ABSTRACT
This chapter draws upon my own experience with contemplative practice, meditation and mindfulness to examine the relationship between nondual awareness and liberation. Engaging with the Du Boisian notion of double consciousness as well as scholarship on Black feminism, Black studies and critical race studies, I narrate my engagement with nondual approaches to spirituality and mindfulness alongside my commitment to fostering the historical, sociological and political awareness needed to advance antiracist work and address interlocking systems of oppression. The chapter considers a number of paradoxes involved in acknowledging and transcending intersectional oppressions. Meditation and mystical traditions within Christianity, as well as Eastern religions, have all played critical roles in deconstructing my various social identities (e.g., gender, race/ethnicity, sexuality) and providing a sense of internal liberation while also deepening my commitment to social justice. Weaving together reflections from my personal blog and my archive of social media writing, I experimentally stitch together a meditation on the meaning of freedom and the politics of contemplative practice.
