2025 Classes & Events
November 9, 2025
Year of the Black Woman: A Book Conversation with Toni Pressley-Sanon
co-sponsored by Sakyadhita International Association of Buddhist Women and the Initiative for Black Buddhist Studies
What is that special something that Black women Buddhist leaders offer in times like these?
In this book talk, Dr. Pressley-Sanon will share her motivations for writing the book, the experience of writing it, the insights she garnered, and lessons from teachers that can be applied for our thriving in these times.
Toni Pressley-Sanon, Ph.D., is the prolific author of Lifting As They Climb: Black Women Buddhists & Collective Liberation (Shambhala Publications, 2024). Dr. Pressley-Sanon is a professor of Africology and African American Studies at Eastern Michigan University. She is also a Buddhist practitioner.
This is a free online event.
Year of the Black Woman (YBW) is an education initiative preparing people to offer culturally-competent-strength and empowerment-oriented spiritual direction to Black women. YBW is founded by spiritual care scholar, author, and practitioner Pamela Ayo Yetunde, J.D., M.A., Th.D.
Time: 7-8:30pm ET
Location: Online via Zoom
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).
Time: 5-6:30pm PT/ 8-9:30pm ET
Location: Online via Zoom
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
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.
Photo by JJ Harris; used with permission by Lion’s Roar.