It’s a question that asks how we cope when our practice is hard and when there’s a lot of struggle around race and racism in the institutions we’re in. . . As I go deeper into the dharma, I see that path, I see that light, and I touch it. If you’re just looking to confirm what you’re already thinking about people and the world, the Buddha’s teachings might not be the right place for you. The weekend was hosted by Lion’s Roar and Union Theological Seminary’s Thich Nhat Hanh Program for Engaged Buddhism, with support from the Hemera Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, and the Frederick P. Lenz Foundation. 3 African Americans are more religious than whites and Latinos by many measures of religious commitment. It’s not like we ever finally arrive. I was raring to go and I never looked back. It’s like there’s a certain hunger you can’t touch until you’re in the soup together. We love our conditioned minds because we’ve been living with them for a very long time and we’re familiar with them. We are each other’s business. Chimyo Atkinson: The loneliness is very much a part of my life too. . We desire to be equal in having an enlightened experience of reality that allows us to see all sides and act with wisdom for the good of the whole. Mumford confesses, “I knew the taste of beer before I could walk. That’s what it is for me. As people of African heritage, I think we have a unique lens on liberation, and a unique lens on efforts to stifle our liberation. Thich Nhat Hanh is black in this respect. Liberation is impossible if we’re disconnected from others. When I see you, I see me. Commenting on this situation, Ronald Ferguson, director of the Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard, said, “There’s accumulating evidence that there are racial differences in what kids experience before the first day of kindergarten. Buddhist history in the United States has been told along the lines of two parallel trajectories: one that looks at the settlement of Asian immigrant communities, primarily on the coasts, from the eighteenth century onward, and the other that engages … There are also songs for rituals and religious holidays, such as the celebration of the Buddha's birthday in the spring. So their action carries the energy of where they are. Legal segregation ended a little less than fifty years ago, within living memory for some of us. Gretchen Rohr is founder of Justice in Balance, a restorative justice forum dedicated to reconciling communities impacted by violence. In some ways, we don’t even have to add the word “Buddhist.” We’re just good people wanting the world to reflect what we feel inside. This is the website where Nichiren Buddhism is explained via a Black cultural model. From Buddhism to Baha'i: Black Faith Spreads Across All Religions Most African-Americans have historically embraced Christianity as their religion. After the trial period, the fourteen-and fifteen-year-old boys were “found to have increased well-being, defined as the combination of feeling good (including positive emotions such as happiness, contentment, interest and affection) and functioning well.” The researcher behind this project, Professor Felicia Huppert, said, “We believe that the effects of mindfulness training can enhance well-being in a number of ways . The Buddhist practice is not passive. Black America’s spiritual destiny is in the wind. And in his sermon “Rediscovering Lost Values,” delivered on February 28, 1954, at Detroit’s Second Baptist Church, King railed against “relativistic ethics,” “pragmatism” applied to questions of right and wrong, and the “prevailing attitude in our culture,” which he described as “survival of the slickest.” King knew that we have a “culture” for young black males that catches them up in gangs, despair, fatherlessness, drugs, prison, anti-intellectualism, and antisocial behavior by the time they are eight years old. Though there have been some conversion amongst Africans, most of the Buddhists in Africa are of Asian, mostly Chinese, Vietnamese, Sri Lankan or Japanese descent. After successful careers in government, the motion picture industry, philanthropy, and law, she cofounded New York Insight Meditation Center in 1997, where she led its People of Color sangha and served as its guiding teacher until 2017. We want to provide even more Buddhist wisdom but our resources are strained. What does it mean to be Black and Buddhist? It is that kind of essentialism that gives rise to attractions and revulsions, our attachments and clinging, and to prejudices that lead to dukkha. Pamela Ayo Yetunde: The Christian liberation theologian James Cone said God is black and Jesus is black. Konda Mason is a teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and cofounder of Impact Hub Oakland. He takes the side of nonaggression. I’m convinced that in terms of what we traditionally call “ethics,” the twenty-six-hundred-year-old Dharma of Buddhism must be part of that conversation. What I can say to you, from our journey this weekend, is that we’re all playing with some variation of that. He is not mired in a past that cannot be recovered or a future that will never come, but instead works to anchor himself “in the moment.” Like Lama Rangdröl, he is not ensnared in the debilitating, bitter, polarizing, clichéd “mentality of an angry black man.” And Hancock’s comparison of his egoless listening and nonjudgmental approach as a jazz musician to the Dharma reminds us that Buddhist practice has much in common with the process we associate with creating art, which demands openness to all phenomena. These issues are matters that I’ve spent a lifetime thinking about, but for me this is not merely an academic discussion. Count up the cost before you go into battle. Let me try to explain what I mean by that. After that, it’s about co-liberation. Clearly, Mr. Hancock does not have an image of himself based on his being in any way “inferior” or a “victim.” Those conceptualizations can poison the mind and the human spirit. The opportunity for African American Buddhist Awakening rests on its wings. What is Buddhism’s role in social justice and in the political process? angel Kyodo williams, Kamilah Majied, Pamela Ayo Yetunde, Konda Mason, Gretchen Rohr, Venerable Pannavati, Lama Rod Owens, Ralph Steele, Jozen Tamori Gibson and Chimyo Atkinson| January 30, 2019. We’re not limited to our own liberation. It’s a deep stream that has been nourishing and refreshing, and it has fortified us to do what must be done in our communities. The style of Buddhist singing that may be most familiar to Americans is Tibetan chanting, which includes a distinctive style of throat singing by trained singers who can produce more than one pitch simultaneously. While African Americans are estimated to constitute approximately 30% of SGI-USA, and while there was a decided increase in African American engagement with and conversion to Buddhism following the 1970s, the history of African American engagement with Buddhism is not fully encompassed by SGI-USA. The Still Point Zen Buddhist Temple has been in a converted home in the Woodbridge neighborhood for close to two decades. In college, black men represented just 5 percent of students in 2008. When I found Buddhism, I knew I had come home. Sometimes we intervene at the group level and we find people like ourselves. That percentage in 2011 may become even higher after what we call the Great Recession, which pushed members of the fragile black middle class into the ranks of the poor. Do not rely on others. He chose to come from Vietnam to the United States to transform our ways of aggression to save his people. If we have compassion and peace, it’s natural to want to help the world live in justice and peace. Our artistry is important as cultural medicine. Far from being neutral observers, Buddhist Studies scholars have participated in the racialization of particular American Buddhisms. calming the mind and observing experiences with curiosity and acceptance not only reduces stress but helps with attention control and emotion regulation—skills which are valuable both inside and outside the classroom.”, Vipassana has also proven to be effective at the William G. Donaldson Correction Facility, an overcrowded prison in Alabama. Over the past month, over 400,000 readers like you have visited our site, reading almost a million pages and streaming over 120,000 hours of video teachings. “Buddhist Hermeneutics.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 46.1 (1978): 19–39. Cultural change comes hard and takes a long time, but nothing short of profound cultural change is essential. Rev. S. C will it create, li. Buddhism, as a major world religion, is practiced in Africa.Though there have been some conversion amongst Africans, most of the Buddhists in Africa are of Asian, mostly Chinese, Vietnamese, Sri Lankan or Japanese descent.. South Africa holds the largest Buddhist population in the continent. Most times, actually, I think of myself as being more an African American Buddhist. Because cultural appropriation of Buddhism creates suffering for marginalized communities. This understanding is so missing in our world. Ruth is the author of The Emotional Wisdom Cards, Healing Rage: Women Making Inner Peace Possible, and her new book, Mindful of Race: Transforming Racism from the Inside Out (Sounds True, June 2018). We are like a Black radio station where you can learn Buddhism with Soul. In Africa, there’s a religion very much like Buddhism called Ifa. D.C.: ... resources for nation building. First, because one’s happiness and salvation, awakening and liberation from suffering, rests entirely in one’s own hands (i.e., the karmic cause and effect relationship that so impressed Herbie Hancock). Why Buddhism for Black America Now? Activism is not separate from who I am as a practicing Buddhist; it is inextricably connected. Teijo Munnich in 2015. | An Excerpt from Taming the Ox. Doctrines, including Buddhism, are meant to be used. Luminosity (Skt. African Americans are mainly of African ancestry, but many have non-Black ancestors as well. But I could also mention the political violence in our time, from the assassinations of King, Malcolm X, both Kennedys, and so many others in the 1960s to the recent shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killing of six others, including a nine-year-old girl, in Arizona. Chimyo Atkinson: We need to understand that dharma centers suffer from the same thread of racism that all the organizations in our society suffer from. As a kid, I saw races separated by signs that said “For coloreds only.” I saw race riots, I lost a lot of friends in Vietnam, and I went through the epidemic of drugs and so forth. Of course African-American can (and quite frequently do) become Buddhists, just as anyone can, whatever race or cultural origin you have. What I propose is a spiritual revolution. One thing that is essential for this spiritual revolution is ahimsa, doing no harm to other sentient beings and ourselves. In 2010, researchers at the University of Cambridge took 155 boys from two schools in the United Kingdom, and put them on a crash course in mindfulness training. Ven. In one profile, black Americans appear in every walk of life and profession. Ironically, and like no other religion or philosophy, the Dharma enables us to free ourselves even from itself. This is one of the beauties of the Buddhadharma. We turn our practice back to ourselves continually, and we get an idea of what we can do that will be fervent and yet effective. Dr. Kamilah Majied is a mental health therapist, educator, and consultant on inclusivity and contemplative pedagogy and practice. Does that make a difference to what you do? But in a different, grim, and depressing portrait, 25 percent of black Americans live in poverty. And the third door is, Will it cause no harm? Coming together at this gathering, there’s been a tremendous sense of spiritual wealth. Some of us are stepping forward and initiating things that we will never see the fruit of. The inner city is a pressure cooker, full of tension and anxiety. “You’re going to find freedom one day. The cool thing is that jazz is really a wonderful example of the great characteristics of Buddhism and the great characteristics of the human spirit. . “We must work on two fronts,” he said. A Buddhist leader told me to chant about it, and it was through my practice that wisdom arose in terms of how I could handle and change that situation. is impulse control. This is how. I mentioned slavery and segregation, two social arrangements that could only be maintained through systematic, institutional violence. It involves all of the ways we live together in that one body that we call interconnectedness. . You need only to pick up today’s newspaper to see that the world in which we live, and our enveloping culture, is saturated through and through with violence, all manner and degrees of violence in our dualistic ways of thinking, our actions, our speech, and even in our forms of popular entertainment. Myokei Caine-Barrett, Shonin: Many of us find ourselves in spaces where we’re not allowed to talk about the suffering of racism. South Africa holds the largest Buddhist population in the continent. No matter what happened to me, I could choose my response to it. Sometimes as people of color we get invitations to participate in the decision-making, but the change of pace can be pretty glacial. And to these dire figures we must add the fact that nearly six hundred thousand blacks have the AIDS virus, with their rate of death two and a half times that of whites who have been infected. They wish to be free. Guess Who's Coming to Dharma: Black Women Embrace Western Buddhism. But we sometimes forget that one of the triple jewels of Buddhism is sangha, community. I think of Buddhism as psychology more than religion, because it’s a step-by-step process. But I also recognize that the insidious stream of this disease plagues us even there. Do not go by oral tradition, by lineage of teaching, by hearsay, by a collection of scriptures, by logical reasoning, by inferential reasoning, by reflection on reason, by the acceptance of a view after pondering it, by the seeming competence of a speaker, or because you think, “The ascetic is our teacher.” But when you know for yourselves, “These things are unwholesome, these things are blamable; these things are censured by the wise; these things, if undertaken and practiced, lead to harm and suffering,” then you should abandon them. In locating ourselves on the side of love, we become more whole. We have created obstacles, traps, and racial minefields for young black men, and long demonized them as violent, criminal, stupid, lazy, and irresponsible. Not surprisingly, in Buddhist communities, consciousness is often discussed alongside mindfulness. It’s incumbent upon us to find out where we are. Mumford reports, “I learned that I could control my mind. When that’s taken care of, then I’m qualified to fight the good fight. Dr. Ronald Cavanaugh, the prison’s treatment director, reported that after this experience, “the inmates are less angry, better able to conduct themselves, they’re more mindful of themselves and others, and overall there has been a 20% reduction of disciplinary action for those who have completed the course.”. by Ruth King, Gina Sharpe, Myokei Caine-Barrett, Rev. But the first thing we have to do is have control of ourselves, and then we can choose with a clear mind. Gina Sharpe: The answer is yes and yes. Dr. Jan Willis has been identified as the first black American scholar-practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism. So aspects of the Dharma are as easily discovered in Western and black American culture as they are in Eastern ones, in Christianity as well as Islam, because the Buddhist experience. Sign up for Lion’s Roar free email newsletters. Ruth King: For me, so much of Buddhist practice is about a deep understanding of our interdependence. “If King could speak to us today,” Congressman Lewis said in 1994. he would say, in addition to doing something about guns, he would say there needs to be a revolution of values, a revolution of ideas in the black community. I am sharing that gift with my body, with my mind, and with my heart. It stands for "People of Color and Allies," and is made up black, Latino, Native American, Asian and white practitioners. . A Theravada nun, she has also received dharma transmission from Roshi Bernie Glassman of Zen Peacemakers. People can rub themselves against your stand and really learn from your stand, and it isn’t so easily misused. Illustrates the buddhism and islam essay fundamental nature of psychological research. “On the one hand we must continually resist the system of segregation—the system which is the basic cause of our lagging standards; on the other hand, we must work constructively to improve the lagging standards which are the effects of segregation. DOI: 10.1093/jaarel/XLVI.1.19 E-mail Citation » Konda Mason: We have a difficulty with paradoxes. The black American practitioners I’ve presented, all representing different branches (or traditions) of the bodhi tree, have seen in Buddhist practice the most revolutionary and civilized of possible human choices, one that extends King’s dream of the “beloved community,” especially in terms of the Dharma’s emphasis on addressing the “second front” Dr. King told us we must not neglect. It has been described as a kind of evangelical Buddhism which openly seeks converts. think like a criminal and one is instantly born as a criminal. It’s not just my liberation. While black people represented 13 percent of the US population in 2005, they were the victims of 49 percent of all murders, 15 percent of rapes, assaults, and other violent crimes nationwide, and most of the black murder victims—93 percent—were killed by other black people. Topics: Current Events, Diversity & Inclusivity, Lion's Roar - Mar '19, Race & Ethnicity, Union Theological Seminary, We’re glad to have you here. It teaches us how to detach ourselves from outside provocation and from our habitual patterns of reaction. Thich Nhat Hanh has taken sides many times. While I can … Then again, you may not know us at all. Create your own pathways to change. About half of African Buddhists are now living in South Africa, while Mauritius has the highest Buddhist percentage in the continent, between 1.5% to 2% of the total population. Second, it can be witnessed in changing gender roles, especially the prominence of women in American Buddhism. Sometimes we intervene at the individual level in our relationships. There was no one who was going to damn or bless me. Last year, Rebecca informed me that she and Lama Rangdröl, whom she met at the first black American Buddhist retreat in 2002 at Spirit Rock in Woodacre, California, are now married. Myokei Caine-Barrett is the head priest and guiding teacher of the Nichiren Buddhist Sangha of Texas in Houston. Our sincere wish is that these Buddhist teachings, guided practices, and stories can be a balm in these difficult times. Coming together allows us to talk about it, to share our wounds, to heal each other, and to acknowledge the pain and the loss we all suffer when we are separated. I want you to know that you’re not alone in this exploration. Some people want to do a good thing, but they haven’t taken the route of discipline to subdue their own demons. They’re there, but they have to be excavated. As Geshe Wangyal might put it, they live in “detachment without denial; involvement without indulgence.”. They are taken by laity and monks alike, and I took them in the Soto Zen school with the mendicant monk and peace activist Claude AnShin Thomas. angel Kyodo williams, Sensei, peers at society, change, love, and justice through the lens of dharma. Rev. We’re sitting here, come find us. The faintest experience of Nirvana or sunyata—the emptiness at the heart of all things—extinguishes like a candle’s flame the craving and thirst (trishna) described in the First and Second Noble Truths. Ayo also teaches in Upaya Zen Center's Buddhist Chaplaincy Training Program. COVID-19 has brought tremendous suffering, uncertainty, fear, and strain to the world. Truly free. It was a very natural process to begin practicing Buddhism and recognizing that the first place to be free is within ourselves, by decolonizing our minds and erasing racism from our self-concept and sense of possibility. Some Asian scholars and Buddhists resent the focus on convert Buddhism in the United States. It’s a crazy time right now, so what we do is important. He takes the side of wisdom. Practicing dharma looks lonely because you’re sitting on a cushion all by yourself. Gretchen Rohr: I see activism as an engagement with my aligned values. There, one third of the fifteen hundred inmates convicted of murder, sex offenses, and robbery are on death row or serving sentences of life without parole. That’s important, but it’s not 100 percent of our practice. We take sides in a way that doesn’t separate. Buddhism said it’s up to you, you are responsible, you take charge of your own life. angel Kyodo williams: Take sides, but also take care. Sometimes you have to take what you can get and make your connections there. We need our practice of Buddhism to figure out how to wisely engage in situations where there’s conflict. [Click here to expand text]. So, we all have the universe inside at our core. . You definitely take sides. Honoring elderhood is very important for me—understanding what it means to be invited to hold and carry a torch, understanding what that torch feels like when it’s passed hand to hand, heart to heart. When you are just taking a side, that can be used and abused by propaganda and mixed intentions. But actually it involves the mind, the body, and the heart. But they have located a “middle way” between withdrawal from social life, on the one hand, and surrendering to the egoistic pursuit of things cheap, banal, and self-centered, the vulgar hedonism and desire for ephemeral baubles promoted 24/7 by capitalism and America’s adolescent youth culture. There must be a rhythm of alteration between attacking the cause and healing the effects. Ruth King is an insight meditation teacher and emotional wisdom author and life coach. In its broadest sense, it refers to a philosophical inquiry into existence itself. A report published last November [2009] by the Council of the Great City Schools, entitled “A Call for Change,” states that “the nation’s young black males are in a state of crisis” and describes their condition as “a national catastrophe.” This report shows that. And this has been so for a very long time. Admit that being nonjudgmental...  is extremely difficult in our society—a society that so often portrays the angry person as a powerful person, and finding fault as a proper intellectual activity that demonstrates our critical acumen, shows our intellectual superiority and, by virtue of that, feeds our egos. Konda Mason: Growing up black in America, I always heard about freedom and liberation. In the Buddhist world, the Ten Precepts are commonly found among many traditions. For me, it’s been a long, lonely journey. The African and African American Proud Black Buddhist Website. It tells us that the items and beliefs we hold dear and sacred are meaningless nick knacks or empty sayings you can make into cat memes. We take sides in a way that doesn’t take sides. What mindfulness has done is show me where I’m tripping myself up. We are like the Black entertainment Television of Buddhism. Pamela Ayo Yetunde, J.D., Th.D., is the co-editor of Black and Buddhist: What Buddhism Can Teach Us About Race, Resilience, Transformation and Freedom. . It’s privilege that allows people to say, “We’re going to have a dharma that’s about not taking sides.” I think colored folks and black folks really bring forth the truth that we can’t afford not to be the dharma that is expressed through these bodies. Every action I take plants a seed. But Mumford discovered vipassana, a tool for analyzing and rebuilding his world at its source: the mind. Coming here to sit with other teachers who have some of the same experiences and background that I do is very precious and nurturing for me. How do we work with the fact that at the ultimate level there’s nonduality, but on the relative level there’s white supremacy and all the other injustices of the world? Jan Willis, Lama Rangdröl, Mumford, Walker, the Zen teacher Angel Kyodo Williams, and the approximately fifteen thousand black practitioners of Soka Gakkai (Nichiren) Buddhism, who chant chapters of the Lotus Sutra, belong to the first black generation in America to recognize the relevance of the Dharma for the specific historical and existential forms of suffering that are the residue of slavery and racial segregation in a very Eurocentric country; and they believe this practice may satisfy John Lewis’s call for “a revolution of values . Test for whatever you want to just fight or fight the good fight to wisely engage in situations there! Even billionaires, having earned their wealth in business, sports, and stories can be pretty glacial twenty-nine teachers... 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