“I am a drop in the ocean, but I’m also the ocean. I’m a drop in America, but I’m also America. Every pain, every confusion, every good and every bad and ugly of America is in me. And as I transform myself and heal and take care of myself, I’m very conscious that I’m healing and transforming and taking care of America. I say this for American cynics, but this is also true globally. It’s for real.” So says Zen Buddhist teacher Dr. Larry Ward

Shot at by police as an 11-year-old child for playing baseball in the wrong spot, as an adult Dr. Ward continued to experience racialized trauma when his home was firebombed by racists. At Plum Village Monastery in France, he found a way to heal with his teacher, Vietnamese peace activist and Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh.

Dr. Ward’s work examines the causes and conditions that have led us to our current state, and he finds, hidden in the crisis, a profound opportunity to reinvent what it means to be a human being. This is an invitation to transform America’s racial karma. In Dr. Ward's latest book, America's Racial Karma: An Invitation to Heal, he offers his insights on the effects of racial constructs and answers the question: how do we free ourselves from repeated cycles of anger, denial, bitterness, pain, fear, and violence?

Join CIIS Professor of Women's Spirituality at CIIS Alka Arora for a conversation with Dr. Ward as he shares what he has learned through his own life and work and invites us to transform our society and heal our racial karma.