Experience

As an educator, I transformed a chaotic classroom, as a son, I learned to love my mother, and as an individual, I learned to believe in myself. I’m Lance Powell from Atlanta.

The Power of Believing in Myself

Living Buddhism: At your middle school, you’re known for teaching classes in which students dramatically improve their writing, reading and speaking. As the young men’s leader for South Zone, an area spanning Georgia, South Carolina and southeastern Tennessee, you travel long distances to personally encourage the young men. What drives you? Lance Powell: Many youth in South Zone are struggling to believe in themselves. One reason I bring such passion to my classroom and to my leadership is that I understand that struggle very well. Bullied as much at home as at school, I didn’t have a happy childhood. I have a speech impediment and, what’s more, I’m gay—something that, in my mother’s mind, disqualified me from salvation. My mother was not a lovey-dovey person. She raised me on her own, and whole years passed by in which I did not hear the words “I love you.” The words I heard most often were “You’re worthless.”

Tell us about your encounter with Buddhism.

Lance: It was the summer of 2011, one month after receiving my undergraduate degree. I’d pursued academics rigorously, driven by the hope that academic success would somehow make me feel worthy. But upon graduating, I became depressed. I was underemployed and spent the bulk of my time in bed on the internet, where I got to talking with an SGI member. It was, she said, the most life-affirming philosophy she’d ever encountered— a practice that had the power to help anyone achieve their dreams, no matter who they were.

Impressed by her enthusiasm, I decided to give it a go. Two weeks later, I received a message from my aunt, whom I hadn’t heard from in a long time. She wanted to know how I was doing—she and other family members had been trying to reach me for years but had been unable. Through her, I was connected with other family members whom I hadn’t ever spoken to—my paternal grandparents among them. Not only did the rest of my family not hate me—as my mother had hinted—they cared about me.

A week later, I walked up the steps of the Atlanta

Buddhist Center. Here goes nothing, I thought, sure I’d be the only Black guy in the room. But as it happened, the meeting looked very much like the rest of Atlanta, and it overflowed with warmth.

You went on to accept district leadership, didn’t you?

Lance: That’s true. I received the Gohonzon the winter of 2012 and accepted district leadership in the spring of 2013. With this, the pace of my life picked up. Speaking with my father’s side of the family, I realized that I did have a dream, a dream that had been pursued by his family for four generations: teaching. Chanting about where I wanted my life to go, I started moving in that direction and applied to Mercer University in 2013 to pursue a master’s in education. But obstacles immediately hit.