Dear Sangha friends,
I wanted to offer you a podcast to listen to in these times.
Listen to the podcast on ‘Nothing Is Fixed’ by James Baldwin’
Paramananda and I met on May 25 to record a conversation for The Buddhist Centre Online. At the time George Floyd had not yet died an unjust death in an encounter with police. Another black man Ahmaud Arbery’s shooting while jogging in Georgia was in the news. Our conversation began with a poem from James Baldwin and opened to reflections about the relevance and purpose of meditation in the times we are in - pandemic, the highlighting of anti-black systemic racism in the disproportionate covid-19 impact and recent murders of black people in the U.S.
George Floyd.
Breonna Taylor.
Ahmaud Arbery.
Sean Reed.
Tony McDade.
The actual list of names of black people whose deaths link to the toxin of racism is much, much grievously longer. It is a unacceptably growing number of African descended peoples that started in 1619. 1619 the first year enslaved African were shipped and sold to colonialists undertaking the settling and seizing of territories that were home to Native Americans.
If you are not clear about the story of any of the black names above, I ask you to do your work to learn their stories. To bear witness. To understand the show of solidarity and moral conscience showing itself in large numbers of people turning up to declare that black lives matter and that we do not want to live in a world of policing that terrorizes black people and communities. This is a moral call and action and a call I resonate with as a dharma practitioner rooted in the first precept fo non-violence and love. A call that community building is where our nation’s collective energy and resources should be directed, and not to an increasing project of criminalization and surveillance and othering of non-white bodies.
Please practice deep, deep empathy about why there may be such an intense response manifesting in protests across this country. Please work hard to see the unjust systems at play in this country that lead to such disparate impacts on black people, black communities. Please resist being distracted into superficial narratives about looting (property loss is not comparable to the persistent, unchecked loss of black lives). I ask you, what is the main story here, the story we should be concerned about?
Please consider how concern can translate to action - and practice being active. Our practice is inclusive of acts of body, speech and mind. I’m not prescribing what that action should be. I am asking for Buddhists to not reduce the wonderful treasure of dharma to merely its contemplative gifts. In the podcast we ask, “What is the purpose of meditation?”
A final thought, we are now entering pride month. 51 years ago, LGBTQ patrons at the Stonewall Inn, led by people of color - specifically trans women of color - rose up against police brutality. This is not a new struggle. I leave you with the James Baldwin poem.
With love,
Viveka
she/her/hers
***
For Nothing Is Fixed
For nothing is fixed,
forever, forever, forever,
it is not fixed;
the earth is always shifting,
the light is always changing,
the sea does not cease to grind down rock.
Generations do not cease to be born,
and we are responsible to them
because we are the only witnesses they have.
The sea rises, the light fails,
lovers cling to each other,
and children cling to us.
The moment we cease to hold each other,
the moment we break faith with one another,
the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.
James Baldwin
***
Take part in Viveka’s next live conversation with Paramananda
Watch Viveka’s talk: ‘The Buddha as Social Revolutionary’ from Buddha Day
Hi Viveka,
Thanks for posting. I live on the East Coast of the US in one of the whitest areas of the country, and our sangha reflects that. Like so many of us, I have seen so much video and read so many accounts of black people, indigenous people and people of color treated unfairly, abused, tased, shot and choked to death by civilian racists and police. It can have an overwhelming effect with a resultant feeling of helplessness, and then a numbness.
I remember a feeling after a few years in to the Obama presidency, that we had turned a corner, that the vector as a nation was up and away from racism. But it is clear to all of us now that that was never fully the case, and with the wrong leadership, many of the US’s racists have come forward emboldened and unashamed. But the problem is deeper than the extremes exhibited by people who actively give expression to hate. Our own conditioning and bias plays a role in how we treat each other, and in how we see the world. And that conditioning can often be hard to notice, the roots being so deep.
White people take a lot for granted in New England. I imagine that’s the case elsewhere too. I’m on two different Triratna councils (Aryaloka and Portsmouth Buddhist Center) and we have had multiple discussions over the years regarding the lack of diversity in our sangha, and how to address it. Meanwhile in the broader populace, there has been a building literature and culture of workshops around becoming aware of our privilege, shining light on hidden or unconscious racism, discovering where we may be complicit in systemic racism, and even just learning our full history.
I can tell you that I had never heard of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre until last year when it was depicted in the first episode of HBO’s Watchmen series. I remember looking it up on my phone, asking myself, wait a minute, did this really happen? And it did. It did happen. And it wasn’t a part of my American history class. I was 48 when I found out about Tulsa – I should have known about it when I was 8.
I’m currently involved in the writing or editing of two different responses for our local centers to the recent surge of awareness and action in regards racism and police violence in this country. I’ve been bringing the current context of awareness, pain and struggle into the classes I’ve been facilitating online. Many of us are in pain and want to do something. And many of us need to feel this, sit with it, and allow a compassionate response to arise. There’s a lot to sort out. Many of us have become aware that we don’t really know how to respond to racism skillfully, without indulging our own outrage or horrified anxiety, without condescending to people who suffer directly from racism, without feeling insecurity around doing or saying something that makes the problem worse.
So we’re moving towards a more direct approach to uprooting racism in our selves, in our sanghas, in the wider community. To the extent that racism is based in fear and hatred, this is Buddhist territory. This is our ground. We know how to work with fear and hatred. So let’s get more specific. Let’s shine light on this pervasive expression of hatred and dissolve it. To that end, we are looking for skilled help in educating and workshopping around these matters.
Before the matter of racism and our response to racism enters the political sphere, it is already in the sphere of our ethical lives. This is a social issue that we are not separate from or immune to as Buddhists, no matter how cloistered away. I wish it wasn’t a matter of left or right – I wish there was bipartisan support of anti-racist momentums in our culture. But in this country, that is not the case. Although it is not free from racism, there is far more awareness, sensitivity, dialogue and activism left of the aisle.
I’m a Buddhist before I’m a liberal. My response to racism is based in basic human goodwill, clarified and reinforced by the Buddhist ideals I chose to dedicate my life to. Triratna as a whole can be an expression of this goodwill as it applies to the issue of racism without purposely drawing political lines. We just need to keep learning, seek to understand and empathize, give full expression to our ideal of community, and draw out the full implication of our ethics.