Dharma and Activism

Professor Jan Willis : Dharma and Activism

Thursday, 7 April, 7:00-9:00 pm

In a world plagued by conflict, strife and inequities, how do we as Buddhists engage with practice, with others and with ourselves in order to create a more compassionate, just and equitable world?

About Professor Willis

Professor Jan Willis is uniquely positioned to facilitate this important discussion. She is Professor Emerita of Religion at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.

Born in Docena, Alabama, in 1948 and profoundly affected by racism and the Civil Rights movement, she majored in philosophy at Cornell University. With a choice between following the Black Panther Party, or travelling to Nepal, she chose the latter and met Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Kopan Monastery in 1969, becoming one of their earliest students. Lama Yeshe encouraged her academic studies and she went on to earn her PhD in Buddhist Studies at Columbia University and has studied with Tibetan Buddhists in India, Nepal, Switzerland, and the U.S. for over four decades.

The author of several books and numerous articles and essays on Buddhist philosophy and history, meditation, women and Buddhism and Buddhism and race, her memoir Dreaming Me: Black, Baptist, and Buddhist was first published in 2001.

In December of 2000, Time named Professor 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'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.