This book, written with hospital spiritual care providers in mind, investigates how to expand the field and scope of compassion within the hospital context, for the spiritual care and safety of transgender patients. Written by a law-educated pastoral counselor, it advocates for chaplain legal literacy, and explains the consequences of spiritual care providers not knowing more about the law. It explores the current political and legal situation transgender hospital patients find themselves in, and especially how these new policies put transgender people at risk when they are in a hospital setting. Pamela Ayo Yetunde offers Buddhist-Christian activist interreligious dialogue methods to promote deeper understanding of how spiritual practices can cultivate empathy for transgender patients.

Gold Nautilus Book Award Winner Leading African American Buddhist teachers offer lessons on racism, resilience, spiritual freedom, and the possibility of a truly representative American Buddhism. With contributions by Acharya Gaylon Ferguson, Cheryl A. Giles, Gyōzan Royce Andrew Johnson, Ruth King, Kamilah Majied, Lama Rod Owens, Lama Dawa Tarchin Phillips, Sebene Selassie, and Pamela Ayo Yetunde. What does it mean to be Black and Buddhist? In this powerful collection of writings, African American teachers from all the major Buddhist traditions tell their stories of how race and Buddhist practice have intersected in their lives. The resulting explorations display not only the promise of Buddhist teachings to empower those facing racial discrimination but also the way that Black Buddhist voices are enriching the Dharma for all practitioners. As the first anthology comprised solely of writings by African-descended Buddhist practitioners, this book is an important contribution to the development of the Dharma in the West.

Buddhist-Christian dialogue has a long and complex history that stretches back to the first centuries of the common era. Comprising 42 international and disciplinarily diverse chapters, this volume begins by setting up a framework for examining the nature of Buddhist-Christian interreligious dialogue, discussing how research in this area has been conducted in the past and considering future theoretical directions. Subsequent chapters delve into: important episodes in the history of Buddhist-Christian dialogue; contemporary conversations such as monastic interreligious dialogue, multiple religious identity, and dual religious practice; and Buddhist-Christian cooperation in social justice, social engagement, pastoral care, and interreligious education settings. The volume closes with a section devoted to comparative and constructive explorations of different speculative themes that range from the theological to the philosophical or experiential. This handbook explores how the study of Buddhist-Christian relations has been and ought to be done. The Routledge Handbook of Buddhist-Christian Studies is essential reading for researchers and students interested in Buddhist-Christian studies, Asian religions, and interreligious relationships. It will be of interest to those in fields such as anthropology, political science, theology, and history.

The United States is witnessing a rise in the religiously unaffiliated. Participation in traditional religious settings is in decline. But everyone inhabits a location relative to religion, whether or not they practice or identify with a religious tradition. People engage in religious encounters and relationships in myriad ways, and their religious location is one part of their intersecting identities. This shifting religious landscape challenges spiritual caregivers to provide competent care and counsel that honors how persons' religious locations intersect. Jill Snodgrass argues that without a theoretical understanding of religious location, chaplains, counselors, and other spiritual caregivers are left without sufficient tools to navigate this relational terrain. In The Art of Spiritual Care across Religious Difference, she gathers practices and insights from experienced spiritual caregivers and scholars to explore the concept of religious location--a term initially coined by pastoral theologian Kathleen Greider--as an aspect of an individual's intersecting identity. Snodgrass presents a compilation of essays that help spiritual caregivers think reflexively about their own religious locations and how these locations influence relational dynamics with care seekers within a diversity of cultural contexts. This vigorous compilation advances the fields of pastoral and practical theology as well as spiritual care and counseling by developing a robust, interreligious theory of religious difference grounded in insights from Christianity, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Islam. As such, The Art of Spiritual Care across Religious Difference presents a well-timed resource for the training of religiously competent caregivers to serve in hospitals, prisons, places of worship, community mental health centers, offices of campus ministry, and more. Scholars and practitioners will quickly discover that this book will serve as an enduring resource to meet the training needs for spiritual caregivers in ways that will help them to build enduring competencies.

Gold Nautilus Book Award Winner Leading African American Buddhist teachers offer lessons on racism, resilience, spiritual freedom, and the possibility of a truly representative American Buddhism. With contributions by Acharya Gaylon Ferguson, Cheryl A. Giles, Gyōzan Royce Andrew Johnson, Ruth King, Kamilah Majied, Lama Rod Owens, Lama Dawa Tarchin Phillips, Sebene Selassie, and Pamela Ayo Yetunde. What does it mean to be Black and Buddhist? In this powerful collection of writings, African American teachers from all the major Buddhist traditions tell their stories of how race and Buddhist practice have intersected in their lives. The resulting explorations display not only the promise of Buddhist teachings to empower those facing racial discrimination but also the way that Black Buddhist voices are enriching the Dharma for all practitioners. As the first anthology comprised solely of writings by African-descended Buddhist practitioners, this book is an important contribution to the development of the Dharma in the West.

The lives and writings of six leading Black Buddhist women—Jan Willis, bell hooks, Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, angel Kyodo williams, Spring Washam, and Faith Adiele—reveal new expressions of Buddhism rooted in ancestry, love, and collective liberation. Lifting as They Climb is a love letter of freedom and self-expression from six Black women Buddhist teachers, conveyed through the voice of author Toni Pressley-Sanon, one of the innumerable people who have benefitted from their wisdom. She explores their remarkable lives and undertakes deep readings of their work, weaving them into the broader tapestry of the African diaspora and the historical struggle for Black liberation. Black women in the U.S. have adapted Buddhist practice to meet challenges ranging from the injustices of the Jim Crow South to sexual violence, social discrimination, and bias within their Buddhist communities. Using their voices through the practice of memoir and other forms of writing, they have not only realized their own liberation but carried forward the Black tradition of leading others on the path toward collective awakening.

A heartfelt call and primer for community-oriented models of wellbeing in our age of polarization and turmoil. Creating compassionate communities takes more than good will—it requires a dedication to respecting cultural differences while remembering the fundamental spiritual kinship that exists between all people. Activist, counselor, and Buddhist teacher Ayo Yetunde creatively unpacks this condition through the metaphor of Indra’s Net—a universal net in which all beings reflect each other like jewels. She offers a practice path that acknowledges our deep challenges—challenges that increasingly give rise to the temptation of group violence, which she calls mobbery—while showing exactly how we can still listen, learn, and heal together. Drawing inspiration from the Black liberation tradition and from stories from various religions, Yetunde recasts Indra’s Net as the network in which we all have the choice either to succumb to our impulses toward division and brutality or renew our civility and love for each other. The more than 20 practices in Casting Indra’s Net include: Five commitments for healthy, nonviolent living Guided contemplation to water the seeds of your spiritual potential “Mirroring” and “twinning” other people Tonglen (receiving and releasing) and lovingkindness meditations Affirmations