Interviews, articles and presentations

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In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book. This week’s featured author is Rima Vesely-Flad. Vesely-Flad is Visiting Professor of Buddhism and Black Studies at Union Theological Seminary. Her book is Black Buddhists and the Black Radical Tradition: The Practice of Stillness in the Movement for Liberation.

In this discussion we explore Dr. Vesely-Flad’s latest monograph, Black Buddhists & the Black Radical Tradition, featuring Black Buddhist teachers’ insights into Buddhist wisdom, and how they align Buddhism with Black radical teachings, helping to pull Buddhism away from dominant white cultural norms. 

Buddhism as it was adopted in North America has reflected the racism and discriminatory ideologies of this society. Rima researches how Black Buddhist teachers are doing things differently—and how Buddhist institutions in North America and contemporary Buddhist teachings are changing as a result. As more Black teachers are coming into positions of power in the US, authoring books, providing teachings, they are making new articulations of the dharma and carving spaces of liberation from dominant social messages.

Black Buddhist teachers, many of whom also self-identify as queer, show how dharma can be a great vehicle for recognizing that historical harm was done and continues to be done, and to working with that recognition. They disrupt the status quo, bringing about new awareness based on embodied experience, and bringing attention to internalized racism and inter-generational trauma.

With the tools that Buddhism provides to address, name, and be in discomfort, these teachers are making a different dharma possible: a space of resistance and healing to the pervasive ideologies of white supremacy. Teaching and reading this material with students, both white and marginalized, and gender non-conforming, Rima provides expansive opportunities for all to recognize the work that remains.

Rima Vesely-Flad reports on Deep Time Liberation, a retreat that takes African American meditators into the heart of slavery’s past so they can free themselves from its legacy of trauma.

We discuss her most recent book, Black Buddhists and the Black Radical Tradition: The Practice of Stillness in the Movement for Liberation. Rima’s book explores healing intergenerational trauma through Buddhist practice; honoring ancestors and the land; dharma teachings such as the Four Noble Truths, the Five Aggregates, and relative and ultimate reality; and working with the body—particularly gender and sexuality on the path of liberation; and the importance of community and love in dharma practice.

In this virtual conversation, Dr. Rima Vesely-Flad and Thenmozhi Soundararajan discuss Buddhism, intergenerational trauma, how the experiences of caste and racial oppression mirror one another, and their indebtedness to the Black Feminist and abolitionist traditions.

As Buddhism gains numbers of practitioners throughout the U.S., there is increasing attention paid to cultural adaptation and appropriation within “convert” sanghas. How can Buddhist practitioners, including Black Buddhists who have similarly experienced cultural appropriation, respond ethically? Recognizing the distinctive ways in which Asians and Asian-Americans have been racialized, as well as the distinctive ways in which Black people have been racialized, how can we address nuances and dynamics in Black and Asian Buddhist sanghas? Not least, as violence continues to be disproportionately inflicted upon Black and Asian community members, how can Black and Asian communities create further avenues for solidarity?

Dr. Rima Vesely-Flad and Dr. Toni Pressley-Sanon will gather virtually to discuss Dr. Vesely-Flad’s newly released publication, Black Buddhists and the Black Radical Tradition: The Practice of Stillness in the Movement for Liberation.

Rima Vesely-Flad, PhD, is a scholar/activist engaging critical theory, social justice, religion & philosophy. She is author of “Black Buddhists & the Black Radical Tradition: The Practice of Stillness in the Movement for Liberation” (2022, NYU Press).

The Africana Studies program at UNC Asheville invites you to an inter-institutional Africana studies virtual panel of “Bare Feet, Bootstraps, and Liberation: Exploring the Complex Journey to Reconciliation in the USA.” This Truth, Empowerment & Healing Discussion invites Western North Carolina scholars to converse and discuss their work dismantling white supremacy, reparations, reconciliation, and addressing generational trauma.

Featured panelists include Tiece Ruffin, interim director of Africana Studies and professor of Africana studies & Education (University of North Carolina Asheville); Rima Vesely-Flad, Director of Peace and Justice Studies and Associate Professor of Philosophy (Warren Wilson College); David Walton, Director of Global Black Studies Program and Assistant Professor of History (Western Carolina University); and Jonathan McCoy, Director of the Center for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and an Instructor of History (Mars Hill University). The group will discuss the scholarly and lived experience of the Black and African diaspora from their positions at various institutions around Western North Carolina. The panel will discuss the history of harm in the United States for Africana peoples, the arguments and movements surrounding reparations, highlighting community work and leaders towards equity, and the road to healing these inter-generational traumas.

This talk illuminates the emergence of a distinct form of Buddhism in the U.S. as people of African descent gravitate towards dharma teachings. It explores the ways in which the field of Buddhism and Psychology is being challenged and expanded to recognize intergenerational trauma resulting from slavery; Black Buddhist practices that mirror indigenous and Asian ancestral practices; and the reclaiming of Black embodiedness in dharma discourses on liberation.