How do we use our energy to confront overwhelming dehumanization and force? I am excited to announce a series of community-based courses that I will offer beginning in September which will address this question and other topics to help sustain healing and social justice work.
Presented by Sacred Mountain Sangha
đď¸ Sundays, June 28th to July 18th @ 11:00 – 12:30 p.m. PT
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Join us for a contemplative journey exploring how Baldwinâs and Lordeâs lives and works illuminate the territory of suffering, liberation, and the truth of this moment.
Dr Rima will open and close the series alongside sangha leaders Kareem Ghandour, Aishah Shahidah Simmons and Lisa D Moore who will be hosting the rest of the weeks.
This idea that we learn to suffer skillfully might be heard as a way of accepting it. Like âthatâs okay, itâs justifiable. Itâs something that is part and parcel of what it means to be Black in this country and weâll just go along with it.â Thatâs not what James Baldwin and Audre Lorde were talking about.
Evoking the lava at the center of Mother Earth is such a significant metaphor, one that Audre Lorde too brought forth in her essay âEye to Eye: Black Women, Hatred, and Anger.â
Lorde wrote: âMy Black woman’s anger is a molten pond at the core of me, my most fiercely guarded secret. I know how much of my life as a powerful feeling woman is laced through with this net of rage ⌠How to train that anger with accuracy rather than deny it has been one of the major tasks of my life.â
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.