From SGI USA, I'm Cassidy Bradford, and this is Budability.

The weekly series where I talk with Buddhists from all walks of life about the power we each have to change our lives and the world around us.

There's a letter written by the 13th century Buddhist reformer Nietzran Dishonan that says,

Winter always turns to spring.

But sometimes when you're in the middle of a winter storm, I can feel like it's never ending.

Fortunately, even if you don't know when spring will arrive, chanting Namyo Hōrenge

Kyo strengthens our life force so we can keep pushing until spring is here.

Today's guest is Everton Carvalo a Baton Rouge.

Everton tells the story of how he navigated the most difficult year of his life and then arrived

to the most joyful year right after.

Welcome Everton to bootability.

It's great to have you here after your long workday.

Thank you for joining me. Thank you. Thank you so much. Happy to be here. Yeah. I'm really looking forward to, yeah, hearing about your incredible story and, yeah, really interesting kinds of ups and downs of your life and where you're at now. So just to get things started, I'll have you introduce yourself. So you can just

share a little bit about who you are and just your life growing up. Yes, of course. So my name is

Everton Carvalu. I'm 26 years old. I'm originally from Sao Paulo, Brazil. That's where I was

born and raised. And I was also born into this practice.

So my mother has been practicing for over 30 years.

And so I kind of grew up within the Buddhist community in Brazil.

You know, I have been immersed in it for as long as I remember.

So it's been a great journey. Yeah. Was there like any point in your life that like you really

started to deepen your Buddhist practice? Like growing up around it, I know some folks are like, you know,

I just, from a really young age, I was always chanting and it always felt like I was Buddhist.

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