Rhonda Magee, Rima Vesely-Flad and Pamela Ayo Yetunde
Buddhism, Oppression, and Justice
What You'll Learn
Can Buddhism and mindfulness contribute to the pressing conversations and activist movements regarding racial oppression and social justice in our time? In this powerful event, summit host and social justice activist Ayo Yetunde facilitates a conversation between Rhonda Magee, author of The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness and Rima Veseley-Flad, author of Racial Purity and Dangerous Bodies: Moral Pollution, Black Lives, and the Struggle for Justice, on the topics of dharma practice, oppression, and justice. In a conversation filled with tenderness, humor, strength, and love, the panelists discuss topics including how awareness practices can help us understand the causes of oppression and the intersection of spiritual support and racial activism.
About Rhonda Magee
You can learn more about her work on her website which serves as a resource and online community hub focused on engaged mindfulness.
About Rima Vesely-Flad
Find a free talk with Dr. Vesely-Flad on Learning About Black Buddhist Dharma Teachers and Healing Justice here.
About Pamela Ayo Yetunde
Ayo's articles on Buddhism can be found on Lion's Roar and Ayo's books can be found here.
What do you think?
Leave a comment below!
Such a wonderful gift- thank you for your clarity and the truth you all speak from vulnerability.As a 67 year anniversary old woman of Asian origin who has lived in U.K. for most of my adult life, I very much resonated with the descriptions of the ongoing inner work which Rhonda and Rima described so clearly.Your voices are so important and necessary at this time!
Thank you all for sharing so much from your hearts and minds. It’s a really generous offering and I feel deeply moved listening to you.
I would like to hear their take on non-duality (Advaita). Thank you.
Thank you, you beautiful, eloquent women!
Thank you so much for this conversation. As a sister Black and mixed race woman, I appreciated and resonated with the vulnerability it takes to recognize and share about our internalized racism, grief at not knowing specifics of our ancestry and history, and the critical importance of community. Rima, we have only spoken after days of silence on retreat, and it’s wonderful to learn about your work and hear your voice. Thank you.
As a white, male Dharma practitioner of forty years (in the Tibetan tradition) who is finally extricating himself from the delusion of race, I salute you beautiful, powerful warrior women of color. My life has been changed by knowing some of you. I fully believe Black women Dharma practitioners will be instrumental in dissolving the pernicious myth of White supremacy. Thank you.
First, I’m profoundly grateful for the words and concepts shared during this talk. They have provided some answers to something I have been searching for for years which is how can I do political work, especially anti-racist and practice Buddhism. While I may forget most of what the two presenters said, it has shed a light on my path. De todo corazón, gracias!
Beautiful, touching, hopeful
So very precious to have these sessions shared with me as a white person – and an overwhelming sense of joy springs from this session – your sisterhood, the joy of Dharma practise. Exploring vulnerabilities together – thank you thank you thank you
I think that for me in the beginning of my dharmic practice, though I wholeheartedly resonated with foundational Buddhism, I lacked a particular language to express the why and how my resonance manifested. It took a long time for me to find out that the language of Blackness – both in my own lived experience and implicit/explicit cultural storytelling – was lacking… maybe sometimes intentionally and maybe sometimes unintentionally to make the Tibetan culture (and sometimes the white college educated culture) the aspirational culture with which to experience Dharma. In listening to this and the opening call, I’ve had a lot of “mmm-hmm” explosions that seem to truly unlock the joy of practicing and sharing Dharma, especially as felt through & directed by my Black-American body.
Thank you.
Gratitude beyond measure! Thank you for your open hearts, your deep explorations, your clarity and your sharing. I identify as 72 year old black embodied female gendered seeker. My journey has taken me from childhood through predominately white places and spaces all my life. Through different churches, religious traditions and practices I traveled, stopped and stayed awhile, listening, learning but at a certain point always felt I had to move on. A number of years ago committing to a yoga led to Buddha. Now with a sanga that is led by a white practitioner and where I am one of an occasional second I find myself with one foot in and one foot out. Hearing your voices, thoughts, and seeing your faces particularly as black women is rescuing me. I don’t know that a poc sanga exists in my immediate area but I hope to find one.
May you be happy, may you be well, may you be safe. Namaste
I wish you/we could continue too… THANK YOU for your openness, clarity, and generosity of spirit. So much of what you have shared resonates so deeply within me, an almost 75 year old first generation American (with frizzy hair that I tried desperately to “fix” until I was in my late 20’s) whose parents escaped Hitler’s Europe. I would so much like to continue… and to have a venue for sharing all this touches in me. Palms Together.
Thank you. Deep learning and appreciation for each of you.
Thank you for inviting us to such an incredible path of spiritual transforming knowledge. Am deeply grateful to have been part of this learning and I intend to pass your spiritual resonance to my friends and family. Your teaching will undoubtedly enable all of you to grow to the highest summits. My heartfelt gratitude.
Thank you, Ayo, Rhonda and Rima, for this deeply engaging discussion.
Thank you so much for the opportunity to participate in this summit!
I am a white female psychotherapist from germany; I work with traumatized patients and try to apply awareness and compassion wherever I can (within myself and in contact with the world).
I think it is so important that we share the feeling and knowing of interconnectedness, for being human, for being vulnerable and resiliant at the same time. And to learn from each other and our individual and collective history. This summit is a great chance for that learning – thank you!
Thank you very much, I’m in Brazil in the horrible context of Covid amid so much anger and intolerance, this conversation was a light in my day
You are some of the most generous teachers I’ve ever heard. I am buying and reading your books.
Thank you. This was beautiful and will benefit so many people.