Who We Are Becoming Matters

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What makes us human? And why does it matter? Who do we need to become to move forward in togetherness and mutual responsibility?

Zen teacher and Indigenous Hawaiian leader Norma Kawelokū Wong asks us to reckon with what she calls the Human Quotient: 4 essential inner capacities—courage, compassion, aloha, and strategic wisdom. We must cultivate and embody these capacities, not just to survive, but to shepherd ourselves through an age of climate crisis, social fracture, and accelerating collapse.

Join Norma for an empowering conversation examining how we grow, relate, and lead in times of uncertainty. Drawing on decades of Zen training, Indigenous Hawaiian knowledge, political strategy, and community practice, Norma shares the internal and collective shifts required to evolve with intention. Her teachings challenge us to release the logic of othering and splintering, to root ourselves in the mutual responsibilities of aloha and kuleana, and to step into the messy work asked of us in a timeplace of collapse.

Norma shares insights from her newest book, Who We Are Becoming Matters, the highly-anticipated follow-up to her book, When No Thing Works. She offers a visionary framework for disrupting the status quo and a generative map for moving forward. She discusses what it may take for humanity to evolve and embody the historic role of stewarding this urgent moment.

Norma invites us to take the leap together, eyes wide open, and tend to the job placed before us.

Norma Kawelokū Wong (Norma Ryuko Kawelokū Wong Roshi) is a Native Hawaiian and Hakka life-long resident of Hawaiʻi. She is the abbot of Anko-in, an independent branch temple of Daihonzan Chozen-ji and serves practice communities in Hawai‘i, across the continental U.S., and in Toronto, Canada. She is an 86th generation Zen Master, having trained at Chozen-ji for over 40 years.

In earlier years, Wong served as a Hawai‘i state legislator, on the policy and strategy team for Governor John Waihee with federal and Native Hawaiian portfolios. She led teams to negotiate agreements on the munitions cleanup of Kahoʻolawe Island, ceded land revenue for Native Hawaiians, and the return of lands and settlement of land issues for Hawaiian Home Lands. She was active in electoral politics for over thirty years.

In recent years, Wong has been called back into service to facilitate breaking the impasse and transforming policy and governance on issues of seeming contradiction. In the conflict between native culture/science and western discovery science posing as a dispute over the construction of a telescope on Maunakea, Wong was a team member narrating and facilitating a path forward through mutual stewardship. She currently serves as a community advisor on issues such as the protection of the aquifer from fuel contamination at Red Hill and the long-term response to the Lahaina wildfires.

Norma has spent many years in the applied space – the direct application of indigenous and Zen ways, values and practices to living and transformational change critical to our times. Norma is part of the Collective Acceleration community of practice.

We are grateful to our Bookstore Partner

Marcus Books is the nation’s oldest Black-owned independent bookstore celebrating its 60th year. Marcus Books’ mission is to provide opportunities for Black folks and their allies to celebrate and learn about Black people everywhere. Learn more about Marcus Books.

Accessibility Information
If you need to request accessibility accommodations, please email publicprograms@ciis.edu at least one week prior to the event. For more information, explore our Accessibility web page.

Recording Policy
Ticket holders will have access to an ad-free replay of the event for one month after the live event, after which unlimited viewing with ads will be available. Portions of the audio will also be released on our podcast. Only registered ticket holders who choose to watch live can participate in the chat and Q&A.

Refund Policy
All tickets and add-ons purchased for this event are nonrefundable.