It seems like the world is crumbling all around us. Everywhere there is tremendous pain, suffering, hatred, and hurt. So how do we live in the midst of it all without internalizing fear, bitterness, and enmity? How do we cultivate the peace necessary to remain engaged with and transform the tumult? Grounded in the Sikh and Buddhist traditions respectively, Simran Jeet Singh and Kosen Gregory Snyder will be in conversation around these questions.

Livestreaming of this program will be available here: Generating Peace in a World on Fire

This program is brought to you by the Thích Nhất Hạnh Program for Engaged Buddhism. Previous conversations can be found here.

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Simran Jeet Singh Ph.D. A visiting scholar at NYU’s Center for Religion and Media, where he is currently on a post-doctoral fellowship with the American Council of Learned Societies. Simran is a Senior Fellow for the Sikh Coalition and a columnist for Religion News Service. He earned his graduate degrees from Harvard University and Columbia University, and completed his dissertation on Guru Nanak and the Puratan Janamsakhis. Simran recently sold his first children’s book, a biography of the oldest marathoner in history, and he is currently working on a book about what we can learn from Sikh wisdom and history to help us navigate our troubling times.

Simran Jeet Singh, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Religion & Society Program at the Aspen Institute and author of the National Bestseller The Light We Give: How Sikh Wisdom Can Transform Your Life (Riverhead, Penguin Random House).

Simran’s thought leadership on bias, empathy, wisdom, and justice extends across corporate, educational, and government settings. He is an Atlantic Fellow for Racial Equity with Columbia University and the Nelson Mandela Foundation, and a Soros Equality Fellow with the Open Society Foundations. In 2020, TIME Magazine recognized him as one of sixteen people fighting for a more equal America, and in 2023, Simran delivered the opening address at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas

Simran earned graduate degrees from Harvard University and Columbia University, and an undergraduate degree from Trinity University, where he also taught Islamic Studies as an Assistant Professor. He writes regularly for major outlets, including Harvard Business Review, TIME Magazine, and Religion News Service, and he authored the award-winning children’s book Fauja Singh Keeps Going: The True Story of the Oldest Person to Ever Run a Marathon (Kokila, Penguin Random House).

Born and raised in San Antonio, Texas, Simran now lives in New York City with his wife and two daughters, where he enjoys running, writing, and spending time with his family.

Rev. Kosen Greg Snyder, Osho is the Senior Director and Assistant Professor of Buddhist Studies at Union Theological Seminary, where he oversees the Master of Divinity degree program in Buddhism and Interreligious Engagement as well as the Thích Nhất Hạnh Program for Engaged Buddhism. 

Professor Snyder is an ordained Zen Buddhist priest and dharma-transmitted teacher in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki. He co-founded and is currently the senior resident priest at the Brooklyn Zen Center and Ancestral Heart Zen Monastery in Millerton, NY. He is one of the founders of the Buddhist Action Coalition, whose mission is to organize and inspire compassionate Buddhist initiatives in advancing social, economic, and environmental justice through advocacy and nonviolent direct action.

Professor Snyder’s academic and practice interests include socially engaged Buddhism, the intersections of contemplative interreligious dialogue and social action, the relationship between Buddhist liberatory practices and social transformation, and the exploratory juxtaposition of Buddhism with liberation theology, Earth-centered cosmologies, and Western continental theory, particularly phenomenology and post-structuralism. Professor Snyder is currently working on a book exploring expressions of social justice rooted in Buddhist dharma, moral epistemology, and praxis. He has been published in Buddhist and other periodicals, including Buddhadharma, Lion’s Roar, Shambhala Sun and the New York Times.