Gaylon Ferguson, PhD,  has led mindfulness-awareness retreats for 45 years. He was Core Faculty in Religious Studies at Naropa University. The author of Natural Wakefulness (2009) and Natural Bravery (2016), he contributed the foreword to Black and Buddhist: What Buddhism Can Teach Us About Race, Resilience, Transformation and Freedom (2020). His articles and essays have appeared in Lion’s Roar, Tricycle, and Buddhadharma.