Radical Dharma, Rev. angel Kyodo williams
Radical Dharma, Rev. angel Kyodo williams
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Radical Dharma
Talking Race, Love, and Liberation

Author: Rev. angel Kyodo williams, Lama Rod Owens, Jasmine Syedullah, Ph.D.

Narrator: Rev. angel Kyodo williams, Lama Rod Owens

Unabridged: 6 hr 2 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/20/2019


Synopsis

Igniting a long-overdue dialogue about how the legacy of racial injustice and white supremacy plays out in society at large and Buddhist communities in particular, this urgent call to action outlines a new dharma that takes into account the ways that racism and privilege prevent our collective awakening. The authors traveled around the country to spark an open conversation that brings together the Black prophetic tradition and the wisdom of the Dharma. Bridging the world of spirit and activism, they urge a compassionate response to the systemic, state-sanctioned violence and oppression that has persisted against black people since the slave era. With national attention focused on the recent killings of unarmed black citizens and the response of the Black-centered liberation groups such as Black Lives Matter, Radical Dharma demonstrates how social transformation and personal, spiritual liberation must be articulated and inextricably linked.
 
Rev. angel Kyodo williams, Lama Rod Owens, and Jasmine Syedullah represent a new voice in American Buddhism. Offering their own histories and experiences as illustrations of the types of challenges facing dharma practitioners and teachers who are different from those of the past five decades, they ask how teachings that transcend color, class, and caste are hindered by discrimination and the dynamics of power, shame, and ignorance. Their illuminating argument goes beyond a demand for the equality and inclusion of diverse populations to advancing a new dharma that deconstructs rather than amplifies systems of suffering and prepares us to weigh the shortcomings not only of our own minds but also of our communities. They forge a path toward reconciliation and self-liberation that rests on radical honesty, a common ground where we can drop our need for perfection and propriety and speak as souls. In a society where profit rules, people's value is determined by the color of their skin, and many voices—including queer voices—are silenced, Radical Dharma recasts the concepts of engaged spirituality, social transformation, inclusiveness, and healing.

About The Author

Rev. angel Kyodo williams is an author, activist, master trainer, and founder of the Center for Transformative Change. Her critically acclaimed first book, Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living with Fearlessness and Grace, was hailed as "a classic" by Buddhist pioneer Jack Kornfield. Ordained as a Zen priest, she is one of the only two black women Zen "Senseis" or teachers. In 2011, Lama Rod Owens was authorized as a lama in the Kagyu School of Tibetan Buddhism. He then moved to DC and ran his own center for over two years. Later, he returned to Boston to begin his divinity degree in Buddhist studies at Harvard Divinity School. Jasmine Syedullah holds a PhD in politics with a designated emphasis in feminist studies and history of consciousness from University of California, Santa Cruz, and a BA from Brown University in religious studies with a focus in Buddhist philosophy. Syedullah is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Sociology at Vassar College.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jer on December 15, 2018

This was a very valuable book to read, and I’m glad I got through it, but it wasn’t easy. There’s a lot of very deep wisdom embedded in the discussions and essays that make up this book, things I’ve been trying to think about but which are elusive when you’re on your own. The authors share a deep wi......more

Goodreads review by Patrick on February 15, 2017

I thought this book gave some really valuable insights into how queer and female people of color experience buddhism. I really enjoyed the emphasis on being ok with discomfort and the messiness of tackling issues of racism. Two things bothered me about this book. One was how jargony so much of it was......more

Goodreads review by Janet on January 14, 2018

This book was breathtaking and challenging. I struggle as someone who identifies as Buddhist because I also feel I need to be active and stand up for social justice issues. I've loved and respected Elie Wiesel and his books, especially "Night." In his life, post-Holocaust, he said that we have to ta......more

Goodreads review by Veena on December 19, 2018

I have been a practising Buddhist for about 2 decades now and my belief in social justice is as strong as my "relief" in Buddhism! This is a great book that marries the two, a much needed, timely, courageous collaboration between three, black, queer, American Buddhists and trailblazers. I agree with......more

Goodreads review by Scott on January 24, 2021

I was excited to read this book, but ultimately I found it disappointing unfortunately. As a person of colour that practices Zen I was intrigued by it, I think I had been expecting this to be a book about engaged buddhist practice, on how the Bodhisattva path could be used to view the issues of race......more


Quotes

"angel Kyodo williams is one of our wisest voices on social evolution and the spiritual aspect of social healing.… A prescient book."
—Krista Tippett, On Being, from her interview with Rev. angel

Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation is the book for right now.”
—Autostraddle.com

“It is rather astonishing that the Black tradition of continuous and endless enlightenment in this country produces its prophets as if bad laws, discrimination, horrors of financial inequality and so on, do not exist to blight the way. No wonder one often imagines the ancestors laughing. This is a book to grow on, to deepen over, to partner with. We are on a magnificent journey of liberation, every moment we are alive in this odd place that has yet to awaken to itself. And we are always, generation to generation, ready to travel. How cool is this?”
—Alice Walker, American novelist and poet
 
“Radical Dharma is both radical … and courageous. The authors build upon the growing understanding of the connection between personal and societal liberation. Radical Dharma unflinchingly turns this lens to this most challenging and critical nexus of racism and white supremacy. We whites on a spiritual path are lovingly challenged to get our butts off the mat, understanding that our personal liberation is impossible while we unconsciously enjoy the privileges of our skin color. Those in pain and enraged from the brutalities of oppression are lovingly challenged to get that we will never create a liberated society without attending to our own liberation. This is not an ‘easy’ book. Just like a Zen koan, Radical Dharma asks provocative questions rather than prescriptive answers, questions that unsettle, questions that challenge some of our most precious assumptions. Through personal stories and dialogue, we are invited on a powerful journey of spiritual and political awakening. Take the invitation!”
—Robert Gass, EdD, cofounder, Rockwood Leadership Institute and Social Transformation Project
 
“Radical Dharma is a powerful and vulnerable circle held by three Dharma practitioners who are people of color. It is a beautiful and rare invitation to listen to how each transformed their pain. Some of this is familiar: no one sees me because of my weight. And some of this, for white people, will be new: What does it look like to truly sit with the pain caused by racism in your body? Radical Dharma demands that we step into the circle and ask: How do we restore our humanity? How do we transform ourselves and the world? In this book, Rev. angel Kyodo williams has created a powerful circle of truth around race and reconciliation. Sit, participate, and be broken open and transformed. Understand how the system of racism has traumatized all of us and how we need to heal individually and collectively.”
—Marianne Manilov, cofounder, Engage Network

"African-American and queer Buddhist teachers Rev. angel Kyodo williams and Lama Rod Owens, with Professor Jasmine Syedullah, have brought their brilliant minds and courageous hearts together in their book Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation (North Atlantic Books). They have also included the voices of other liberation-minded Buddhist practitioners, engaging them in conversations about what it should mean to practice Buddhism while bearing witness to police killings and mass incarcerations of Black people in the U.S. This combination of intersecting identities, talking in trialogue and in face-to-face conversations with complete strangers, makes Radical Dharma an unusual and fierce read."
Lion’s Roar