Casting Indra's Net | Free Book
Creating compassionate communities takes more than good will—it requires a dedication to respecting cultural differences while remembering the fundamental spiritual kinship that exists between all people. Activist, counselor, and Buddhist teacher Ayo Yetunde creatively unpacks this condition through the metaphor of Indra’s Net—a universal net in which all beings reflect each other like jewels.
She offers a practice path that acknowledges our deep challenges—challenges that increasingly give rise to the temptation of group violence, which she calls mobbery—while showing exactly how we can still listen, learn, and heal together. Drawing inspiration from the Black liberation tradition and from stories from various religions, Yetunde recasts Indra’s Net as the network in which we all have the choice either to succumb to our impulses toward division and brutality or renew our civility and love for each other. The more than 20 practices in Casting Indra’s Net include:
Five commitments for healthy, nonviolent living Guided contemplation to water the seeds of your spiritual potential “Mirroring” and “twinning” other peopleTonglen (receiving and releasing) and lovingkindness meditations Affirmations
In The Press
“Casting Indra’s Net is an enthralling plea for kinship and
care. Offering life experiences and her refined theologian mind,
Yetunde supports us in a thorough investigation of nonviolence in
service of self-actualization and social harmony. Pithy and wise,
Casting Indra’s Net warms the chill of our troubling times,
softening us into wholeness.”—Ruth King, author of
Mindful of Race: Transforming Racism from the Inside Out and
Founder of the Mindful of Race Institute
“For anyone looking for a way forward in the face of incessant
polarization and violence in our global community,
Casting Indra’s Net is a call to compassionate action
cultivated in deep introspection and contemplation. Through
thought-provoking personal narratives, social analysis, and an
exploration of sacred texts and the lives of religious exemplars, Dr.
Ayo Yetunde weaves a colorful tapestry inviting us to do the necessary
inner work to live as spiritual kin, caring for one another amidst
global crises and suffering.”—Rev. Dr. Alisha Tatem, Program Director
of Congregational Leaders at the Institute for Islamic, Christian and
Jewish Studies
“Ayo’s bravely compassionate book casts us into a net of mutuality—and
brings us up whole. Casting Indra’s Net invites us to be
remade, as by a home-cooked meal you didn’t know you needed, prepared
by kin you mistook for strangers. This book is a gem that mirrors the
jeweled possibilities in all of us.”—Chenxing Han, author of
Be the Refuge: Raising the Voices of Asian American Buddhists
“With clarity and compassion, using powerful storytelling and wise
inquiry, Pamela Ayo Yetunde expertly guides us to understand the
indelible truth of our interconnection as kinship. Carefully and
bravely leading us to comprehend the urgency of our social, political,
and environmental crises, Casting Indra’s Net is a poignant cry
to release any divisiveness and heed the call of religious teachings
and leaders throughout time that ultimately only love heals. Weaving
together Buddhist practices with Christian and Jewish parables, Hindu
thought, and universal gospel, this book is a compelling and practical
guide for our challenging times.”—Sebene Selassie, author of
You Belong: A Call for Connection
“Living in a society that is so painfully divided across polarized
beliefs, it is all too easy to dismiss folks who hold differing
viewpoints and whom we perceive as ignorant or even threatening. In
Casting Indra’s Net, Pamela Ayo Yetunde beautifully reminds us
that, in truth, we are interdependent kin, and deep within our cores
we have the gifts of respect and compassion to exchange with one
another. Weaving together wisdom traditions, especially Buddhism, with
the author’s penetrating insights and stories, this book offers
skillful means for remembering that we are the beloveds of all
sentient beings.”—Jeanine Canty, author of
Returning the Self to Nature: Undoing Our Collective Narcissism and
Healing Our Planet
“Pamela Ayo Yetunde draws on the deep wisdom traditions of Buddhism
and the Black experience in America to offer us the truth of mutuality
and interdependence the world needs so badly at this time.”—Melvin
McLeod, Editor-in-Chief, Lion’s Roar
“We live in tumultuous and often ugly times. If you want to help make
things better, and make yourself happier in the process, check out
Ayo’s book. It’s easy to feel separate, like you’re an isolated ego
peering fretfully out at the world. But this is an illusion—one that
leads to hatred and unhappiness. This book might help wake you up from
this nightmare. It’s a rallying cry for civility—to start repairing
the world, and ourselves.”—Dan Harris, author of 10% Happier
“In Casting Indra’s Net, Ayo Yetunde draws on her rich
experience to apply spiritual practice (much of it Buddhist) to the
contemporary tragedy of what she calls ‘mobbery’—our collective
failure to address human problems and instead fall back into
resentment, tribalism, and violence. With a calm yet insistent voice,
she introduces refreshing new concepts like the ‘Platinum Rule’ (an
updated Golden Rule that takes difference into account) and ‘koanic’
thinking (an extension of the Zen koan tradition), while providing
fresh readings of traditional texts from several religions. All this
in service of developing a renewed sense of civility that refuses to
settle for complacency in an unjust world. This is a challenging and
courageous book.”—Norman Fischer, author of
When You Greet Me I Bow: Notes and Reflections from a Life in
Zen
and Selected Poems: 1980–2013
“From the depths of our sorrows, Pamela Ayo Yetunde speaks with a
prophetic voice—wise, clear, and passionate. The righteousness she
invokes is the call of love and mutuality rather than warning and
wrath. Toward that end, Ayo’s book offers practices to accomplish the
oneness of compassion and justice in this very real world we inhabit.
We need both.”—Hozan Alan Senauke, author of
Turning Words: Transformative Encounters with Buddhist Teachers
and abbot of Berkeley Zen Center
“Casting Indra’s Net is not just a book. It is a deeply
compassionate tour of our interbeing—and a clear and vibrant call to
live into it.”—from the foreword by Resmaa Menakem, author of
My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to
Mending Our Hearts and Bodies
“This lovely text is a contribution to Interfaith America—the chapter
of American history that I believe we are starting to write. But Ayo’s
vision, I suspect, is even larger. She would say that this is a stitch
in the fabric of Interfaith World.”—from the afterword by Eboo Patel,
author of We Need to Build: Field Notes for Diverse Democracy
“Ayo's offering is anchored in her own human story and rooted in her
interpretations of Buddhist tradition and astute analysis of our
present politics. With her book's two core images (drawn from ancient
stories) of all of our souls as interconnected nodes in a vast cosmic
net, and the garlands of fragrant flowers or bloody fingers that we
make for ourselves as each of our actions contributes to mutuality or
to mobbery, Ayo weaves an authentic invitation to all of us to draw on
her reflection and teaching—and on the stories and practices each of
us has inherited, lived, and encountered—to be our most fully present
and compassionate selves, in kinship with all beings.
Casting Indra's Net is not meant to live in its pages—it is an
offering of orientation and practice, asking all of us to live into
the world Ayo envisions and invites us to cocreate. This book is
already a river with many tributaries, with Ayo's ancestors in thought
and practice alive and with her in its pages. Where it will go depends
on how we, her readers, answer her question, ‘What part do you want to
play?’”—Rabbi Emma Kippley-Ogman, Associate Chaplain for Jewish Life,
Macalester College
“Pamela Ayo Yetunde’s evocative and luminous work centers in the
relational mutuality that beckons every human heart. She shows how
this mutuality opens to the mysterious depth of reality and is the
living key to personal and social transformation in our highly
polarized times. Her unmistakably deep roots in the radical Buddhist
praxis of unrestricted loving-kindness give her the heart to hold
genuine differences and navigate divisions while fostering solidarity
of relational caring. She teaches us to advance shared flourishing
across the full ‘community of being’ in its interrelationship with
sacred mystery.”—Dr. William F. Vendley, Vice President, World
Religions and Spirituality, Fetzer Institute
“Thank you, Ayo Yetunde, for writing this book! The jewel of your
perspective sees with nuance, care, and clear knowing of the potential
for all of us to see more fully. This is a call for the committed work
of civility. Through touching personal stories, letters, and
practices, we are invited to move, to act, to reflect, and to remember
how to lean in to support the good that we know is in each of
us.”—Peace Twesigye, Assistant Director of Buddhist Studies and the
Thich Nhat Hanh Program for Engaged Buddhism at Union Theological
Seminary
- Title: Casting Indra's Net | Free Book
- Author: Steven
- Created at : 2024-10-22 17:57:07
- Updated at : 2024-10-26 20:44:39
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- License: This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.