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May 12, 2005

Cynthia Suarez

What role do people of color play in upholding systems of privilege? This is the question Cuban woman and Zen priest Ryuman posed to a group of Buddhist students of color at Tufts University last month, when she toured Boston promoting her new book , a collection of writings by practicing Buddhists of color.

People of color often feel subject to systems of domination, but, as a saying that appears repeatedly throughout the book goes, “Pain is something that comes in life, but suffering is optional.”

This saying holds the essence of the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths: that there is suffering in this world, that ignorance is the root of suffering, that suffering can cease and well-being is possible and that there is a path to well-being, or freedom.

“In this dance of suffering we collude with the oppressor,” said Ryuman, whose given name is Hilda Gutierrez Baldoquin. “We have to react skillfully. We also need to nurture ourselves. How, then, do we live each moment well in spite of racism and oppression?”

In commissioning this body of work, Ryuman was not interested in people of color telling stories of struggle. She wanted to learn how people of color were using their practice to transcend their very personal, daily experiences of racism, even in their sanghas, or spiritual communities.

Contributor Marlene Jones recalls white Buddhists asking her, “What would a black person be doing at a meditation center? I thought that you liked Baptist churches and dancing?” Others talk about going to a center for years without anyone talking to them.

In the United States Buddhism has been perceived as a white practice, but Ryuman reminds us that the Buddha was a person of color and that Buddhism came to our country via Asian immigrants.

“Although in the United States Buddhism is largely a practice dominated by white people, the majority of the world’s Buddhist are people of color,” she said. For her this is part of the oppressive paradigm, to think it is a white domain. This is what the book is about.

Contributor Ralph M. Steele writes about the revelation of going to Asia and working with the practice in cultures that have held it for over a thousand years.

“I suddenly understood that the American and European teachers of Buddhist practices had brought their own cultural baggage to the practice as it was taught in the United States,” Steele writes. “This baggage included unconscious racism.”

Over the years, people of color have braved the predominantly white sanghas of the United States, drawn to the promise of healing and liberation through the direct experience of a universal self. The ignorance that is the original cause of suffering begins with the illusion of difference, and, as contributor Charles Johnson writes, “race is the grandest of all our lived illusions.”

Through this book, Ryuman explores the interplay of liberation in Eastern spiritual practices and social justice, the goal of both of which is freedom. As such, she feels Buddhism is of particular importance to people of color.

“We need to heal our pain,” said Ryuman, “and I’ve been able to heal my racism, homophobia, sexism and classism through my practice. I thought about it and I saw that one practice, Buddhism, is about realization now, and other religions offer this in the hereafter. I decided I want my realization now.”

Contributor George Mumford, a Roxbury native, personally knows the healing power of sitting with yourself and looking within. When he decided to face his alcoholism, 20 years ago, he had to deal with the pain that drove him to drink.

“When I got clean I felt a lot of pain. I had a lot of migraines, but I knew I’d chosen the right spirit,” he said. “I took that energy I was pouring into the bottle and took it to a different level through my spiritual practice.”

Mumford, who holds meditation with young men of color and men on death row, says there is a lot of pain people of color have to experience and get through, and we have to be willing to build vessels big enough to hold what comes out.

“It’s like salt in water. If you put salt in a small vessel it can overwhelm, but in a big one it may not be as strong.”

Ryuman agrees that this work is at the level of feeling, and opening the heart is hard when we’re feeling vulnerable. A reflective spiritual practice gives people of color the space to look at our issues.

Mumford, who appeared with Ryuman at Jamaicaway Books & Gifts in Jamaica Plain, one of the stops on the tour, told of how once, while holding meditation in prison, the voice of a particularly abusivea prison guard came over the intercom.

Anger overwhelmed an inmate who had been recently beaten by this guard. In the customary sharing of the meditation experience that followed, the man spoke of becoming aware of the anger and his ability to choose how, or even whether, to act on it.

“We have to be aware of what we take in, so we can change it,” said Mumford. “There’s a seductive quality to anger, especially righteous anger, but your body doesn’t feel good. If you’re too cool, you can’t even see it.”

If the turnout to the events on this tour is any indication, people of color in the United States are increasingly turning to Buddhism and other Eastern spiritual practices.

White practitioners committed to creating inclusive sanghas also attended the events in significant numbers. In fact, the tour was initiated and coordinated by a local coalition of people of color and white allies in the practice.

Ryuman, founder of the San Francisco Zen’s Center People of Color Sitting Group, has made bringing the practice to people of color central to her own practice.

“Sitting down is where you find freedom,” she said. “I want this book to pass through the hands of every person of color in the United States, not because I want them to become Buddhist, or because I want to sell a lot of books, but because we can confront oppression in the moment, not in the past and not in the future.

Contributor Gaylon Ferguson writes of a friend who shared her dream of a time where meditation centers are as common as convenience stores are now. “‘Instead of Stop and Shop,’ she suggested, ‘they could be called Stop and Stop.’”

For Buddhists, stopping the inner battle is the basis for peace in the world.

Or, in Ryuman’s words, “Changing yourself is changing the planet.”

Our action’s can either contribute to, or lessen the suffering in the world.

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