Full transcript:
SPEAKER 1: Our next speaker is going to be Maria Azhunova who just graduated this last fall-- last spring. And I believe that she is Zooming in from San Francisco. And there she is. Maria, we already miss you very much.
Maria, as you can see, is from the Buryat Mongols, and Indigenous to the Lake Baikal region, just north of the Russian-Mongolian border. In 2019, she was elected as the next leader of the Snow Land Leopard Network, LOSL, which provides a unique approach to community-based snow leopard conservation, blending traditional ecological knowledge and Western conservation science. The work of LOSL is rooted in Indigenous understanding of the sacredness, cultural, and environmental significance of the snow leopard across Central and Inner Asia.
Their hard work and devotion to the sacred snow leopards are recognized on the international level with the Disney Conservation Hero Award, which Maria received, I believe, in 2020, and the Stanford Bright Award in 2020. And I will say that in addition to her amazing work for the snow leopards-- which I presume that's a fake fur hat that you're wearing, and fake fur paws, which are very cute for Halloween also.
She is not only working for the Snow Leopard Network, but she works in her community of Buryat Mongols who have a very close connection with Tibetan Buddhism actually, and are in a very precarious place in Russia now, as in a very difficult spot for minorities in Russia. And she is working very much with her community as well in addition to this project on the snow leopard. So, Maria, catch us up on what you've been doing, and what you took from Harvard Divinity School.
MARIA AZHUNOVA: [NON-ENGLISH]. Greetings, new friends. Greetings, professors. I greet you all from the beautiful land of Ohlone people in Daly City, California. So when I think about BMI, I think of a wishful feeling jewel or [NON-ENGLISH], or [NON-ENGLISH] in Mongolian language. Whether it's discussions, new knowledge, new friends that I acquired, but most importantly, for the Land of Snow Leopard Network of our vision to be connected with the world's most leading education institutions.
So each day is granted this platform in the form of allowing myself and my dear friend Emily Ostler, a former NTS student, and now an alumni to create a series of informal dialogues or seminars on traditional Indigenous knowledge and spirituality led by the elders and Indigenous cultural practitioners of the Land of Snow Leopard Network.
So it's a huge, huge vision and a dream just came true [INAUDIBLE]. What is the other significant gifts that BMI graciously provided was the course titled Spiritual Lives of Leaders. It was a short winter course organized by the Harvard Business School and Harvard Divinity School. And there, I was able to deliver a message, a long, long awaited message from the elders of our network, directly to the students of Harvard, and directly to President of Harvard, President Lawrence Bacow.
And the message was such that we are ready to work together to help students, the upcoming younger generation, to heal themselves and also to heal earth, to save our Mother Earth. And the question was, how can we as Indigenous cultural practitioners and Indigenous communities help you, Harvard, to move forward in order to save our earth, to save all living beings? And that was magnificent.
So in terms of my professional life, I resumed my leadership role at the Land of Snow Leopard Network. And I actually also got another job in conservation at the US Energy Foundation. So I have actually two jobs now. In terms of my spiritual obligations, I continue to support my precious teacher [INAUDIBLE], who continues to live in the [? Zabaykalsky ?] Region, which is East of Buryatia. And practically, we're just one region. But unfortunately, we've been separated by the geopolitical borders and turmoils in the 20th century under the Soviet regime.
So I continue to support him as much as I can. And it's with his blessing and permission that I actually got into the BMI program. My teacher is a remarkable human being. He was in a solitary retreat for about six years up until the pandemic began, where he decided to interrupt it in order to help doctors and nurses, as well as COVID-19 patients.
And ever since the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, he's saving countless and countless and countless lives of [INAUDIBLE] soldiers who are being thrown into this nightmare like cannon fodder. Since September 21 of this year, President Putin announced partial mobilization of all civilians, or possible men and some women, but which really means as a mass mobilization. And that has continued to take place as we speak.
My teacher is, again, as involved in to saving as many lives as he can with his prayers, his ceremonies. And I'm personally helping Buryat and Russian refugees who fled to Mongolia in order not to be drafted into this senseless violent conflict. And I just-- I want to take this opportunity to express my deep, deep, deep gratitude to (EMOTIONALLY) Professor Kelso, Professor Hallisey, Chris Berlin, Professor Cheryl Giles, Professor Asani, Professor Carl D'arcy, Professor Ben Stein, [? Kristie Welsh, ?] and my dear friend Emily Ostler, who helped tremendously. Their compassion is immeasurable.
And thank you. I'm forever, forever indebted to all of you. Perhaps one of the most important Dharma lessons that he might have taught me is that it's absolutely possible to exist and to be in multiple realms at once. So for example, when I was at HDS, it's-- this is the most luxurious place. And it's like-- it's no less than a celestial palace. And I was treated like a queen.
And yet at the same time, simultaneously, I was in the deepest bottom of [INAUDIBLE] hell with so much suffering of my people and this genocide that is ongoing and that is not talked about a lot as it should be. But this conflict is a double edged sword that is killing not only Ukrainian people, but also Russian Indigenous people.
So I've learned that it's possible to live in this multiple realms at the same time. And I'm still learning how to navigate from one realm to another. One thing I want to share with the current cohort, I truly, truly recommend to please take-- well, first of all, please take care of yourself. And then try to take classes outside of Buddhism.
The beauty of being at Harvard, and especially in this program, is that you're able to cross-register with other schools. And therefore, how much more compassionate and courageous can it be than to learn from somebody who speaks completely different language, who thinks completely different? And it's all about, to me, what I also learned-- how it's important to try to understand how the other being is thinking. What do they feel?
And it's just as valid and just important as my own people's culture, for example. And that is leading me to-- I think it's really helping me to rethink my leadership role at the Land of Snow Leopard Network. And for that, I'm absolutely, absolutely grateful for. And once again, thank you, [NON-ENGLISH], you precious teachers. Thank you, Whole Family Foundation. And I hope for many, many more warm greetings and warm gatherings in the future. Thank you.
SPEAKER 1: Thank you so much, Maria.
[APPLAUSE]
I'll just add that Maria has enormous, enormous courage as a human being in an extremely difficult situation, as I think you can gather, and in terms of her connections and her aspiration and her fearlessness to speak truth to power and to guide her community.
And what's especially interesting about her work, as it combines Indigenous knowledge and Buddhist compassion together in perhaps some of the most important work that I believe Buddhists and, of course, others can be doing right now is protecting the planet-- something that I hope that we can talk more about if we have time this evening. But let us go on and listen to our other graduated students.