I am so thrilled to be writing in celebration of AAPI Heritage Month, which celebrates Americans who have ancestry in Asia or the Pacific Islands. I’m thrilled because this is especially personal to me and my family, who immigrated from India in 1996. Yet, beyond the personal, it is also critically (and globally) important.
Diversity and History of AAPI People
AAPI people worldwide make up more than half of humanity (4.75 billion people). We are an incredibly diverse group of humans that range the spectrums of color, beliefs, and cultures. “Asia & the Pacific Islands” is a tremendously broad swath: as far north as Russia, as far south as Indonesia, as far east as Japan, and as far west as Turkey. Half of humanity. And so within this, we see tremendous diversity… but we’ll get to that.
First, I want to ask: what unites AAPI people?
Unfortunately, a part of our shared experience is that of oppression, exclusion, violence, colonization, and scapegoating for no other reason than our human beingness. We see this in the ways that the dominant castes respond to every part of us: our bodies, skin color, facial features, beliefs, ways of adorning our bodies… in short, every way of being.
There is no shortage of ways that this has played out historically and even today. As a short and incomplete list of examples, we can look at:
- Asiatic exclusion zones that excluded immigration from across Asia due to our alleged “racial inferiority”
- Chinese exclusion, the first significant act restricting immigration into the U.S. was aimed at Chinese people
- Japanese American concentration camps
- Overthrow of Hawaiian Kingdom
- Plunder and Pillage of the Philippines, Guam, and Samoa through colonization
- And the Anti-AAPI hate spreading throughout our communities today
Additionally, all American wars since World War II have taken place in Asia: Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
Instead of writing about all of the ways we have been excluded and marginalized, this AAPI Heritage Month, I want to elevate the ways AAPI peoples and cultures have offered HEALING to Americans and our global consciousness.
Traditions of Healing
Many of you know that I began the work of breaking bias with my quest to overcome anxiety, depression, self-loathing, and internalized biases, much of it due to the stories I had started believing about myself due to my AAPI identities. And, as I began my healing journey, I discovered ancient traditions, techniques, and modalities - all preserved by AAPI cultures for millennia - that literally re-aligned my body, mind, heart, and spirit with healing, wholeness, and peace. These healing practices are what undergird my passion, fuel, and fire for breaking bias, in designing the BE MORE Journey and our PRISM Toolkit.
This AAPI month, I want to share some of these techniques with you, while honoring the humans who imagined, discovered, and stewarded these modalities for millennia. I am writing below the 10 ways AAPI cultures have enriched my life. I learned each one of these modalities as an American, and from other Americans of all colors, which shows how our AAPI cultures, despite the hatred, continue to cross the shores to plant seeds of understanding, compassion, and healing.
1. Building Intimacy With The Body & Breath (India/South Asia)
Until my first yoga asana class in 2009 with Sarah Platt Finger at ISHTA yoga, I literally walked around the world in my head, unaware of my body and breath. The Indian tradition of yoga helped me embody and feel what is known as the first foundation of mindfulness, our body! We as humans have a body and the third and forth limbs of yoga – asana (postures) and pranayama (breathwork) – helped bring my consciousness to the entirety of my body, not just my head. There is a reason why at least 300 million people globally and over 36 million Americans practice yoga asanas today! Learn more about eight limbs of yoga and the first foundation of mindfulness.
2. Releasing Trauma Stored in the Body (Korea)
Bassel van der Kolk popularized globally what many AAPI people have known for millennia: The Body Keeps the Score, especially of trauma, including all forms of racialized and other identity-based traumas. I was first introduced to the modality of the somatic experience of racism by my AAPI teachers and friends Tommy Lee Woon and Thea Lee at the 2012 Facing Race conference. Thankfully, Resmaa Menakam has deepened this work with his VIMBASI method and Somatic Abolitionism. For me, somatic experience became a practice of releasing and not just analyzing trauma through the Korean Taoist and Sundo practices of tapping. popularized by Illchi Lee of Brain & Body Yoga. Learn more about tapping and Sundo.
3. Feeling the Wonders of Energy (Taiwan/China)
After my second year in law school, I took on Buddhist monastic robes with other Americans like Dr. Justin Whittaker for a summer to learn more about how ancient people discovered the science of the mind. Being coddled with nuns under the leadership of Ven. Yifa at Fo Guang Shan monastary, I discovered and felt what I took for granted all of my life: energy! Known as Qi or Ki, I practiced Qi Gong and Tai Chi for hours and appreciate the incredible power of our bodies to move energy around and heal itself. Learn more about Tai Chi and the Woodenfish Program.
4. Transforming the Heart with Loving-Kindness (Myanmar/Sri Lanka/Thailand/Cambodia/Laos)
Lovingkindness is rooted in Theravada Buddhist traditions, and globalized by teachers like Sharon Salzberg and Joseph Goldstein who first learned it from their Burmese teachers and founded Insight Meditation Society. Since first learning it over a decade ago, I have practiced it every single day. I cannot exaggerate its transformative power when conducted with true sincerity and humility. This tool has become the root of Stanford’s Compassion CCARE Institute as well as the many scientists (including yours truly) affiliated with the Mind & Life Institute. Incidentally, CCARE is directed by a Professor of Neuroscience at Stanford… in case you needed additional convincing of the connection between body and brain! Learn more about loving-kindness.
5. Embracing Interbeingness with the Zen Mind (Vietnam/Korea/Japan)
After college, I had the privilege of living in Korea and traveling across Japan and Vietnam for over a year. One of my favorite activities there was hiking and doing temple stays where I was introduced to the idea of Zen, or Seon in Korean: the idea that beyond all of the chatter, worries, restless, and the ridiculousness that our minds puts us through, there is a calm, peaceful, and restful state of our minds. Beloved Zen teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh crystallized it for me by coining the word ‘interbeingness’, the ultimate distillation of Zen as oneness, non-separateness, and unconditional interdependence. Learn more about the legacy and teachings of Zen teachers Thich Nhat Hanh and D.T. Suzuki who lived and served Americans for most of their lives .
6. Purifying Vicarious and Ancestral Trauma (Tibet)
Tonglen is an ancient Tibetan practice that focuses on visualization and breathwork to purify the mind and enter a stage of connection with the earth, giving and taking in a way which allows us to let go of trauma and purify our spirits. I learned about this practice from the American Buddhist nun, Pema Chodran and I have personally used it to work with the pain and suffering of our world: violence against marginalized bodies, extinction of our non-human relatives, and the destruction of our Earth due to policies rooted in greed, hatred, and delusion of our separateness from one another and the Earth. Tonglen offers a balm to release identification with fixed ideas and sustain the resolve to keep on, keeping on, with love, joy, trust, and most of all, patience. Learn more about the Tonglen Practices.
7. Cleaning the Insides with Humility and Forgiveness (Hawai'i)
The beautiful Native Hawaiian ritual of Ho'oponopono is an ancient practice which encourages an outward connection with others, which we layer on top of the inward mindful practices we’ve discussed already. This ritual encourages us to seek connection with those we’ve wronged, including ourselves, by asking forgiveness and expressing love. It is a simple practice with four phrases, but when repeated towards self and others, it helped pull down lots and lots of walls I built within my heart-mind towards self and others. Learn more about Ho’oponopono and the Native Hawaiian scholar who helped bring it to the mainstream.
8. Feeling The Love of Love Through Poetry (Middle East/South Asia)
After dropping pre-med in college, I decided to major in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies. That is where my love affair with love began, particularly through timeless and soul-enriching words of Sufi poets and mystics like Rumi, Shams, Ghalib, and Hafiz. Love, of course, is truly the message of every ancient wisdom tradition, but for me, Sufism’s particular contribution to our understanding of love is its ability to crystallize it in words and language that ravishes the heart-mind. For me, the easiest entry into the timeless essence of Sufi love has been the marvelous novel 40 Rules of Love by Turkish author Elif Shafaq, introduced to me by the Pakistani American artist Qinza Najm. Explore and experience the love in Sufism for yourself.
9. Love and Joy of Family (Philippines)
One thing you’ll notice across AAPI cultures is the importance of family. We live in large joint families, we travel in packs, and, most importantly, we take care of our elders. It is what the Hawaiians call the feeling of Ohana. After immigrating to America, I lost touch with that part of my AAPI culture as I only had my immediate nuclear family around me for most of my life. However, that changed quickly after I met my Filipino American partner and got introduced to what is now our kabayan of hundreds of people spanning across US, Canada, Philippines, and most likely beyond. What’s beautiful about the Filipino notion of family is that it isn’t contingent on genetics or biology – but on the simple principle of love. As my partner’s mother once said, “if I love you, you are family. It’s that simple.” Filipino American history is a testament to that love.
10. Selfless Giving and Generosity (AAPI across borders)
I have written before about dana (daan-uh), or the act of giving as a practice because it feels good. I have often heard colleagues returning from Asia wonder and marvel at the generosity of Asian people: “People just opened their homes to us! They fed us, clothed us, shared with us, and did not expect anything in return.”
This practice of giving is common across borders, and – much like all of the techniques I have shared above — they were taught to their many practitioners without any financial remuneration, or even expectation of ever being “repaid”. There are no expectations, no “strings attached.” And generosity isn’t only about money! It is about time, energy, presence, love, patience, words, and service – again for no other reason than it pleases the heart.
Giving in the dana spirit means that what we give is truly, unconditionally free, because deep down we know we ‘interare’ - we are interconnected. I sense that this tool in particular will be important for all of us to cultivate in this century, especially to combat the forces of consumerism that continue to push us apart. Here are some simple ways to practice generosity today.
Bringing AAPI Traditions of Healing And Generosity to Bear
In that spirit I'd like to invite you to register for a program I am teaching in the spirit of dana. It will incorporate much of the above from the lens of the Brahma Viharas, or what are known as the Divine Abodes or the places where God emerges.
Over the last two decades, the science of implicit bias has demonstrated that bias is one of the root causes of inequities and injustices that pervade our society. These inequities create and sustain the samsaric cycles of cruelty, indifference, hatred, and jealousy within institutions as well as in our own hearts and minds. Amidst the hyperpolarization around us, the brahmaviharas provide each one of us the medicine to heal from the defilements and open our heart-mind, despite the conditioning of our outer environment, to become members of a “beloved community.”
The brahmaviharas are a cornerstone of the Buddhist path of freedom. They offer us a gateway to move from our heads into our bodies and hearts. They include loving-kindness (metta), equanimity (upekha), sympathetic joy (mudita), and compassion (karuna). In this five-week program, we will delve deeper into each one of the brahmaviharas through daily meditation practice, studying the suttas together with the science of implicit bias, and weekly discussions and reflections with one another.
Breaking Bias with the Brahmaviharas will begin on September 15 of this year. I truly hope you can join me; if you have any questions, please reach out to us!
I also hope this dive into a celebration of AAPI Heritage Month worldwide has been helpful. It has been a joy for me to take you on this tour. While there is of course no monolith to Asians, in celebrating AAPI month, I urge you to be our relative and listen to our stories of pain and be an instrument for understanding and healing.
If reading this has resonated with you, and you’d like to learn more, or share our work with your organization, I’d love for you to get in touch with us. We work with organizations of all sizes in all sectors; the only prerequisite is a sincere desire to take the next step in your Breaking Bias journey. #LetsDoIt
