Buddhism, Black Americans, & Other Modern [con]traditions
I meditate and consider myself a simple householder. A Black householder. Yet when I look around, I don't see many other African-American Buddhists. Not many brothas and sistas sittin I tell you.
I'm one, a Black man who has taken refuge in The Three Jewels. Bodhisattva vows too.
Want to hear something funny? At a teaching in San Francisco given by His Holiness the Dalai Lama I met a Black monk. He was amazed at meeting a Black nerd, an African-American who owns a software company. To him, I was the rarity. To me, a Black man studying to be a geshe was near-inconceivable.
Surprisingly meeting Michael the Monk unsettled me so much that I stopped meditating for awhile. Why? As long as I read about Buddhism and studied Buddhism and watched DVDs about Bhuddism and listened to webcasts on Buddhism, Buddhism remained something "out there", an abstraction vis-a-vis my "real" life. Detached in some odd way from my essence.
Michael, standing there in front of me, was proof positive that an African-American who grew up in So Cal could grow up to be a sangha. To whatever degree race defined who I am, it had nothing to do with defining me as a Buddhist (or not). At that moment the path before me appeared and that in and of itself was scary.
Michael split his time between Dharamsala and the States. I keep an eye out for him whenever I attend teachings and other events. I want to tell him the end of the story (or at least an update). "I've taken vows. Yours inspired mine. Thank you!"
I quickly add that I've never encountered anything but love and compassion from my Buddhist sisters and brothers. The teaching in Bloomington was full of Tibetan families as well as Westerners. I have never experienced even so much as a raised eyebrow let alone any hint of racisms.
I came across a couple of books by African-American Buddhists. The first one I read was Being Black. She's an ordained African-American Buddhist!
Meeting Faith: The Forest Journals of A Black Buddhist Nun was interesting but not as inspiring given that her commitment to ordained life wasn't a lifelong commitment. Next I read Dreaming Me. One of these days I want to read Dharma, Color, and Culture: New Voices in Western Buddhism. (Santa are you listening???) Switching back and forth between "traditional" Tibetan Buddhist titles and contemporary African-American books was a nice contrast and juxtaposition. Mirrored some of what I was going through.
Other resources you might want to check out:
"Something Has to Change": Blacks in American Buddhism, Shambhala Sun
American Buddhism: What does it mean for people of color?, UrbanDharm.org
Zen Under the Skin, Reflections of an African-American Practioner
Widening the Circle: Black Communities & Western Buddhist Convert Sanghas
Dreaming Me, Jan Willis, dharmalife
UrbanDharma
Guess Who’s Coming to Dharma
Black Buddha: Bringing the Tradition Home
Black Buddhists are in some ways like all non-ethnic Buddhists, converts in later life. Americans have a tendency to bend and blend things (co-opt is such a harsh word) we encounter. Food, language, music, you name it. On top of that, we bring our own spiritual traditions and legacy with us.
I'm waiting for the first lama to reincarnate into a Black baby. Unless one has already...
