Buddhist teachings on how we have been conditioned to interpret raw data; which then drives us to behave. -- An excerpt from Rev. Liên's book, Home is Here, to accompany Professor Michael Omi's in-depth interview on racial formation this month.

REV. LIÊN SHUTT (she/they) is a recognized leader in the movement that breaks through the wall of American white-centered convert Buddhism to welcome people of all backgrounds into a contemporary, engaged Buddhism. As an ordained Zen priest, licensed social worker, and longtime educator/teacher of Buddhism, Shutt represents new leadership at the nexus of spirituality and social justice, offering a special warm welcome to Asian Americans, all BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, immigrants, and those seeking a “home” in the midst of North American society’s reckoning around racism, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia. Shutt is a founder of Access to Zen (2014). You can learn more about her work at AccessToZen.org. Her new book, Home is Here: Practicing Antiracism with the Engaged Eightfold Path. See all her offerings at EVENTS

Professor Michael Omi joins Rev. Dana to help us contextualize the current climate of racial formation, namely the propagation of a far-right ideology of an oppressed white race, in a much longer history of constant changing in definitions of and associations with racial identities. In Buddhist terms, we can see the theory that Michael co-developed contains an essential Buddhist perspective, namely that of Mental Formations. Stay tuned later this month for a practice offering from Rev. Liên!

Michael Omi (he/him/his) is Professor Emeritus of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the co-author, with Howard Winant, of Racial Formation in the United States (Third Edition, 2015), a groundbreaking work that transformed how we understand the social and historical forces that give race its changing meaning over time and place. He is also the co-editor of Japanese American Millennials: Rethinking Generation, Community, and Diversity (2019). At Berkeley, he served from 2012-2016 as the Associate Director of the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society (HIFIS), and in 2020 he was the inaugural Chair of the Asian American Research Center (AARC). Professor Omi is a recipient of UC Berkeley’s prestigious Distinguished Teaching Award --- an honor bestowed on only 285 Berkeley faculty members since the award’s inception in 1959.

This practice offering is from co-host Rev. Dana Takagi, in connection with Professor and Historian Alice Yang's interview, "Our Heritage of Othering and Resistance" which dropped July 1st.

Dana speaks to the need to address specific kinds of suffering as Buddhist teachers and practitioners, as not all suffering is the same. She reflects on the vow to save all beings, and how this stems from a grounded embodiment of our own humanity to understand the humanity of others who need our support the most in these times.

Your host

REVEREND DANA TAKAGI (she/her) is a retired professor of Sociology and zen priest, practicing zen since 1998. She spent 33 years teaching sociology and Asian American history at UC Santa Cruz, and she is a past president of the Association for Asian American Studies.