Co-exploring Emptiness and Peace: A Relational Path to Bridging Divides

I first met Ørjan when he contacted me to see if I might be open to being interviewed for his Master’s thesis. He was specifically looking for Buddhist teachers who had some experience with conflict resolution or mediation, as his thesis explored the application of the Buddhist concept of emptiness to peace and conflict transformation.

I was intrigued, as I had never thought of this application of the idea of emptiness, and Ørjan and I had several long and fascinating discussions about this topic. After he had submitted his thesis, I asked him if he would be willing to reverse roles and be a guest on the “Voices of Love” podcast, as his academic and scholarly approach offered a unique lens on the topic of peacemaking and bridging divides.

Bio:

Ørjan Bergan just completed writing his Master’s thesis at the Centre for Peace Studies (CPS) at the Arctic University of Tromsø (Norway). The title of the thesis is “Letting Go and Getting Closer: A Constructive Critical Study of the Experienced Application of Buddhist Understanding and Practice of Emptiness in Peace and Conflict Transformation Work.”

Ørjan  is a trained Gestalt therapist at the Norwegian Gestalt Institute College (2016-2020), and has a clinical practice.  He plans to continue with the themes of his Master’s thesis in a PhD program.

During his studies, he worked for the Norwegian Gestalt Institute College (NGI) as a research assistant.

Ørjan has practiced meditation within the Rinzai and Soto traditions since 2002, and as a former residential practitioner at the San Francisco Zen Center (2014–2015), and has also participated in numerous longer meditation retreats, as well as having taught and led meditation sessions on several occasions since this stay. 

He has a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of Tromsø, a master's degree in sociology from the University of Chicago, and now a Master’s in peace and conflict studies from the Arctic University of Tromsø.

LinkedIn page https://www.linkedin.com/in/oerjanbergan

Email orjan.bergan@gmail.com

Where We All Belong

In the spirit of The Human Library, in which we connect to the humanity of someone we might think of as “other,” we offer this interview with Santiago, an immigrant from Colombia. I have known Santiago for 20 years, as we first met when he was working at a Tibetan Buddhist retreat center in the Santa Cruz mountains. We had seen each other over the years, and then Santi contacted me recently for support. It was during the ICE occupation of Minneapolis and after the tragic murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and during the weekend of the Super Bowl here in the Bay Area, with increased ICE presence. Santiago shared with me that recent events had retriggered trauma from his experiences growing up in Colombia when the country was in the middle of the decades-long conflict between government forces, left-wing guerilla groups and right-wing paramilitary groups.

We spoke a few times that week and then I invited Santiago to share his story on Voices of Love. The story of immigration and the wider narrative of who belongs is at the forefront of our national social and political conversation, and I wanted listeners to be able to hear directly from someone who came to this country fleeing violence, and with the wish to have a more peaceful, safe and prosperous life.

Photo Captions (from left to right)

• Santiago’s mother at the age of four, with her mother behind her in the middle, and her aunts (her mother’s sisters) on either side of them.

• 4-year-old Santi: Santiago at the age of four in Bogotá

• In Guatemala: Santiago in Guatemala with a local woman during an exchange program in which 15 students from Cabrillo College set up a rainwater catchment system in a mountainous rural village of 120 families.

• Pyramids in Guatemala: Santiago and a friend in Guatemala visiting an ancient archeological site.

• Hiking in Yosemite

• Painting 1 and Painting 2: Santiago’s artwork

Note: this interview was recorded on Zoom, and there are times the audio quality is not so clear due to issues with the internet connection, our apologies!

Angry Long Enough with sujatha baliga

Angry Long Enough with sujatha baliga

I first met sujatha baliga many years ago when she led a weekend training on restorative circles at a Buddhist center in Sacramento, although I had heard of her and her work in restorative justice long before. We have connected many times over the subsequent years in both Buddhist and secular spaces, and share a commitment to conflict resolution and exploring how Buddhist principles can be made accessible to everyone through the development of secular programs, like sujatha’s forthcoming “Spiritual Fitness” program which we discuss in the podcast. I felt deeply honored that sujatha accepted my invitation to be part of “Voices of Love” and appreciate the wisdom and passion she brings to these topics.

Content notice: sujatha’s work involves restorative processes with situations of intimate partner violence and child sexual abuse, including her own experience, so this episode will refer at times to these experiences.

Bio:

sujatha baliga’s work is characterized by an equal dedication to crime survivors and people who’ve caused harm. A former victim advocate and public defender, baliga was awarded a Soros Justice Fellowship in 2008 which she used to launch a now nation-wide restorative youth diversion program. For her decades of work in conflict transformation and restorative justice, she was named a 2019 MacArthur Fellow.

During her many years as the Director of the Restorative Justice Project, sujatha helped communities across the nation implement restorative justice alternatives to juvenile detention and zero-tolerance school discipline policies. Today, she's dedicated to using this approach to end child sexual abuse and intimate partner violence. sujatha is a frequent guest lecturer at universities and conferences; she speaks publicly and inside prisons about her own experiences as a survivor of child sexual abuse and her path to forgiveness. She is working on her first book, Angry Long Enough, to be published by One World/Penguin Random House in 2026.

sujatha earned her A.B. from Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges, her J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, and has held two federal district court clerkships. Her personal and research interests include the forgiveness of seemingly unforgivable acts and Buddhist notions of conflict transformation.

sujatha’s faith journey undergirds her justice work. A long-time Buddhist practitioner, she’s a lay member of the Gyuto Foundation, a Tibetan Buddhist Monastery in Richmond, CA, where she leads meditation on Monday nights. She makes her home in Berkeley, CA, with her partner of 28 years, Jason, and their 19-year-old child, Sathya.

Links:

• sujatha’s website: https://www.sujathabaliga.com/

• The upcoming Spiritual Fitness course

• Interview with Ezra Klein in 2020

• MacArthur Fellow information

• Gyuto Foundation

• Be Angry, by His Holiness the Dalai Lama