Forging a Legacy of Valor by Andrea Buscemi
February 22, 2026 | Payne Park, Sarasota, Florida
Good afternoon,
My name is Andrea. Some of you here know me personally, and I’m grateful you’re
Here.
For those who don’t know me, I am a U.S. Air Force veteran. I joined right out of high
school because it was the fastest route out of poverty.
While I was in the military, I didn’t just adapt to that way of life—I adopted it as my
own. I wore my uniform as an identity, a source of power, and a form of protection. For
a long time, I believed I was forging a legacy of valor through my service.
What I came to see was that the system I served did not create the peace I believed it
did. That realization was painful. It left me with anger. It left me with grief. And it left
me asking deeper questions about who I was behind the sword I held.
I came to Zen meditation carrying all of that. Many people think of meditation as
relaxation or as a way to escape. The practice I speak from today is not about escape.
It is about turning toward what is difficult with honesty and compassion. It is a direct,
relational engagement with the heartmind.
I’m not here to give a traditional Buddhist talk. I’m here to share what Zen practice has
done for me. It has helped me realize that what I seek is not something I import from
outside. It is something revealed when what is false burns away.
One of my favorite dharma teachers, Lama Rod Owens, says, “Sometimes it’s okay to
think that our anger is trying to protect us. However, it is more truthful to think that
it’s actually protecting something else that’s a little deeper than that. It’s protecting
our hurt. It’s protecting our broken hearts.”
Zen invited me to sit still long enough to feel that anger in my body. In the forge of
silent sitting, I discovered something: the place where my deepest gifts and my
deepest wounds intersect—that is where the alchemy of authenticity takes place.
Slowly, I began a profound path of transformation.
Letting go of that sword was terrifying. Who would I be without it?
In Zen, we sometimes speak of “no-self.” This does not mean we don’t exist. It is the
recognition that the identities we cling to — the soldier, the activist, the “good person”
— are constructs, swords we have forged. They are not the whole truth of who we are.
For me, letting go of that fixed identity felt like placing my sword, my service, in a fire.
This is the refiner’s fire the prophet Malachi spoke of—not to destroy us, but to purify
our intentions, to burn away everything that is not essential for this moment. No one
could examine this self, myself, for me. And I cannot ask anyone else to do what I am
unwilling to do myself.
For a long time, I believed justice work was a fiery sword to be pointed outward.
Zen practice gently turned it inward.
In the Zen forge, we are not passive metal. We are the blacksmith. And we have a
choice: to tend the sword, or to shape the shield.
A shield only works when it is linked with others. Its strength is in connection. This
isn’t a metaphor. It is the truth of interbeing.
And that is what Zen has taught me most clearly: my suffering is not separate from
yours. The detainee’s bondage is not separate from my own bondage and
conditioning, my privilege, my whiteness. The Bodhisattva vow is to free all beings,
knowing there is no “other” to free. There is only this shared life.
Some of us here today carry anger and grief that comes from direct, historical harm.
You are already craftsmen of survival, artisans of joy and resilience. I honor your labor
in the ongoing struggle.
Others of us—myself included—know what it is to be insulated by privilege. To have
the option of looking away. To put the armor back on when the vigil ends. Zen practice
does not allow me that comfort.
It asks me to stay present. To notice the impulse to retreat, to wield the sword. It
invites me to ask, with curiosity: What am I protecting right now?
In this sense, when we come to our meditation, our prayer, we recognize it is not an
escape from this heat. It is stepping into the forge of our heart, picking up our tools,
and beginning our work. It is examining the metal we bring to the anvil.
The question is what we do with it.
In Zen practice, we say to meditate as if your hair is on fire. The Pentecostals here
today will understand what I mean when I say that when the spirit descends upon you
like a flame, you must channel its energy in service to the heart.
So I would like to invite us into a brief moment of practice together.
Find a comfortable position, let your eyes rest, and take deep breaths in through your
Nose.
Think of something that sparks that heat in you. A recent headline, a sign from this
vigil. Feel where that sensation lives in your body. Just notice it.
What is this feeling protecting? A hurt? A fear? Can you name it?
And then bring your attention to your center of gravity, low in your belly. Take one
more slow breath.
Now, with curiosity, allow yourself to wonder: If action were to arise from this place,
what quality would it carry?
Grace reveals what has always been true: there is a place in us that is not separate
from God or from one another. Action from this place has a different quality.
If we act only from anger, even righteous anger, our actions will carry the shape of that
anger. But when anger is refined by compassion, it becomes clear. It becomes steady.
It becomes less about defeating an enemy and more about protecting life. To become
a disciple is not to follow a path; it is to embody the path itself. It is to become,
through our connected action, a living expression of that protection, that wisdom,
that love.
This inner alchemy isn’t personal. It is the natural response to the fire in all our hearts.
At the same time as we hold this vigil, the Miccosukee tribe is holding a prayer vigil
outside an immigrant detention center.
We are gathered here because human beings are in cages.
That is not abstract. That is not symbolic. And whatever our theology, that reality asks
something of us. When we let that reality truly touch us, a response begins to rise.
This response is not a duty we must serve. It is an expression of belonging. Because we
are not meant to face realities like this alone. This is why we gather. This is why we
become community.
The peace we are praying for is not something we manufacture. It is something we
uncover when fear loosens its grip. It is remembering our original belonging.
My practice has taught me that the fire of anger and grief isn’t destructive.
It was transformative.
May we have the courage to stay in the fire long enough to become grace, to embody
love. To make us more honest and patient. More connected. More responsive.
May we become people who no longer need swords or armor, signs or applause.
This is the work of our shared liberation.
Thank you.
Glossary & References
Heartmind.
In Buddhist psychology, mind and heart are often described by one word: “citta.” This heart-mind has many dimensions. It contains and includes all our thoughts, our feelings and emotions, responses, intuition, temperament, and consciousness itself.
Lama Rod Owens.
Buddhist Minister, Author, Activist, Yoga Instructor, Authorized Lama, Queen. Author of Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation through Anger.
No-Self.
In Buddhism, “no-self” is the fundamental teaching that there is no permanent, unchanging, independent essence, soul, or “I” to be found in any phenomenon. Instead, what we call a “self” is a temporary, ever-changing process.
Malachi 3:2-3.
“But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver.”
Interbeing.
Interbeing is a practice rooted in the Zen Buddhist tradition, notably proposed by Thich Nhat Hanh. It underscores the inter-connectedness and interdependence of all elements of existence. It informs ethical living, mindfulness, and compassionate actions.
Bodhisattva.
A being who is on the path to becoming enlightened, often someone who has attained a high level of enlightenment but delays entering Nirvana to help others do the same. The primary aim of a bodhisattva is not just individual liberation, but to help all beings escape the cycle of suffering (samsara).
Andrea Buscemi 