Dr. Jan Willis: Unitarian Universalist Buddhist Fellowship Convocation 2019

Dr. Jan Willis will be our theme presenter for the Unitarian Universalist Buddhist Fellowship’s Convocation 2019. She is titling her presentation for us:  “Making the Invisible, Visible: A Multi-media Exploration of Race and Racism in the U.S. through a Buddhist Lens.”

Besides the theme presentation that will begin Thursday night and continue until Sunday morning, there will be group sitting opportunities before breakfast and going to bed.  There will be networking opportunities during meals and programming breaks by region, tradition, and interest group for UUBF members to gather and talk.  There will be an opening and closing worship service as well.  Because of the nature of this programming, there will not be breakout sessions for workshops apart from the theme.

Please note that this retreat will have time set aside for silence. Morning and evening sittings will be offered, as well as sittings as part of workshop times. There will possibly be a silent meal or quiet table.

Before reserving your room and board with the Garrison Institute, please register for the program on the Unitarian Universalist site by clicking here. 

Teacher:

Dr. Jan Willis (BA and MA in Philosophy, Cornell University; PhD in Indic and Buddhist Studies, Columbia University) is Professor Emerita of Religion at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut and now Visiting Professor of Religion at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, GA. She has studied with Tibetan Buddhists in India, Nepal, Switzerland, and the United States for five decades, and has taught courses in Buddhism for over forty 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 Bo-dhisattvabhumi (1979), Enlightened Beings: Life Stories from the Ganden Oral Tradition (1995), and she is the editor of Feminine Ground: Essays on Women and Tibet (1989).

Additionally, Willis has published numerous articles and essays on various topics in Buddhism—Buddhist meditation, hagiography, women and Buddhism, and Buddhism and race. In 2001, her memoir, Dreaming Me: An African American Woman’s Spiritual Journey was published. (It was reissued in 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. Newsweek magazine’s “Spirituality in America” issue in September of 2005 included a profile of Willis and, in its May 2007 edition, Ebony magazine named Willis one of its “Power 150” most influential African Americans.

Before reserving your room and board with the Garrison Institute, please register for the program on the Unitarian Universalist site by clicking here.