A Grief Circle, by and for the AAPI Community
Please join the AAPI community for a gathering to witness, support, and honor one another in our grief. The program will include an introduction by Reimagine board member Tim Chang, followed by meditation, breathwork, education, and resource sharing to acknowledge suffering and navigate a path forward in a safer space. While all are welcome, this is a dedicated container to center the feelings and voices of Asian Americans.
Discrimination and violence towards AAPI communities may have had more media attention in the past two years than anytime in recent memory, but the sad truth is that hatred and attacks against Asian Americans have been present since the early days of the United States. Following some history, the facilitators will offer mindfulness and somatic practices for grounding before opening up space to invite in individual and collective grief being experienced by AAPI community members.
The intention of this space - created by and for the AAPI community - is to center the diverse experiences of Asian Americans. And, EVERYONE is welcome to bear witness, listen, and learn in allyship.
Tony Pham (Butterfly) (he/they) is a heritage Buddhist, facilitator, and healer that occupies the intersection of queer and BIPOC identities. Tony is certified in Compassion Cultivation Training © (co-created by Thupten Jinpa at Stanford), teaching compassion and meditation at Tibet House US. He is a 2nd generation Vietnamese American whose parents arrived in the United States as refugees from war. Tony goes by Butterfly in spiritual spaces where they steward practices rooted in compassion, indigeneity, and sacred lineages. He is a student of Lama Rod Owens (Vajrayana/Tibetan Buddhism). They are also an alumnus of the East Bay Meditation Center’s year-long trauma informed mindfulness program for social justice activists. Butterfly offered a dharma talk and guided meditation on compassion at the 2023 Dalai Lama Global Vision Summit. They previously received a Fulbright scholarship to conduct research in Viet Nam. Butterfly has also completed death doula and non-violent communication training. Butterfly is honored to serve on the national board of directors for the Buddhist Peace Fellowship and Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). They now reside in Brooklyn (occupied Canarsie/Munsee Lenape land). For more information, please visit tonyopham.com.
Mangda Sengvanhpheng is an artist, contemplative care practitioner, and the Founder of BACII. She is devoted to creating a deeper culture of care, transcending our circumstances, and expanding our experiences through the wisdom of impermanence. Mangda offers supportive services, regenerative programming, and intentional products for individuals, communities, and organizations alike. Her life and death work is guided by her Laotian last name, which means “the light of the full moon.”
BACII is inspired by all of her experiences with loss and life, and specifically the loss of her mother. This life-changing experience of helping her mother through the dying process included being with her in the final moments, washing and dressing her body, arranging a funeral service, and managing a household of tasks that come with death. This experience revealed to her how difficult and isolating grief and loss can be. This led her to reimagine our society’s relationship to the end-of-life as a healthier and more supportive experience.
Driven by these experiences, Mangda became a certified death doula through Going with Grace and an end-of-life volunteer. She then launched BACII as a platform to integrate death into our lives so that we can better support ourselves and those we love.
Additionally she has been immersed in the mystical, creative, and healing arts for over 15 years and is certified and trained in pranayama, asanas, and meditation with Bhooma Chaitanya and Swami Yogeshananda through Aarasha Yoga Vidya Peetham in Kerala, India, Reiki 2 accreditation by Joanna Crespo, NYC, 13th Octave LaHoChi accreditation from Soul Healing, CT, Grief Literacy from Be Here, and Contemplative Care from New York Zen Center.
Mangda was an awarded recipient of Reclamation Ventures grant for under-represented leaders making pathways to addressing grief and loss.
Her work has been featured in publications such as Vogue, NY Mag’s Curbed, Brydie, Chacruna Institute, Svenska Dagbladet (Swedish Wall Street Journal) and more.
Tim Chang
Tim Chang serves on the Board of Directors of Reimagine. He is a Partner at Mayfield Fund, focusing on venture capital investments in Consumer Internet, Digital Media, eCommerce/Marketplaces, and Health/Wellness. He has been twice named on the Midas List of top 100 VCs. Tim led Mayfield's investments in MOAT (acquired by Oracle), Basis (acquired by Intel), Fitmob (acquired by Classpass), Ript Labs, Grove Collaborative, Massdrop, Pillow, HealthTap, 3Drobotics, and Lantern. Tim was previously a Partner at Norwest Venture Partners, where he led NVP's investment in Playdom (acquired by Disney), Ngmoco (acquired by DeNA), AdChina (acquired by Alibaba), PCH International, and Lumosity. Prior to joining Norwest, Tim was a Principal at Gabriel Venture Partners, where he established and led their wireless practice, investing and joining the board of Iridigm Display (acquired by Qualcomm). He was also actively involved with the boards of Placeware (acquired by Microsoft), IPWireless (acquired by NextWave), and NextG Networks (acquired by a private equity syndicate). Before entering the venture capital industry, Tim was a Product Manager at Gateway, where he launched Enterprise products into the Japanese market, and began his career as a tri-lingual development engineer for General Motors, working across China, Korea, and Japan.
About Table Talk
We recognize that marginalized communities and cultures -- Black, Indigenous, Latino/a/x, Asian American, Disabled, LGBTQ+, etc. -- have their own unique perspectives and shared truths. All of these groups face tremendous challenges in dealing with serious illness, dying, grief, discrimination. And there is a shared need for platforms to talk about these issues freely in order to connect, learn, heal, remember, and take action.
While individual Table Talks are developed by and for specific communities, we recognize that often these groupings are permeable. Many of us describe more than one group as “home,” and many of us have experienced oppression based on multiple aspects of our intersecting identities: race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, disability, and more.
Reimagine invites people of all backgrounds to join us to witness, listen and learn at Table Talk. Ultimately we are creating space rooted in the principles of Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion in order for everyone to thrive.
Table Talk is made possible with support from the Fetzer Institute and the John and Wauna Harman Foundation.
