Rima Vesely-Flad, PhD, is the Founding Director of the Initiative for Black Buddhist Studies and a Research Fellow at the Institute of Buddhist Studies.
She is the author of The Fire Inside: The Dharma of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde, as well as other books examining the practices of Black Buddhists and the Black radical tradition.
Her work has been recognized by Lion’s Roar magazine, Tricycle magazine and many academic journals. Her speaking style is clear, kind, well-considered and purposeful.
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.
Praise for The Fire Inside
This groundbreaking work is a gift of love reminding us of how Black liberation struggle, like the dharma itself, has always been about everyone getting free.
—LAMA ROD OWENS, author of Love and Rage and The New Saints
This is a read not to miss. . . . I find my own embers of wellness, justice, and harmony stoked with her joy of expression from the heart and mind on behalf of us all.
—LARRY WARD, Buddhist teacher, author, and cofounder of The Lotus Institute
This book is a fire that both illuminates and refines, a call to engage with the truth of our times while drawing strength from ancestral wisdom.
—RUTH KING, author of Mindful of Race
I have followed and admired Rima Vesely-Flad’s work for years. She is tapping resources that all of us can access for greater hope and change.
—MICHELLE ALEXANDER, author of The New Jim Crow
Juneteenth celebration at Myers Park Baptist Church
Presented by Myers Park Baptist Church
🗓️ June 21, 2026 @ 11:15 a.m. – 12:15 pm ET
📍In-person
📍1900 Queens Road, Charlotte NC
To commemorate Juneteenth weekend this year, we are offering a special session of the Faith and Community Forum.
We will host social activist, pastor at Warren Wilson College and author Rima Vesely-Flad, who in 2026 published her third book: The Fire Inside: The Dharma of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde. She will share with us some of the painful experiences in her childhood, and how these shaped her younger years.
Juneteenth on the Block
Presented by Noir Collective AVL
🗓️ June 19, 2026 @ 2:00pm ET
📍In-person
📍39 S Market St Suite C, Asheville, NC
Come celebrate Juneteenth with us at the Ujamaa Marketplace, part of the Boosting the Block initiative that seeks to connect Asheville’s historic Black business district to Pack Square.
Join us for the Juneteenth Edition of the Ujamaa Marketplace, where culture meets commerce, creativity, and community—an intentional space where emerging entrepreneurs and artisans showcase their talents, build meaningful connections, and bring their goods to market!
Tina Turner’s Nichiren Buddhist Practice with Dr. Ralph Craig
The distinctive teachings of Nichiren Buddhism are deeply compelling for Black practitioners throughout the United States. To start this exploration of the significance of this practice for Black Americans, Rima Vesely-Flad speaks with Dr. Ralph Craig about the famous Black Buddhist singer Tina Turner, and her relationship to Nichiren practices such as chanting the Lotus Sutra.
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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