2025 Classes & Events

September 18, 2025

Finding Stability in a Season of Volatility

presented with the Buddhist Peace Fellowship and Equality Labs

How do we prepare for what’s coming, and how might our practice guide and support us in that process? ✨

Finding Stability in a Season of Volatility is an emergent dharma and political education response to escalating violence and threat in the current moment.

This virtual event is facilitated by Thenmozhi Soundararajan (Equality Labs), Rima Vesley-Flad (Black Buddhist Studies Initiative), and Kate Johnson (Buddhist Peace Fellowship).

 

Our time together will include:
– Analysis and assessment
– Guided movement and meditation
– Dharma share
– Small group discussion
– Next steps
Join us for this grounding community sharing and practice space. This live zoom webinar event will not be recorded.

Time: 5-6:30pm PT/ 8-9:30pm ET

Location: Online via Zoom

Register

August 23, 2025

Black Buddhists and the Black Radical Tradition

Soto Zen Buddhist Association

Drawing on interviews with dozens of Black Buddhist teachers and practitioners, Dr. Vesely-Flad will explore how Black Americans engage Buddhist teachings in ways that resonate with Black radical thought—centering community uplift, ancestral devotion, and spiritual liberation.

Dr. Rima Vesely-Flad will explore how Black Buddhist practitioners integrate dharma with Black radical thought, ancestral reverence, and spiritual activism.

Time: 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM Eastern Time

Location: Online via Zoom

Suggested sliding scale: $10–$15 | No one turned away

Register

April 4 – 5, 2025

Race, Caste, and the Challenge of Karma: Cultivating Black Buddhist Perspectives

Princeton University

While Buddhism has been adopted by people who suffer from racial oppression, it remains difficult to reconcile traditional Buddhist approaches to karma with projects to counter systemic injustice. This conference brings together contemporary scholars of caste, race, and Buddhism to think through classical Buddhist perspectives on karma alongside Ambedkarite Buddhist perspectives and the ideas of Buddhists working against anti-Black racism in the U.S. today. It proposes to establish a conversational space for reconsidering karma constructively, to test its pitfalls and its liberatory potentials for addressing race and caste. Invited speakers will address traditional Buddhism both in its ideals and its cultural history; B.R. Ambedkar’s rejection of karma as he resisted the Brahmanic caste system; contemporary Black Buddhist activist, practitioner and theorist perspectives on karma; and comparative approaches to race and caste in the light of karma.

Learn More

Photo by JJ Harris; used with permission by Lion’s Roar.