Opening Dharma Access: Listening to BIPOC Teachers & Practitioners
Welcome to "Opening Dharma Access," a podcast where we hear stories from BIPOC teachers & practitioners about their Dharma experiences and practice, and how those inform the ways they are sharing & practicing the Dharma today.
Season 3 description: Hosted by Rev. Liên & Rev. Dana Takagi
This season, we will have a new focus: Uplifting and Forwarding Asian American/Asian Diasporic Buddhist Experiences in the West.
With our guests and audience, we will explore the specificities of Asian American/Asian Diasporic experiences. We take as given that there are generational differences (hence the historical moment matters!) and we hope to also delve into Asian family norms and values, our inchoate understanding of ancestor worship, issues of identity, representation, stereotypes about sexuality and sexual identity, and Asian American depression.
A theme we'll be using to help guide our conversations is The Disquiet - a term we are adapting from writer/poet Fernando Pessoa (The Book of Disquiet) -- which, in our view, signals a complex recognition of self, mind, and body. The evidence for the foregoing includes scholarly research indexed in aggregate statistics on depression, youth suicide, and other issues in immigrant or first-generation families. While Asian Americans are not alone in experiencing trauma, the racial languages and discourses of othering are different for us than for other groups.
What do we hope is the outcome of this podcast? Our first aim is to give voice to the range and depth of Buddhism in Asian and Asian American generations. We hope, in doing so, we help to shine a light on the limited or myopic envisioning of race in primarily white sanghas. Asian and Asian American diasporic truths about practice are a teaching for contemporary dharma organizations and centers. We recognize the depth and range of Asian and Asian Diasporic Buddhists is a wisdom mirror for organized Buddhism in the West.
Thank you to the Hemera Foundation for their generous support of Season 3!
Contact us at: Info.Access2Zen@gmail.com
Further Info at: AccessToZen.org
Opening Dharma Access: Listening to BIPOC Teachers & Practitioners
Praises to the 21 Taras with Pema Khandro Rinpoche
Praise to Tārā with Twenty-One Verses of Homage (Skr. Namastāraikaviṃśatistotraguṇahitasahita) is a liturgy that consists of twenty-seven verses of praise and reverence dedicated to the deity Tārā. The first twenty-one verses are at once a series of homages to the twenty-one forms of Tārā and a poetic description of her physical features, postures, and qualities.
- 84000 Reading Room
Chanted by Pema Khandro Rinpoche and Buddhist Studies Institute dharma friends, using the English translation and melody arranged by the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition.
The English text used in this practice, with accompanying Tibetan phonetics, is available for free pdf download here, through the courtesy of Maitripa College of Portland, Oregon and the FPMT.
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PEMA KHANDRO RINPOCHE is an internationally renowned teacher and scholar of Buddhist philosophy. She is the founder of Ngakpa International and its three projects, The Buddhist Studies Institute, Dakini Mountain and the Yogic Medicine Institute.
Visit Khandro-la's website for more resources
and learn more about the Buddhist Studies Institute here.
You can find Khandro-la on social media on:
Facebook
Instagram
X (formerly Twitter)
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HOST LAMA KARMA YESHE CHÖDRÖN is a scholar, teacher, and translator of Tibetan Buddhism at Rigpe Dorje Institute at Pullahari Monastery in Kathmandu, Nepal and co-founder of Prajna Fire.
Hear more about Lama Yeshe as ODA co-hosts Rev. Liên Shutt and Kaira Jewel Lingo interview her about her Dharma experiences as a practitioner and teacher of color here.
In addition to Opening Dharma Access, Lama Yeshe co-hosts Prajna Sparks, a podcast for listening to, contemplating, and meditating on the Buddhadharma.
Watch her on the Lion's Roar Podcast hosted by Mariana Restrepo, discussing the Vajrayana yidam practice of Chenrezig.
Lama Yeshe also shares with ODA this guided practice of tonglen and sacred creativity as well as this guided practice of being love.
Check out Lama Yeshe's articles published in Buddhadharma: The Practitioner's Guide, Lion's Roar Magazine, and Tricyle Magazine.
Join the Prajna Fire global community and follow Lama Yeshe on Instagram @karmayeshechodron.