On Tuesday, April 14, Ithaca College created a space for unity and peace amid ongoing uncertainty. Three groups on the Ithaca College campus partnered up to create an event in Muller Chapel, titled “Everyone Belongs: Honoring True Belonging in a Fractured World,” promoting inclusion and interconnection. The Offices of Diversity Equity and Inclusion, Religious and Spiritual Life, and Counseling and Psychological Services teamed up to create this event.

Promoting peace

Guest speaker Sebene Selassie, a meditation teacher originally from Ethiopia who now lives in Brooklyn, led the discussion. She spoke about topics such as liberation, connection to ancestors, guarding senses from things like negative news consumption and a connection to nature, among others.

“It has become cliche to say that we live in unprecedented times, but we live in unprecedented times,” said Selassie at the beginning of her talk on interconnection.

“The world is so disconnected from each other … this is trying to bring people from all different ideas together,” said IC student Aiden Carrazana.

“We are not separate, we are not the same,” Sebene Selassie

The greater goal of interconnection and to introduce the paradox of “we are not separate and we are not the same,” said Selassie. This is known as the paradox of the two truths in Buddhism.

In the discussion, Selassie used the South African concept, “Ubuntu,” meaning “I am because we are.” She discussed the importance of acknowledging interconnection. “Whoever you encounter is a connection whether you’re related to them or not,” said Selassie, while discussing the importance of the term and how it relates to her theme of interconnection.

“The point of the event is to bring everyone together and to offer some type of alignment,” said Pourcher Crawley, a mental health counselor on IC’s campus and an organizer of the event alongside her coworkers.

“We are all people, we’re all humans but yet we all have our own thoughts and opinions,” said IC student Chase Myers after attending the event.

While reflecting on the theme that “we are not separate and we are not the same,” Rob Winsh, an IC student mentioned that “it’s sort of hard to recognize that idea that we aren’t fully the same.” Winsh continued saying that maybe we could change the mind of political figures and people who are inciting violence by sharing this philosophy with them.

Meditations based in Buddhist teaching

With Selassie’s 15 years of experience teaching Buddhist traditions and meditation, she led a series of short meditations for the attendees. These were used as a tool to take a break from the conversation and have time to reflect. Selassie used a bell in her meditations, encouraging participants to focus on its sound from beginning to end.

“It was interesting to do a meditation with sound and trying to listen to the bell … doing fast meditations between a conversation was a helpful tool to bring people back into what you’re talking about,” Winsh said.

After Selassie’s presentation she opened it up for questions and deeper conversation saying “I love the interaction at the end, that’s the best.”