Mission Statement

Heart Light Action uses mindfulness awareness meditation and other contemplative practices in community-based educational settings to help people working for a better world realize their goals.

Vision

Bringing together people from diverse backgrounds, Heart Light uplifts conviction in the unconditional worthiness and potential of all human beings.

Values

Accountability

We often think of accountability as a kind of responsibility toward others. Merriam-Webster defines it as “an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one's actions.” How do we move beyond the performative to the genuine actions that reflect internalized values and priorities? Accountability in anti-racism includes developing the ability to “walk your talk.”

Like all values, there has to be a willingness to apply this accountability to ones self so that we can answer yes when asked are you accountable to your own values regarding actively working to end racism and other form of oppression.

Love

We are lifting up the action, view and principle of love as a foundation for social action. And, like accountability, love begins with the self. It involves the capacity to allow that energy of warmth and care as a natural expression of the human heart. In this work we are exploring the ways and place where this primordial light can shine through and the places we don’t allow it.

Self-Awareness

“Know thy self” or self awareness as the Greeks might say is a key value and they considered it to be central to accessing wisdom. Self-awareness then is a gateway to personal power and the ability to engage our lives with a sense of balance, clarity and confidence. with this we are able to be more self-directed and self-accepting.

Unconditional Social Equality

Unconditional social equality has to do with the fact that the idea of racial superiority is a myth. All supremacist beliefs serve false hierarchies and misconceptions regarding our worthiness as human beings. Especially when it comes to unlearning racism, we work to develop conviction in equality that goes beyond circumstances, status or other false measures. Again and again we are asking, what does equality in relationships to others look like? Moving toward an era when equality plays a central role in social organization, require intense contemplation and exploration.

History

Heart Light began in October of 2023. The driving force was to find ways to bridge meditation and social justice work so that activist, meditators, educators and others can enjoy the benefits of contemplative social action. Contemplative social action is the ability to utilize the competencies developed through meditation practice and other skills to advance social justice action. It builds on earlier projects which Damita developed such as Bornworthy Arts (2008) which taught meditation, writing and leadership skills to incarcerated youth; Community Lab for Intentional Practice (2017) for community-based activists working on various issues including climate justice, anti-racism and mutual aid; Freedom School 360 (2018); and Abolitionist Restorative Justice Workshops (2019) which worked with people from various backgrounds focusing on ways to identify and repair the harm of institutional racism.

About Heart Light Founder and Lead Teacher, Dr. Damita Brown

Dr. Damita Brown specializes in practical applications of meditation to help people interrupt and dismantle racism and other abuses of power. As an undergraduate her scholarship focused on theories of power, social change movements, Black feminist thought, postmodernism and socialism.

In graduate school she studied with Angela Davis, Donna Haraway, Clifford James, Cedric Robinson, Bettina Aptheker, David Anthony, June Jordan and Barbara Epstein among others. Brown holds a doctorate in History of Consciousness. She has taught at the University of California, Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz, Mills College and numerous community-based settings.

During the last few years of her graduate work Brown began meditating. Her studies in Buddhism include attending Dharma retreats with H.H. the Dalai Lama, Thich Naht Hanh, Pema Chodron, Judy Lief and others. She has been practicing within the Tibetan Buddhist traditions of Chogyam Trungpa for over 25 years. She is an authorized Dharma teacher and meditation instructor.

Working within academic, non-profit, collective and co-op arenas, Dr. Brown developed and applied the contemplative social action approach at the institutional and interpersonal levels.

The course How to Practice Contemplative Anti-Racism is taught annually in February online. The course is centered around seven skills. In 2023 Brown created Heart Light Cards: Contemplation and Activities for Ending Racism. The cards provide a way to address how racism impacts us by hosting anti-racism gatherings in our own homes.

Heart Light Advisory Board

Drew Tozer is a systems designer with more than a decade of experience in UI/UX. She founded DLT CMD (pronounced "Delete Command"), a design collective devoted to community and ecology. On her farm in Bear River, Nova Scotia, she raises lamb using silvopasture, integrating livestock with trees to build healthy soil and capture carbon. She also chairs the board of Fiddlehead Market Co-op, which she helped found.

Nandi Seboulisa is an inspired world traveler, activist, thinker, musician, ceramics worker, mother and longshoreman. Over the years they have been an activist in social justice movements dealing with racism, transphobia, police brutality, inequality and more. As a trauma survivor, they also lead workshops and support groups that help people find alternative coping skills in dealing with trauma and other problems. Currently they are active in their union to help overcome racism in the shipyards of the Northwest. Nandi has served on teaching team for two Contemplative Social Action courses. They have served on the Heart Light Action Board since 2023.

Michael Speraw is a longtime practitioner and 1st generation student of Chogyam Trungpa.  He has been a dedicated Shambhala community leader and mentor for over 40 years. He is also a successful businessman and father. Michael is happily married. He is an avid surfer and an excellent cook.