Dreaming Me: Black, Baptist and Buddhist
by Jan Willis
Tuesday
Night
Reading-Discussion
Group
8:30 – 9:30 pm • Atlanta Soto Zen Center
Moderated by Shiho Gareth Young
Beginning
Tuesday June 22, 2010
Jan Willis is not Baptist or Buddhist. She is simply both. Dreaming Me is the story of her life, as a child growing up in the Jim Crow South, dealing with racism in an Ivy League college, and becoming involved with the Black Panther Party. But it wasn't until meeting Lama Yeshe, a Tibetan Buddhist monk living in the mountains of Nepal that she realized who the real Jan Willis was, and how to make the most of the life she was living. Ultimately she chose inner peace over carrying a piece: it was the Buddhist path, which acknowledged suffering but focused on healing, that won her heart.
Jan Willis is Professor of Religion at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. She has studied with Tibetan Buddhists in India, Nepal, Switzerland and the U.S. for four decades, and has taught courses in Buddhism for thirty-five years. She is the author of The Diamond Light: An Introduction to Tibetan Buddhist Meditation (1972), On Knowing Reality: The Tattvartha Chapter of Asanga's Bodhisattvabhumi (1979), Enlightened Beings: Life Stories from the Ganden Oral Tradition (1995); and the editor of Feminine Ground: Essays on Women and Tibet (1989). Additionally, Willis has published a number of articles and essays on various topics in Buddhism—Buddhist meditation, women and Buddhism and Buddhism and race. In 2001, she authored the memoir, Dreaming Me: An African American Woman’s Spiritual Journey (re-issued October 1, 2008 by Wisdom Publications as Dreaming Me: Black, Baptist, and Buddhist—One Woman’s Spiritual Journey). In December of 2000, Time magazine named Willis one of six “spiritual innovators for the new millennium.” In 2003, she was a recipient of Wesleyan University’s Binswanger Prize for Excellence in Teaching. In September of 2005, Newsweek magazine’s “Spirituality in America” issue included a profile of her and, in its May 2007 edition, Ebony magazine named Willis one of its “Power 150” most influential African Americans.
Reading Group Format
The reading group is informal and readings serve as a point of departure for discussions. Sometimes we follow the text closely, other times discussion is wide-ranging. It is best to read the assigned chapter before attending but not required, but please feel free to drop in for the discussion even if you haven't read the text. Each participant is given the opportunity to raise phrases or topics from the assigned portion of the text which they wish to discuss. Tea and snacks are served. Since this is such a widely owned book we are not following our general practice of having copies of the text will be available by the door to the zendo, but if you do not own the book, you can share with others who have copies.
Schedule
| Date |
Chapters |
| June 22 | 1, 2, 3 and 4 |
| June 29 | 5, 6, 7 and 8 |
| July 6 | 9, 10, 11 and 12 |
| July 13 | 13, 14, 15 and 16 |
| July 20 | 17, 18, 19 and 20 |
| July 27 | 21, 22, 23 and 24 |
| Aug 3 | 25, 26, 27 and 28 |
| Aug 10 | 29, 30, 31 and 32 |
| Aug 17 | 33, 34, 35 and 36 |
| Aug 24 | 37, 38, 39 and 40 |
| Aug 31 | 41, 42, 43 and Afterword |