Pamela Ayo Yetunde, a pastoral counselor and an editor for leading Buddhist media voice Lion’s Roar, has curated this short series of talks and teachings by Black Buddhist leaders specifically for HBCU communities. Originally given at Lion’s Roar’s Dalai Lama Global Vision Summits in 2020 and 2021, they are meant to help anyone realize more compassion, equanimity, contemplation, and lovingkindness—in their personal lives and in society.
And indeed, these qualities can (and should!) be cultivated while in college, irrespective of one’s worldview or belief system. Society tells us that going to and graduating from college is the path to economic success, but while there, do we unwittingly cultivate our intellects at the expense of our hearts? We choose and get behind majority Black spaces to be affirmed in our history, culture, aesthetics, and our personhood, but do we pay enough attention to our own nervous systems in order to manage the stress caused by racialized violence? Can we elevate self-care while also facing the pressure of earning a degree? Yes, we can. And teachings like the ones gathered here can be of real support.
Also included for you is an excerpt from the book Black and Buddhist: What Buddhism Can Teach Us About Race, Resilience, Transformation and Freedom, edited by Yetunde and Cheryl A. Giles and offered by Shambhala Publications.
May these offerings be used to affirm your personhood, cultivate your resiliency, and allow you to fully claim your heart-mind, because a heart-mind is a wonderful thing to gain.
The Series at a Glance
Jan Willis
Love, Compassion, and Practical Advice: Shantideva and the Way of the Bodhisattva
(From The Dalai Lama Global Vision Summit, 2020)
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What Would a Compassionate Society Look Like? + Guided loving-kindness meditation
(From The Dalai Lama Global Vision Summit, 2021)
Christian Howard
The Compassionate Collective
(From The Dalai Lama Global Vision Summit, 2021)
Pamela Ayo Yetunde
Cultivating Wisdom While Under Siege
(From The Dalai Lama Global Vision Summit, 2021)
Cheryl A. Giles
They Say the People Could Fly:
Disrupting the Legacy of Sexual Violence through Myth, Memory, and Connection
(Chapter 1 from Black and Buddhist: What Buddhism Can Teach Us About Race, Resilience, Transformation and Freedom, published by Shambhala Publications)
Series Introduction
with Pamela Ayo Yetunde
Lectures
(Click the arrow icon below to expand the lecture list)
Meet the Presenters
Jan Willis is Professor Emerita of Religion at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut and now Visiting Professor of Religion at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, GA. She has studied with Tibetan Buddhists in India, Nepal, Switzerland, and the U.S. for five decades, and has taught courses in Buddhism for over forty-five years.
She is the author several books including The Diamond Light: An Introduction to Tibetan Buddhist Meditation, Dharma Matters: Women, Race and Tantra--Collected Essays, and the memoir, Dreaming Me: Black, Baptist, and Buddhist. She has been profiled in Newsweek and in Ebony magazine, which named Willis one of its “Power 150” most influential African Americans. TIME named Willis one of six “spiritual innovators for the new millennium.”
Christian Howard (all pronouns) is a US-based meditation teacher, narrative designer, and cultural strategist focused on building equitable futures for individuals, communities, and organizations.
His partnerships in the US and abroad have focused on cultivating liberatory design practices to uproot oppressive power structures and inspire individual and collective transformation. Over the years, he has also taught contemplative practice and secular ethics in the US, Europe, Japan, and other regions, and worked with such training modalities as Cultivating Emotional Balance, Creating Compassionate Identities, and Mindfulness-Based Mind Training.
Pamela Ayo Yetunde is a Community Dharma Leader and pastoral counselor. She is an associate editor with Lion's Roar Foundation, co-founder of Center of the Heart, and founder of Buddhist Justice Reporter: The George Floyd Trials. Ayo is the co-editor of Nautilus Book Award-winning Black and Buddhist: What Buddhism Can Teach Us About Race, Resilience, Transformation and Freedom (2020) and Frederick J. Streng Award-winning Buddhist-Christian Dialogue, U.S. Law, and Womanist Theology for Transgender Spiritual Care (2020).
Cheryl A. Giles is the Francis Greenwood Peabody Senior Lecturer on Pastoral Care and Counseling and a licensed clinical psychologist. She teaches courses on spiritual care, trauma, and contemplative care of the dying.
Giles is co-editor of The Arts of Contemplative Care: Pioneering Voices in Buddhist Chaplaincy and Pastoral Work (Wisdom Press, 2012). Her most recent book is Black and Buddhist: What Buddhism Can Teach Us About Race, Resilience, Transformation, and Freedom (Shambhala Publication, 2020) co-edited with Pamela Ayo Yetunde.