Princeton University will host a four-day faculty workshop in early August examining the history and contemporary significance of Black Buddhist thought in the United States.
The Black Buddhism Faculty Training workshop is aimed at fostering “generative conversation among scholars of African American religion and Buddhism” and developing resources for teaching the subject. The event is organized by Princeton’s Black Buddhism Faculty Project (BBFP), an initiative launched in 2023 through the university’s Center for Culture, Society and Religion.
The project describes Black Buddhist studies as “a boundary-crossing field” connecting Buddhist studies, African American studies, American religious history, comparative literature, and philosophy. Since its establishment, the BBFP has created a digital library, organized three workshops, and begun developing teaching materials for scholars and practitioners.
Assistant professor of religious studies at Vanderbilt University Adeana McNicholl, a participant in the project, said Black people had interacted with Buddhist ideas for much longer than conventional histories of Buddhism in the US generally acknowledged: “Black people have been engaging with Buddhist thought and ideas for nearly as long as Buddhism has been in the United States.” (RNS)
Histories of American Buddhism frequently begin with Chinese migration during the mid-19th-century gold rush and the later arrival of Japanese immigrants. Scholars involved in the Princeton initiative argue that this account often overlooks encounters between Black intellectuals, activists, and Buddhist thought.
Assistant professor of religion at Whitman College Ralph H. Craig III said the Buddhist teachings—particularly nonviolence—contributed to intellectual and political currents within the long civil rights movement. Black thinkers including W. E. B. Du Bois, Howard Thurman, and Bayard Rustin engaged with Asian philosophies and anti-colonial movements.
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. developed a close relationship with Vietnamese Zen teacher Thích Nhất Hạnh. Buddhist ideas circulated more broadly through Black newspapers, jazz, new religious movements, and other forms of cultural expression, Ass. Prof. Craig said.
“It’s not necessarily just because they happened to pick up a book in a bookstore and it blew their minds, right? There is a kind of circulation of ideas that’s happening,” Ass. Prof. Craig observed. (RNS)
Black Buddhism became more visible as a self-identified movement during the 1990s, and gained further attention after the racial justice protests of 2020. Buddhist communities increasingly discussed race, karma, and systemic injustice, while retreats specifically serving people of color became more common.
Buddhist pastoral counselor, educator, and author Pamela Ayo Yetunde said Buddhism’s emphasis on acceptance had attracted Black practitioners from a range of backgrounds.
“You can be a Black woman, you can be a Black trans woman, trans man, queer and . . . you can still be a leader within Black Buddhist traditions and Buddhist traditions,” Yetunde said. (RNS)
However, scholars noted that terminology remained contested. The author of Black Buddhists and the Black Radical Tradition, Rima Vesely-Flad, expressed a preference for terms such as “Black Buddhists” and “Black Buddhist thought,” arguing that “Black Buddhism” could obscure the diversity of lineages and practices followed by Black practitioners.
Questions surrounding karma have also prompted debate. Vesely-Flad said the doctrine had sometimes been used to blame oppressed communities for their suffering.
“We can’t pretend it doesn’t exist,” Vesely-Flad said, while emphasizing the need to recognize how karma had been weaponized against marginalized people. (RNS)
Ass. Prof. McNicholl also pointed to persistent assumptions within Buddhist studies that Buddhism in Asia represented the most authentic form of the tradition, leaving American and Black Buddhist experiences at the margins.
As the US marks its 250th anniversary, Ass. Prof. McNicholl said renewed attention to this history could broaden understandings of American religion:
“Uncovering this history of Black Buddhism allows us to see the diversity of religious life in the United States” and recognize Buddhism as part of the country’s religious fabric for much of its history, she said. (RNS)
See more
Long overlooked and newly energized, Black Buddhist studies challenges US Buddhist history (Religion News Service)
Black Buddhism Faculty Training (Princeton University)
Black Buddhism Faculty Project (Princeton University)
Related news reports from BDG
Larry Ward, Advocate for Racial Healing and Senior Plum Village Teacher, Has Died
Asian American Buddhists Commemorate Anti-Asian Violence and Murders with “May We Gather 2024”
Dalai Lama Decries “Racism, Discrimination” Behind the Killing of George Floyd
Los Angeles Buddhists Perform Silent Meditation Walk in Solidarity with Anti-Racism Activists
Buddhists in Massachusetts Initiate Peace Walk to Honor Native Americans
Wisdom Mind Network Hosts Historic Black Wisdom Online Summit
Union Theological Seminary Hosts Panel on Being “Black and Buddhist in America”
