Available now!
The Fire Inside:
The Dharma of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde
The Fire Inside explores the writings of Audre Lorde and James Baldwin through a Dharmic lens, revealing for the first time how two of America’s greatest literary voices reflect—and expand—Buddhism’s most timeless truths toward justice and liberation.
Dr. Rima Vesely-Flad dives deeply into a dharma of liberation as lived by Baldwin and Lorde, offering timely lessons to help us each meet this moment. She explores the writers’ enduring legacies to show that liberation depends not only on organizing and mass movements, but the generative power of inner well-being, authenticity, art, and embodiment.
This book offers space for emerging conversations within spiritual communities—ones that don’t shy away from difficult or uncomfortable truths; that center—and celebrate—Black, queer, radical thought; and that embrace the ways our inner lives, creative fire, sensuality, and expressions of love can ignite and sustain revolutionary liberation.
Book Discussion for Dalit History Month with Equality Labs
Presented by Equality Labs
🗓️ Thursday, Apr 16 from 7 pm to 8 pm EDT
📍Online
IRTF Liberation Lab Keynote and Book Signing
🗓️ Apr 9, 2026 @ 7:00pm ET – Loganberry Books
🗓️ Apr 10, 2026 @ 6:30pm ET – Third Space Reading Room
🗓️ Apr 11, 2026 @ 11:30am – 5:00pm ET (1:00pm Keynote) – IRTF Liberation Lab @ CSU Law
📍In-person
🗺️ 13015 Larchmere Blvd, Cleveland, OH 44120 – Loganberry Books
🗺️ 1464 E 105th St, Cleveland, OH 44106 – Third Space Reading Room
🗺️ 1801 Euclid Ave, Cleveland, OH 44115 – CSU College of Law
Book signing and discussions with author Dr. Rima Vesely-Flad about two of the greatest literary voices from the US and how they reflect justice and liberation.
Interview: The Road Home with Ethan Nichtern
Ethan talks to author, scholar and teacher Dr. Rima Vesely-Flad about her insightful new book The Fire Inside: The Dharma of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde.
A public scholarship project created at the intersection of academic inquiry and community-based engagement.
Black Buddhist Studies aims to:
- Offer community-based Buddhist Studies courses that center Black social movements, Black poets, and Black Buddhist writers
- Create conversations amongst Buddhist practitioners and activists, as well as scholars of Buddhism, on how Buddhism can address racialized systemic harm in bureaucracies such as the U.S. penal system
- Think through how Buddhist-inspired anti-caste movements influence anti-racism movements, as well as speak to discrimination based on poverty, gender, and sexuality in the U.S. context
- Co-create a dialogue between Black Buddhists and Asian and Asian American Buddhists to address issues such as cultural appropriation, cultural adaptation, and internalized racism
- Publish literature that can be used for furthering academic and community dialogue that incorporates the study of Buddhism and Black Studies.
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