How to Be Compassionate and 'Conflict Well'

Rev. angel Kyodo williams is a Zen Buddhist priest, and she says that her spiritual journey started when she was a child, after someone close to her let her down. In that moment, she realized that she needed to have compassion for this person and, in a way, let them off the hook. “Letting them off the hook is not saying… ‘Oh, it's okay that they did that,’” she tells Tim. “But it is part of the fabric of what it means to be human and alive. And I get to continue to love them, not despite, but because of all of those missteps and mistakes.”

Rev. angel is a spiritual leader and an activist, someone searching for compassion and change at the same time. While working in social movements fighting against homophobia and racism, she noticed that conflict and frustration was eating her comrades alive. “We couldn't get things done because everybody was fighting with each other, because that's what we practiced,” she said. Now, Rev. angel teaches others how to “conflict well,” as she calls it. She thinks we can organize with love, while looking to the future for bigger solutions. 

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Rev. angel Kyodo williams is a Zen Buddhist priest and author of “Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love and Liberation” and “Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living With Fearlessness & Grace.” Her newest project is called the Healing Race Portal, what she calls the culmination of all her work. You can learn more at healingraceportal.com.

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Our theme music was written by Andy Ogden and produced by Tim Lauer, Andy Ogden and Julian Raymond. All other music that you hear in this episode is courtesy of Epidemic Sound. 

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