violence. What if indigestion – practical and mythical – was a sign that a new world was threatening to be born? The very basis of our nucleated cells is an ancient botched bacterial cannibalism. What if our inability to digest certain injustices was an invitation to vomit up a new pantheon? And in an age when we are all threaded through with microplastics and blood pressure stabilizers, what does it mean to start to physically grow into new shapes around incursions we cannot properly assimilate or expel? Bayo Akomolafe (Ph.D.), rooted with the Yoruba people in a more-than-human world, is the father to Alethea and Kyah, the grateful life-partner to Ije, son and brother. A widely celebrated international speaker, posthumanist thinker, poet, teacher, public intellectual, essayist, and author of two books, These Wilds Beyond our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity’s Search for Home (North Atlantic Books) and We Will Tell our Own Story: The Lions of Africa Speak, Bayo Akomolafe is the Founder of The Emergence Network and host of the online postactivist course, ‘We Will Dance with Mountains’. He currently lectures at Pacifica Graduate Institute, California and University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont. He sits on the Board of many organizations including Science and Non-Duality (US) and Ancient Futures (Australia). In July 2022, Dr. Akomolafe was appointed the inaugural Global Senior Fellow of University of California’s (Berkeley) Othering and Belonging Institute. He has also been appointed Senior Fellow for The New Institute in Hamburg, Germany. He is the recipient of the New Thought Leadership Award 2021 and the Excellence in Ethnocultural Psychotherapy Award by the African Mental Health Summit 2022. Sophie Strand is a writer based in the Hudson Valley who focuses on the intersection of spirituality, storytelling, and ecology. Yet it would probably be more authentic to call her a neo-troubadour animist with a propensity to spin yarns that inevitably turn into love stories. Give her a salamander and a stone and she’ll write you a love story. Sophie was raised by house cats, puff balls, possums, raccoons, and an opinionated, crippled goose. She believes strongly that all thinking happens interstitially – between beings, ideas, differences, mythical gradients. She is the author of The Flowering Wand: Rewilding the Sacred Masculine and The Madonna Secret. She is also finishing a collection of essays about navigating an incurable genetic disease and early trauma through ecological storytelling. You can subscribe to her newsletter at sophiestrand.substack.com, and follow her work on Instagram: @cosmogyny and at www.sophiestrand.com. Topics 00:00 Introduction and Welcome 01:35 Introducing Dr. Bayo Akomolafe 04:11 Introducing Sophie Strand 06:35 Starting the Conversation: New Gods in Challenging Times 13:54 Exploring Mispronunciation and Evolution 27:27 Animist Perspectives on Trauma 28:17 Healing in Yoruba Culture 30:29 Bioelectric Signals and Embryogenesis 35:40 The Role of Trickster Gods 38:26 Invasive Species and Ecosystem Dynamics 47:25 Disability as an Invitation to Community 55:32 Concluding Thoughts on New Gods Support the mission of SAND and the production of this podcast by becoming a SAND Member

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• #125 Building Bridges: john a. powell

  From a recent SAND Community Gathering (March 2025) At a time when our world can feel increasingly divided, and many are retreating into isolation, civil rights scholar john a. powell offers a transformative approach to building connections across differences. Drawing from his groundbreaking work with the Othering & Belonging Institute and his own journey, john shows how to stop perceiving differences as threats and instead use them as opportunities for deeper understanding and collective growth. Through rich personal stories and documented study, he explains how bridging practices can help us heal ruptures in our families, workplaces, and communities. This conversation explores practical ways to overcome the ‘us versus them’ mindset that dominates our current discourse and create a world where everyone truly belongs. Whether we’re struggling with political divides, generational gaps, or cultural differences, powell’s insights offer concrete tools for building meaningful connections in an age of separation. john a. powell is a renowned scholar and advocate in civil rights, structural racism, constitutional law, housing, and belonging. As Director of the Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley, he holds the Robert D. Haas Chancellor’s Chair in Equity and Inclusion and is a Professor of Law, Ethnic Studies, and African American Studies. johnapowell.org The Power of Bridging: How To Build A World Where We All Belong by john a. powell Topics 00:00 Introduction 00:41 Meeting john a. powell 02:24 john's Early Life and Spiritual Journey 08:02 The Concept of Belonging and Breaking 17:48 Navigating Fear and Anxiety in Activism 27:44 The Concept of Belonging vs. Inclusion 29:52 Personal Stories of Pain and Resilience 33:59 The Danger of a Single Story 39:24 Bridging Divides in the Middle East 43:44 The Power of Recognition and DignitySupport the mission of SAND and the production of this podcast by becoming a SAND Member

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• #124 War’s Long Shadow: Jungwon Kim & Linda Thai

  From a recent SAND Community Gathering (March 2025) Join mental health clinician Linda Thai and writer Jungwon Kim for an in-depth conversation on intergenerational trauma, historical grief, and healing in community. Together, they explored psychological, spiritual, and communal reverberations of historical violence, framed within the context of U.S. wars in Korea and Vietnam, yet deeply relevant to other conflicts, past and present. They shared their experiences and observations of the complex dynamics of remembering and forgetting—and how they play out across families and communities fragmented by political and militarized violence. Further, they explore modes of restoration that are often overlooked by Western therapeutic approaches: somatic and communal transmutation, cultural ritual, and narrative justice. The pathways they shared honor the deep connections between personal, historical, and communal dimensions of trauma. A vital conversation for anyone seeking to understand how the profound wisdom held within cultural memory can contribute to intergenerational healing. Jungwon Kim is an award-winning writer and cultural worker. She is also a communications leader, organizational strategy consultant, and journalist who has dedicated her professional life to human rights and environmental advocacy. As Head of Creative & Editorial at the Rainforest Alliance, she directed a multimedia team of writers, videographers, and graphic designers. Earlier in her career, she served as the editor of Amnesty International USA’s human rights quarterly that featured the work of award-winning journalists and documentary photographers (circulation 300,000). She began her storytelling career as a newspaper reporter, magazine editor, and on-air correspondent for nationally syndicated public radio programs. Linda Thai, LMSW ERYT-200 is a trauma therapist and educator who specializes in brain and body-based modalities for addressing complex developmental trauma. Linda has worked with thousands of people from all over the world to promote mindfulness, recover from trauma, and tend to grief as a means of self care. Linda’s work centers on healing with a special focus on the experiences of adult children of refugees and immigrants. Her teaching is infused with empathy, storytelling, humor, research, practical tools, applied knowledge, and experiential wisdom. She has assisted internationally renowned psychiatrist and trauma expert, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, with his private small group psychotherapy workshops aimed at healing attachment trauma. She has a Master of Social Work with an emphasis on the neurobiology of attachment and trauma. Topics 00:00 Introduction and Welcome 00:38 Setting the Context: War and Generational Trauma 01:18 Introducing the Guests: Linda Thai and Jungwon Kim 02:17 Linda Thai's Story: A Journey of Healing 06:48 Jungwon Kim's Story: Bridging Generations 11:12 The Impact of War on Generations 13:08 Collective Trauma and Healing 29:39 Ritualizing Healing: The Concept of Han 34:41 The Role of Community in Healing 49:03 Conclusion and Future Conversations Resources Minds Under Seige (A SAND talk with Dr. Gabor Maté and Naomi Klein, facilitated by Cecilie Surasky). Podcast of this conversation. “Violent experiences alter the genome in ways that persist for generations” (Yale News) Han (Korean: 한), or haan, is a concept of an emotion, variously described as some form of grief or resentment, among others, that is said to be an essential element of Korean identity by some, and a modern post-colonial identity by others. – Support the mission of SAND and the production of this podcast by becoming a SAND Member

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