June 2, 2026
7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
Panel 1: What is Buddhist Eco-Chaplaincy: Responding to Eco-crisis From the Cushion to the Earth
This opening panel focuses on the growing field of Buddhist Eco-Chaplaincy, stewarded by practitioners and rooted in the teachings.
With Nikayla Jefferson, Kirsten Rudestam, Shoshana Perry and Binuta Sudhakaran.
Come to explore what Eco-Chaplaincy means, how it is practiced through a Buddhist lens, and what it offers in times of ecological transition. Panelists are engaged across different fields, demonstrating a range of approaches to this emerging form of spiritual care.
This event is part of At the Threshold, a four-part online series created in collaboration with BECA (Buddhist Eco-Chaplaincy Association). In this panel we explore Buddhist eco-chaplaincy with panelists offering different perspectives on ecological grief, spiritual care, and real-world application. Across four sessions, participants will gain insight into its foundations, intersectional relevance, and interfaith possibilities while experiencing the compassionate outlook this emerging field offers.
Time: 7:00–8:30 PM ET / 4:00–5:30 PM PT
Location: Online via Zoom (link will be provided to registrants)
Fee: $10–$75 sliding scale, per event. (Find your rate through our Equitable Pricing Model. If this doesn’t work for you, apply for financial assistance. No one will be turned away due to financial constraints).
Financial assistance deadline: May 24, 11:59pm ET
Registration deadline: May 31, 11:59pm ET — Register below.
Questions? Contact us at info@brooklynzen.org.
Binuta Sudhakaran (they/them) grew up between the lush tropics of Kerala, India and the sun-baked cityscapes of the Middle East. They have made their home in Northern California, on the ancestral lands of the Patwin-Wintun people, for nearly two decades, where they raise two precocious pre-teens while serving their community. Binuta’s work lives at the intersection of contemplative practice, somatic healing, and care for the suffering. They are a chaplain intern with Kaiser Permanente’s Spiritual Care team, a yoga and mindfulness teacher, a Hakomi practitioner and a forest mentor. Their Buddhist chaplaincy certification is through the Institute of Buddhist Studies, Berkeley, where their scholarship explores the origins of chaplaincy within Buddhist women’s communities in East Asia. Binuta serves with the Prison Yoga Project, the Davis Yoga Collective, and the Davis Forest School. Informed by two decades of Insight meditation practice, they carry the abiding sense that to be present, with a dying patient, a fallen tree, or just a light breeze, is one unbroken act of intimacy—with what is.
Kirsten works as an environmental educator, wilderness guide, and meditation teacher. She has a PhD in Environmental Sociology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and is a fully authorized teacher in the Buddhist Theravadan Insight lineage. Strongly committed to experiential practice as a mode of radical environmental pedagogy, Kirsten has fifteen years of experience teaching courses in Environmental Sociology and Environmental Justice at colleges and universities. She also offers individual mentoring and programs in meditation, deep nature connection, ceremony, and radical resilience.
Shoshana Perry is a documentary producer and director. Her film, “Down To Earth” won Best Documentary at the EcoCinema International Film Festival. Shoshana attended Columbia University’s MFA Program and was the fiction editor of the Columbia Journal. Shoshana’s short fiction, creative nonfiction, and profiles were published in Spin Magazine, The Village Voice, and literary journals including Open City, and Grand Street. A Lead Trainer, Advisor, and Master Practitioner at Narrative 4, a global organization devoted to building empathy and compassion by way of story exchange. Shoshana is also a certified mindfulness educator trained through various institutes including Goggle’s Search Inside Yourself Leadership Training, and the awareness and compassion based training through the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program (MMTCP) at The Greater Good Science Center at the University of California at Berkeley. As the co-architect of the Climate of Emotions, an annual event during the United Nations Climate week, Shoshana is also trained in Trauma Informed Mindfulness through the Lineage Project, and is currently offering mindfulness, meditation, and medical qi gong to patients and staff at Bellevue Hospital’s psychiatric ward, at the Doe Fund, for men just out of incarceration and off the streets from homelessness, and at the DC Jail, through the Georgetown Prisons and Justice Initiative. Shoshana is, gratefully, a certified Buddhist Eco-Chaplain through the Sati center for Buddhist Studies.
Nikayla Jefferson’s Bio Coming Soon
Photo by Margo Evardson on Unsplash
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