Grant Jones (he/him) is an artist, contemplative, researcher, and activist. Currently, he is a 3rd Year Clinical Psychology PhD candidate at Harvard University. He is also a co-founder of The Black Lotus Collective, a meditation community that centers the healing and liberation of individuals with historically marginalized identities (i.e. Black, Brown, Queer Folks, Folks with Disabilities). His research and life work centers around developing and implementing contemplative and liberatory tools for underserved populations. He is also a musician and is rooted in Black soul, R&B, and alternative music traditions. He loves his family, his friends, nature, contemplative practice, travel, a good work out, and good food.
Parts of the interview have been edited for clarity and length.
As you are pursuing a PhD in Clinical Psychology at Harvard, what has brought you to this point in your life?
I have always been deeply introspective from the time I was young. I remember writing in my journal that I was going to be a psychologist. I really love combining my academic passions with my proclivity toward introspection and first-person inquiry. Psychology research is where my inner investigations express themselves. It’s a combination of being a school nerd and being curious about what’s happening in my mind that led me to pursue a PhD.
How did you enter the field of mindfulness? What led you on that path of becoming a contemplative scholar?
I think a lot of it stems from my own interest in my introspective process. Around the time when I was 18, contemplation really became codified as a practice. I was first drawn to meditation as a form of stress relief as I went to Harvard for undergrad. It was not just the outer stress of being in the most elite academic environment, but also the inner stress of ‘imposter syndrome’ and insecurity. It led me to go inwards and figure out what was happening. That led me toward contemplative practice. Over time, I’ve questioned how I could make a life in which I could center my contemplative practice; clinical psychology research is that answer, for the time being.
Were you involved with any undergraduate research in contemplative sciences?
Not at all. I was drawn to contemplative research later. I was figuring out what I wanted to do in undergrad and also research didn’t seem like a place for me. Research generally is not geared toward folks from my background. It wasn’t a place where I saw myself. When I was an undergrad, I was mainly focused on securing a “good” job. But through my introspective processes, it became clearer that I had to search for work that honored some of the truest elements of myself. This process initially drew me to research. From there, I’ve established a part of my self-hood within contemplative science.
How do you see your background informing your research or path forward in your academic work?
I see the two as being inextricably intertwined; I do not want to do any research that isn’t helping me grow into a more authentic version of who I am. I don’t want my research to flow from a purely cerebral place; I want it to be informed by the contemplative and embodied practices that I do. I want it to be informed by the culture that I’m a part of and by the life path that I’ve walked. It feels like there should be another word that’s more expansive than ‘research’, as I hope this work I do inside and outside of academia helps to scaffold my broader process of self-actualization. Right now, formal ‘research’ is one tool in my toolkit toward self-expansion.
“I don’t want my research to flow from a purely cerebral place; I want it to be informed by the contemplative and embodied practices that I do.”
As you bring your academic work into a personal reflective equilibrium, what are those initiatives that you are pursuing that embody this?
I’m a musician. Part of what’s been really exciting for me is thinking about what it means to have black music as a vehicle for contemplative practice and expression. That’s one frontier that I’ve been really excited about exploring. I’m an artist figuring out what it means to have science as a framework to facilitate my artistic process. So again, being myself but using the resources, frameworks, and the tools of science to bolster that self-expression. The forms of musical contemplative practice in the Black community aren’t recognized by Western forms of empirical inquiry at this point. I am in this doctoral program to hopefully expand what we see as ‘science.’
What is the Black Lotus Collective and what inspired its inception?
The Black Lotus Collective is a Boston-based healing space that centers the experiences and the healing of folks who have historically marginalized identities- Black, Brown, Queer folks, and Folks with Disabilities. It’s a group that uses contemplative practice and somatic and future-building practices to invite folks into their liberation. The group started after I met Juliana Santoyo at Green Gulch Farm (Zen Center) in San Francisco, California in 2016; we really vibed and thought about starting a spiritual community together for folks with historically marginalized identities (although we met in CA, we were both from Boston). We were also talking about Radical Dharma at the time because Rev angel Kyodo Williams was speaking at Green Gulch. After meeting with Lama Rod Owens back in Boston, we learned that he was intending to build a spiritual community as well. We started building together. Lama Rod introduced us to Darla Martin and Terrin Gathers and Juliana introduced us to their brother, Juan Santoyo. There were many other folks involved with the first years of the collective, but the folks I just named are those still acting as organizers for the group (and thus those I feel comfortable naming).
We originally started as a Radical Dharma Sangha of Boston, but we eventually branched off and kind of rebranded. We still have nothing but immense love and respect for Rod, but we realized that we as organizers were developing this emergent process that was informed by, but separate from Radical Dharma. The Black Lotus Collective has been in existence for almost four years now and meets monthly. This group was one of the main catalysts for embarking upon this PhD process I’m currently in now.
What is Radical Dharma?
Before I answer, I want to say that I am in no way an official representative of Radical Dharma at all! So my answer reflects my interpretation of the text and the message. With that said, to me Radical Dharma is essentially just stepping into a Dharma that recognizes that suffering is structured differently based on our identities and demographic markers. It’s a recognition that history has distributed suffering unequally, and those with historically marginalized identities have borne the brunt of so much suffering. It’s moving into a Dharma and inviting our Dharma spaces into a reflection around that truth. It’s about getting real that undoing suffering is inextricable from undoing structural oppression, it’s calling the Dharma into that truth. It’s just the Dharma, but it’s the Dharma that’s moving into deeper honesty with the world that we live in and showing how suffering works within it.
“Inner wellness is critical not only for dismantling the systems that cause depression, but also for giving the imaginative space to allow something else to take the place of those structures.”
Increasingly, we’re seeing how contemplative practices are used to undermine social structures that might promote inequality. Are initiatives like Black Lotus Collective an attempt to address social change or to promote wellness? Does the Black Lotus Collective point to a link between those two?
The two are inextricably linked. We do both, as both inform one another. Both are critical for the other. Inner wellness is critical not only for dismantling the systems that cause depression, but also for giving the imaginative space to allow something else to take the place of those structures. If you’re not well, there’s almost a guarantee that the structures that you put in the place of the ones that you tear down will continue to replicate the same violence. A part of the work that we do is making sure that in doing the healing work internally, we can build new structures that are actually more liberating.
Pretty much every structure that’s ever been built has been built in the name of liberation, truth, and justice- yet look at the world we have. So, we’re trying to be rigorous about our approach to healing so we can be rigorous about what we build. And on the flip side, these oppressive structures impede our healing. There’s real structural change that needs to happen. It feels really important to turn toward that because folks can’t heal if they are struggling to feed themselves, take care of themselves, if they’re experiencing incessant threats of harm and violence, and if they don’t have money.
We’re witnessing a global pandemic and American civil unrest. Do you think that Black Lotus Collective was designed to address this very type of unrest?
Yes, it’s designed exactly for that. The work of the Black Lotus Collective has always been about preparing us for pain and suffering; to show up to the particularities of each moment of suffering while recognizing that this suffering has always been with us. Our work is sustaining ourselves so that we can meet these moments of pain when they come to us.
As Black Lotus Collective blossoms, how do you envision its own growth and the impact of our five year or ten year period?
We all have different visions. I’m aware that each person’s version of liberation and truth are very different. I’m currently with the question: what do we do with the fact that we actually may all have different visions of what it means to live in a liberated future? What does it mean for us to potentially have different visions for what we want for the collective? Maybe some of us view our role as being more deeply relational, maybe some of us view our role as being more deeply structural. We’re in a process in which we’re actually being forced to reckon with where we overlap but also where we don’t. It all comes back to that very simple practice of just showing up as honestly as I can while keeping myself safe and figuring out what it means to do that with these folks with whom I’ve been in practice. It’s always the practice and it’s always evolving.
What do you envision for your future?
I didn’t feel like this going into grad school, but a part of me may want a tenure-track faculty job. I’m considering what it means to go into academia and bring myself into these spaces as authentically as I can. I’ve been thinking about doing that at a liberal arts college where I could be focused particularly on building community at the same time as I do some research, but not the amount of research that I see professors doing at R01 universities. I’ll likely be taking a different path than that (but we’ll see!). I’m also thinking about what it means to have a significant time period of extended retreat in the midst of my academic work because, again, continuing my embodied practices is a non-negotiable part of what it means for me to exist. So, I’m exploring whether I can blend my embodied contemporary practices with working from within these institutions.
I also love clinical work. I was drawn to this field because I love holding space, it’s one of the clearest connections I have to the divine, to the infinite, to the Dharma. I would like to have my own private practice and healing practice center, and having a clinical psychology license would make that process easier.
Ultimately though, I hope to go where life calls me, without much preconception. No matter what, I will have to forge my own path. That may be outside of institutions. Building on my own makes me feel nervous because in America, there’s like no safety net at all for anybody, especially not for folks like me.
For now, I’m just going to take as much time as possible with the PhD, do the work that I get called to, do work with folks that I care about, have as good a time as I can, do as much music as possible, and heal. I’ll see what happens when I do those things.
Grant Jones’ album morning breakthrough. is available on Spotify. You can listen to it here.
Michael is pursuing his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at the University of Hawai’i, Mānoa.
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