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!
Is it possible that the way oppression works is to divide us into (out of the boundaries of our personal, “environmental” or cultural situation) separated pieces of a common human being body? Thanks.
Which importance has the gesture of living in the here and now, of focusing in the livestream of what comes to our eyes?
Thank you so much!
I must acknowledge oppression and release it.
Powerful session. So grateful.
Really beautiful women!
This was fantastic. Thank you!
Blessings to all of you for your time, insight and work. I so appreciate your wisdom and your authentic sharing of it and yourself with us. Very healing and inspiring.
Eyes well up with the
heart swells of longing that
all abide as wellness blossoming
When
Even just one of us
can speak
as clearly as
these sitting
before us .. as
THE offering
a hand out of the
ditches of trampled..
can’t keep us ..
just to be listening in, on –
the
“time”honored
Work of dharma
offered via
Of
the Many
insights
earned by these speakers .
Is the grace I often forget is available
Thank you
Amituofo
Thank you for sharing your beautiful poem of truths ♡
This was a beautifully engaging and inspiring talk. Thank you!
Very powerful. Especially the words at the end about Buddhist practitioners creating spaces where we don’t have to hide out suffering, but we can turn to it.
Yes I need people.
Thank you to the Universe, the Orishas, to all our Ancestors for allowing these Powerful, Beautiful, Articulate, Brilliant Women of Color the gift of sharing their personal and universal stories with us.
Truly appreciate both guests here. I want to highlight Dr. Vesely-Flad’s discussion of the Black radical tradition and Buddhism. I am embarking on a similar project with creatively engaged Buddhism in the Black community, so I anticipate her work as a valuable resource.
Additionally, I also agree that many of us have never allowed White supremacy to control our lives; psychological liberation was, ironically, built into my upbringing in South Carolina. I think my fortunate upbringing has caused me to want to help liberate others first through education (I’m an Associate Professor) then through the Dharma, which I came to after medical trauma. The Dharma can be such a value to young people today, so I appreciate this Summit as I gain additional insight to help them.
I enjoyed your thoughts. I am a non-black Buddhist woman who wants a better understanding of these issues.
Thank you
The validation of experience and knowing through mindfulness, and the relevance of freedom and liberation from externally defined causes and conditions is on point. The need for internalized oppression to be known, seeking safety and bravery for inner life wholeness needs this affirmation! So powerful to hear this and the intersection with black writers and working with the origins that lead to self liberating practice.
This panel was AMAZING!! Pamela, Rima, and Rhonda, thank you so much for your ideas, your intellect, and your openness! Like Pamela, I too am nourished. THANK YOU!
It seems like the women are doing good work in the criminal justice fields. I have to listen again to the whole talk so I can submit good questions here.
How can we work and become in learning and practice,i so that complicity can be recognized so that oppression does not result?
Thank you,
Inspiring and beautiful thoughts
Listening and learning so much from these powerful practitioners. This is a privileged space in the very best way.
Marvelous, powerful, uplifting conversation! Thank you Rima, Rhonda and Ayo. Deeply thoughtful questions and responses – I can’t wait to read your books.
This is inspiring and beautiful. Thank you so much! Love the mention of the importance of the five aggregates and mental formations in relation to the conditions we have been born in to, both black and white people. Fantastic workshops. Looking forward to them all!!!
Thank you!
Thank-you for this wonderful gift. All three ladies so authenticlly sharing themselves. I am white and want to turn toward the pain of being in the oppressor group This is not meant to compare my pain to the pain of oppresion. I really liked what Pamela said about if we explore uncomfortable topics together, we can promote healing.
Welp, guess I’m gonna be crying for the whole next week. It is so powerful and moving to be able to be part of this. Coming from a family with intergenerational violence/trauma is the norm to be able to see this and know that living differently isn’t living falsely is very…It’s just what I needed to see. I wish I could take this to my family and show them that they don’t have to hate themselves but there’s a wall between us now that I don’t think will ever come down.
Thank you for your stories. I look forward to the rest of the summit. Be well.
I am so touched by the honesty, the embodiment, & courage of Drs Rhonda Magee & Rima V-Flad in these times. Also their deep Buddhist grounding & responding to the heart moment. Much gratitude to them & to the offering of this summit. The deep deep suffering is heard, has a container & Sangha to be held & nourished.
Much gratitude & blessings to fellow participants.
After a very busy zoom-filled day of community-based work, I come to this Summit for nourishment. I am overflowing with emotions after sitting with these first 2 sessions. My “ocean of tears” carries both pain and hope. The deep, loving, truth-telling connections offered by each presenter within the tenderness of Ayo as our moderator was exceptional, moving and so so strong. Thank you.
Paraphrasing – We are more than objects being acted upon by, and responding to, oppressive systemic forces. We are more than externalized protest. Those are part of our subjectivities, but so are our internal lives, our souls, our intelligences. Rima, that was a whole sermon! Thank you for this session.
Amen!
Thank you for this vulnerable, truthful conversation from three lovely women. The cruel treatment they have endured their whole lives is heart breaking. But their courage and intelligence shines. Thank you for sharing so bravely.
Such a rich and vibrant dialogue! So grateful for all of these women!
Deep gratitude for you work… Thank you for shining your light.
I deeply rejoice for to walk with these powerful Women and for all the example and inspiration that come from Your thounghts and actions…
– Yours in Dharma
Thank you for the radiant presence you all brought to this conversation, holding hard questions with such love, wisdom and truth.
Thanks to you all! It was so much for me to think about. thank you for talking about your personal lives and your own struggles., and for being vulnerable
What a deeply moving joy to be with your radiance, your willingness to be vulnerable, your courage, power, profound intelligence. Heartfelt gratitude.
Wow! There are so many “gold nuggets” here. I can relate to the need to find “my people.” Thank you for your honesty and vulnerability.
Thank you so much for all the wisdom and insights and shared experiences. I was deeply moved from the compassion and humanity throughout the all conversation.
Thank you for being beacons of Hope and inspiring me to do my work on an even deeper level 🙏
Greetings!
I have no words for how profoundly happy I am to be apart of this amazing event. When I registered, I was unsure if I could make the schedule times, but here I be! 🙂 It will always be a blessing to my spirit to have seen these powerfully, mindful women and hear their very clear and unwavering voices speak to my soul. Because I live eighty miles from the nearest metropolitan area, without out virtual webinars, I would never have been able to participate in a Buddhist group comprised of Black people. As a new practitioner to mindfulness, I am grateful to learn from people whose lived experiences mirror my own. I look forward with happy anticipation to the speakers to come.
You have been water to my thirsty heart.
Cherri
SoulSister in Appalachia
I’m so grateful to be a part of this form of vulnerability. The time has come for difficult conversations to manifest in a multicultural setting. Thank you for the courage to speak the truth. At the same time I feel safe enough as one who is white and privileged to admit to some of my own oppressive roots. And my deep desire to heal them in the mindful company of those whom I have injured.
Thank you for letting me in.
What a blessing. Thank you.
Thank you three for your honesty and well articulated reasoning. I often feel ashamed to be white because of the dominant arrogance of so many whites and the pain our ancestors have inflicted on others. I think the practice of mindfulness dissipates arrogance as conscious awareness has no colour. Buddhism teaches absence of inherent existence so we are all connected on a deeper level beyond our skins. When we practice mindfulness we experience a space beyond race, colour and identity.
Oh wow Drs. Magee and Vesely-Flad! Thank you so much for this. I am not responsible for another’s fear. I must have courage to be truly vulnerable.
Touched and full of hope now. Thank you for your wisdom and love
So wonderful. Thank you for such vulnerability and open heartedness.
Excellent program and speakers. Thank you so much!!
This was such a gift – so inspiring .Thanks you
Such a great conversation! i look forward to reading Rima’s book! Everyone read Rhonda Magee’s book! So glad that we are ready to bring the Dharma together with the Black Radical Tradition….
Thank you all for this wonderful session. As a white woman the one thing that struck me is that I too have internal oppression that I work to free myself from. But I don’t live in a society that continually supports my own internal oppression. And that awareness is truly a gift from you. Thank you.