Please see the event recording here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fu0kh8RH7j8
Date and Time
Fri, October 23, 2020, 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM PDT
Contemporary Indigenous movements for sovereignty, like Standing Rock in 2016, have highlighted the ongoing violence settler colonialism perpetuates against lands and peoples. In this talk, I’ll discuss how Buddhists can draw from Buddhist teachings and shared land-based ethics to stand in solidarity with Native and Indigenous peoples. By connecting the dots between settler ideologies, the dispossession of peoples/lands, and ecological harm, I’ll outline the ways Buddhist praxis can facilitate decolonial praxis. This will give us an opportunity to explore how Buddhist scholars and practitioners may use this period of quarantine and intersecting crises to mobilize in the service of ecological wellness and collective liberation.
Natalie Avalos (she/her) is an Assistant Professor in the Ethnic Studies department at University of Colorado Boulder. She is an ethnographer of religion whose research and teaching focus on Native American and Indigenous religions in diaspora, healing historical trauma, and decolonization. She received her Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of California at Santa Barbara with a special focus on Native American and Indigenous Religious Traditions and Tibetan Buddhism and is currently working on her manuscript titled The Metaphysics of Decoloniality: Transnational Indigeneities and Religious Refusal, which explores urban Indian and Tibetan refugee religious life as decolonial praxis. She is a Chicana of Apache descent, born and raised in the Bay Area.
About Currents:
In this series of conversations hosted by Mangalam Academic Director, Karin Meyers, scholars of Buddhist studies will offer critical perspectives on current social, political, economic and ecological crises in light of Buddhist history, thought and practice. In Asia, Buddhist study and practice were traditionally integrated together in monastery life. Today, in the west, serious study and practice are typically pursued in different social locations, the university, and Dharma centers. By bringing academic scholars and Dharma practitioners together in conversation, this series aims to bridge that gap. By focusing on contemporary issues and crises, the intention is to explore the relevance of Buddhist teachings for our times, as well as to support and inspire socially transformative Buddhist practice. Each session will begin and end with a short community practice and include ample time for Q&A and discussion.
This event is free to attend. There is no registration fee and everyone is welcome. During the event we will have a time for participants to offer dana to support the work of our guest speakers and our organization.
This conversation will be held on Zoom.
Graphics made by Ignacio Ercole, volunteer at Mindful Living at Mangalam Center. Follow their art profile on instagram : @ignacioercole.art
