Rev Syd is joined by Tanny Jiraprapasuke, a Thai Buddhist chaplain, to explore how loneliness might be a practice of liberation. The host reads Amir Rabiyah’s poem “Grand Design” to frame liberation as moments of awe and spaciousness beyond language. Tanny describes loneliness across various life stages, including grief, and reframes loneliness as a doorway to connection and acceptance of nature’s cycles. They discuss form and not-form, non-attachment, chaplaincy as accompaniment without bypassing suffering, the loneliness “epidemic,” and practicing liberation locally through ripple effects, ending with the poem reread.

• The wisdom to be found in befriending nature
• Loneliness as a ‘Both-And’ experience
• Spaciousness As Liberation
• Chaplaincy Without Bypassing
• Liberation Amid Global Suffering
• Choosing Stillness Over Fixing

About Tanny Jiraprapasuke

Rutdow "Tanny" Jiraprapasuke is an ordained Buddhist Chaplain, writer, documentary filmmaker, and educator who holds a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School. Her published work includes "Hyphenated-American" in The Buddhist Door and "How I Transformed Rage into Compassion" in Lion's Roar, and she writes "The Third Ear Journal" on Substack, exploring Buddhism, identity, and storytelling. A second-generation Thai-American, she offers spiritual care through Happy Turtle Creative and has produced numerous short films centering the Asian-American experience. She teaches mindful meditation across communities in Los Angeles, where she remains close to her Thai-Buddhist roots, using writing and film to tell stories that bring us closer to the human experience.

The poem “Grand Design” by Amir Rabiyah can be found in Writing Down the Walls: A Convergence of LGBTQ Voices (ed. Amir Rabiyah, Helen Klonaris) 2015

Connect with Syd:

Book a free spiritual care discovery call with Rev Syd

Email: syd@bluejaguarhealingarts.com

Website: www.bluejaguarhealingarts.com

Subscribe to Syd’s Substack - Being in a Body: revsydyang.substack.com

Instagram: @bodyliberationchaplain

Buy Syd A Boba Tea: Venmo @bluejaguarlove

Produced by Wowow Podcasts

Music by Lee Frisari

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Rev. Syd sits down with Rev. Liên Shutt to discuss what it means to experience loneliness as a “best friend,” exploring how the idea of best friendship and relational hierarchy can feel unclear and shifting. Rev. Liên defines loneliness as a visceral sense of not belonging or being made “other,” and they discuss their experiences with othering via bullying, racism, queerness and cultural differences. They connect Zen insights and practices to befriending difficult sensations through mindful attention, metta, and embodied pause, emphasizing agency to “re-belong.” Joy Harjo’s poems “Cricket Song” and “Remember” frame loneliness as longing that can remind one to remember inherent connection, complexity, and living with what is.

• Defining Loneliness and Belonging
• Imposter Syndrome and Identity
• Practicing for Death and Life
• Easeful Friendship and Aging
• Experiences with Othering
• Practicing Re-belonging

About Rev Liên Shutt

REV. LIÊN SHUTT (she/they) is a priest lineage holder in the Shunryu Suzuki tradition. Born to a Buddhist family in Vietnam, she received her meditation training in the Insight and Soto Zen traditions in the United States, Japan, Thailand, and Vietnam. They are the guiding teacher of Access to Zen, an inclusive, anti-oppression sangha and nonprofit in the San Francisco Bay Area. She lives in Oakland, on Huichin land, with her partner, exploring waterways and forests as often as they can. Visit AccessToZen.org for ways to connect and practice together and to learn more about her book Home is Here: Practicing Antiracism with the Engaged Eightfold Path.

Connect with Syd:

Book a free spiritual care discovery call with Rev Syd

Email: syd@bluejaguarhealingarts.com

Website: www.bluejaguarhealingarts.com

Subscribe to Syd’s Substack - Being in a Body: revsydyang.substack.com

Instagram: @bodyliberationchaplain

Buy Syd A Boba Tea: Venmo @bluejaguarlove

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Music by Lee Frisari

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Rev Syd introduces longtime friend blake nemec—community health worker, somatic coach, writer, artist, and Buddhist/mindfulness practitioner—for a conversation about loneliness as a reminder of who we are and what follows from that. Anchored by a passage from Ethan Tapper’s 2024 book How to Love a Forest, the conversation explores loneliness as an elusive, non-fixed experience connected to spaciousness, pause, and observation. blake links loneliness to having basic needs met, to accessing sensations beneath our cognitive knowing, and moving through nervous-system states. They discuss trust as embodied knowing, family conflict, anxiety, shame, and loneliness as a conduit to wisdom and clearer “yeses” and “nos,”

• Defining Loneliness as Space
• Loneliness, Fatigue and Rest
• Separation and Reconnection
• Embodied Trust
• Spaciousness and Time

A context note from blake: Parts of the discussion (around time code 21:00) are about “spaciousness.” Emotional states can be understood within a Polyvagal Theory. This theory understands emotional responses connected to the body’s largest nerve, the Vagus nerve. Different emotional responses to stimuli, including trauma, are commonly known as “fight or flight” (Sympathetic) or “freeze” (Dorsal Vagal). This theory includes Ventral Vagal responses, which relates to connection, safety, or being able to orient to the environment. The discussion asked, ‘could understanding the state of loneliness (without reacting to it or fighting against it) be experienced within a Ventral Vagal state as the body is safe enough to acknowledge it?

About blake:

blake nemec (he/they) is a somatic coach with over two decades in harm reduction, mutual aid and street medic community work. As a transgender and queer practitioner negotiating immunodysregulation and ADHD, his practices seek out hidden dignities, emergent safeties, and elements of belonging within an ongoing apocalypse. And, as the world is on fire, he is an accomplice to outrage, upset, and civil disobedience for all unprotected bodies. Writing, meditation, and wild-crafting herbalism have held him through trauma recovery; in turn, he offers guided meditation, generative writing exercises, and small-batch medicinal tinctures to clients.

Learn more about and connect with blake

Connect with Syd:

Book a free spiritual care discovery call with Rev Syd

Email: syd@bluejaguarhealingarts.com

Website: www.bluejaguarhealingarts.com

Subscribe to Syd’s Substack - Being in a Body: revsydyang.substack.com

Instagram: @bodyliberationchaplain

Buy Syd A Boba Tea: Venmo @bluejaguarlove

Produced by Wowow Podcasts

Music by Lee Frisari

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Rev. Syd Yang welcomes Sandra Kim onto the show to speak about loneliness as a spiritual and dharma practice, rooted in their early-pandemic care-team connection and the creation of the Asian Mystics sangha. They discuss loneliness as a workable teacher that guides people back into right-relationship, belonging, and care, including the necessity of giving and receiving. Sandra shares their history of learning aloneness, becoming “the rock” for others, and a healing journey of staying with herself, releasing repression, and opening to intimate human care alongside spiritual support. In this episode, Rev Syd shares excerpts from the poem, A Teacher Looking for His Disciple by Thich Nhat Hanh.

• Loneliness as Connection
• Care, Consent and Belonging
• Leaving Groups for Alignment
• Following Spiritual Callings
• Trusting Loneliness

About Sandra:

Sandra Kim (she/they) is a mystic for the (r)evolution — with Spirit working with her and through her as a movement chaplain, spiritual midwife, and shamanic healer. Sandra guides people from the intersection between personal healing and collective liberation and between the human realm and the spirit realm. She believes that social liberation and spiritual liberation are interdependent and need one another to fully exist. Drawing on 20 years of spiritual and healing practices in multiple lineages from Zen Buddhism, Korean shamanism, and energy work, Sandra supports people committed to social justice and collective liberation in healing from internalized oppression and reconnecting with Spirit and their soul's calling. She is the Founder of Re-Becoming Human. For more than 25 years, she has been supporting people impacted by trauma and oppression in finding their truth and living from it — so they can show up for themselves, their communities, and their movement work with greater wholeness, joy, and sustainability.

Book a free spiritual care discovery call here

Connect with Syd:

Email: bluejaguarlove@gmail.com

Website: www.bluejaguarhealingarts.com

Read Syd’s Substack - Being in a Body: revsydyang.substack.com

Instagram: @bodyliberationchaplain

Buy Me A Boba Tea: Venmo @bluejaguarlove

Produced by Wowow Podcasts

Music by Lee Frisari

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In their first guest episode, Rev. Syd Yang welcomes Alli Simon—founder of Black Being in Inglewood, CA and a meditation, mindfulness, and yoga teacher—to discuss how loneliness can be approached as a place of wonder and a “returning home.” Inspired by Rumi’s poem “The Guest House,” they explore welcoming loneliness and other difficult emotions through spiritual practice. Alli shares how loneliness has been a companion to her while navigating major transitions, including a recent breakup and redefining home, all while being held by community at Black Being. They connect loneliness to disconnection and suffering, emphasize collective breath and witnessing with others, and consider loneliness as a mirror that can open joy, pleasure, and deeper connection.

• Loneliness as place of Wonder
• Loneliness through the lens of Attention, Wonder and Equanimity
• Disconnection and Systems of Harm, Disengagement As Conditioning
• Lessons from unlikely places (a cockroach)

Connect with Alli Simon and Black Being

About Alli:

Allison “Alli” Simon (she/her) is from South LA and the Executive Director and Co-Founder of Black Being, a community-rooted wellbeing studio in Inglewood. With over 20 years in the nonprofit sector, her work centers on expanding access to meditation, movement, and collective care for Black communities.

Since 2009, meditation has been a grounding force in Alli’s life, supporting her through personal challenges and shaping her commitment to healing-centered work. She is a certified yoga instructor and meditation facilitator, and her approach is rooted in lived experience, cultural awareness, and community practice.

Through Black Being, Alli leads programs that support mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing, with a focus on creating accessible, culturally relevant spaces for rest, reflection, and connection. She also contributes to broader healing justice efforts through workshops and partnerships that support caregivers and social impact leaders.

Book a free spiritual care discovery call here

Connect with Syd:

Email: bluejaguarlove@gmail.com

Website: www.bluejaguarhealingarts.com

Read Syd’s Substack - Being in a Body: revsydyang.substack.com

Instagram: @bodyliberationchaplain

Buy Me A Boba Tea: Venmo @bluejaguarlove

Produced by Wowow Podcasts

Music by Lee Frisari

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In this inaugural podcast episode, Rev. Syd Yang introduces the podcast and invites the listener into possibility. They delve deep into the topic of loneliness, exploring its complexities through personal experiences and contemplative practices that touch into both Buddhist and other theological perspectives. Syd emphasizes the multifaceted nature of loneliness encompassing biological, psychological, social, and spiritual dimensions. The discussion proposes loneliness not as a problem to be fixed but rather, an integral part of the human experience capable of fostering deeper self-understanding and connections with others. Themes such as liberation, ecological connection, and the impact of societal disconnection are explored, inviting listeners to view loneliness as a pathway towards greater empathy, love, and collective healing.

• Personal Reflections on Loneliness
• Defining Loneliness
• Spiritual and Embodied Connections
• Engaged Inquiry and Buddhist Practice
• The Role of Loneliness in Liberation Practice
• Personal Writings on Loneliness
• Exploring Different Types of Loneliness
• Conclusion: The Path Forward

Book a free spiritual care discovery call here

Connect with Syd:

Email: bluejaguarlove@gmail.com

Website: www.bluejaguarhealingarts.com

Join Substack: revsydyang.substack.com

Instagram: @bodyliberationchaplain

Buy Me A Boba Tea: Venmo @bluejaguarlove

Produced by Wowow Podcasts

Music by Lee Frisari

Send us Fan Mail

If loneliness isn’t a wound to heal, then what?

The Dharma of Loneliness is a contemplative, heart-forward podcast hosted by spiritual counselor and Buddhist chaplain, Rev Syd Yang. Each episode invites listeners into a softer, more spacious relationship with one of our most challenging human experiences: loneliness.

Instead of treating loneliness as a problem to solve, this podcast explores it as a wise teacher, a companion, a practice of liberation and an unexpected form of love—one that can reveal our deepest longings, sharpen our intuition, and help us grow in ways connection alone cannot. Through both intimate and playful conversations with other spiritual leaders, healing practitioners and artists, Rev Syd offers a sanctuary for anyone who has ever felt the ache of being alone and sensed there might be something sacred inside it.

Together, we ask:

What if loneliness is a form of love that helps us remember who we are?

What if it is calling us back to ourselves, to each other, and into a radical possibility of inter-being?

Whether you're navigating a personal transition, longing for community, or simply curious about the spiritual texture of being human, The Dharma of Loneliness offers companionship on the path—and a reminder that even in solitude, we are not alone.

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