New Books In Spiritual Practice And Mindfulness

Welcome to the Queer Voices of the South podcast on the New Books Network. In this episode, host John Marszalek interviews Richard Harrold about his book My Buddha Is Pink: Buddhism from a LGBTQI Perspective (Sumeru Press, 2019) Although today’s podcast doesn’t focus on the Queer South per se, it continues a series of interviews Marszalek has conducted from time to time on our podcast with authors of books with themes on the intersection of queer identity and religious/spiritual identity. This is something important for many queer people, but especially for queer southerners who grew up in communities intertwined with their churches. My Buddha Is Pink is a collection of essays designed to help LGBTQI practitioners followed the Buddha’s path without getting lost in dogma. As with other major religions of the world, there are portions of Buddhism that have persisted through the years that can come off as homophobic at worst, or at the minimum, restrictive toward the LGBTQ community. My Buddha is Pink seeks to s