In a nation where we barely make up five percent of the population, it’s easy for Asian Americans to be marginalized and also be expected to accept it. The history of violent oppression, humiliation and marginalization have deep roots in American culture. In the American Buddhist community, however, we constitute the outright majority. Still, America’s institutional racism is so strong that Asian Americans are marginalized in this very community we planted on American soil, in a community where white Buddhists comprise a largely neophytic minority cohort. Just take a look at the staff of America’s favorite Buddhist magazines—Shambhala Sun, Tricycle and Buddhadharma—and it’s not hard to see the irony that an Asian American’s got a better chance of getting a seat on the White House Cabinet.
Asian American
American Buddhist Artists
Barry Briggs has been celebrating American Buddhist visual art on his blog this week, so I figured it would be fitting to celebrate this celebration in turn.
This week, Ox Herding will focus on American artists who are also Buddhist practitioners. This short survey makes no attempt to be exhaustive; rather, it’s quite personal. Either I have a direct connection with the artists or feel a strong affinity with their work.
He has so far introduced Jakusho Kwong Roshi, Anita Feng, Mayumi Odaand Brice Marden. The first three artists are also all Americans whose Buddhist practice plays a central role in their lives. Jakusho Kwong Roshi is the founder and abbot of Sonoma Mountain Zen Center. Anita Feng is a Golden Wind Zen Dharma Master and also a member of the Buddhist blogosphere. When not traveling to an art exhibition or speaking out to save the world, Mayumi Oda resides at Ginger Hill Farm and retreat center on the Big Island.
East Side/West Side
In her most recent post, Barbara O’Brien wades back into the Western vsAsian Buddhist debate. She proposes that “the big, honking issue in Western Buddhism is what parts of Asian Buddhism are essential, and what parts are not?” Her perspective however suffers from a common flaw also held by Jerry Kolber’s post on merchandizing Buddhism. Namely, it marginalizes the majority of Western Buddhists.
The majority of Western Buddhists are after all Asian Buddhists who practice various unique styles of Buddhism here in the West. By framing her thesis as she does, in one fell swoop Barbara relegates the Asian majority to the fringes of Western Buddhism and places her cultural perspective smack in the center. She almost deserves points for literary sumo, but her approach is regrettably more the norm than the exception in Western Buddhist discourse.
Then she goes on to tie our popular misconceptions to our culture.
The meat of her post is on Asian “folk” Buddhism, presented in contrast to the original teachings. The Asian “folk” Buddhism conveys karma as fate and rebirth as reincarnation of a singular soul. But there is nothing fundamentally Asian about these beliefs, as her words suggest. These ideas stem from simplistic ideas of the self, a problem not unique to Asian folk. The concepts of fate and reincarnation have ancient and enduring roots in Western culture, and self-styled Western Buddhists have already been (mis)interpreting karma and rebirth accordingly.
Buddhism in the West will likely have to deal with these misconceptions, home-grown or otherwise, in the same way that Buddhism in the East has had to: with study, practice and tolerance.
Asian-Free Buddhism
Thanks to Barbara’s Buddhism Blog, I was pointed to a Beliefnet post by Jerry Kolber, where he explicitly argues for stripping Buddhism of its Asian features.
Image is everything, and unless we figure out a way to make the image of the Buddha hip and cool, we’d be better off figuring out some other way to present the techniques without the awesome smiling face of our Eastern inspiration.
Bless his non-soul for proposing a sincere and unequivocal argument for whitewashing Buddhism. He has no compunction whatsoever about smugly proclaiming that Buddhism in America is far better off if only we can ditch the Asian guy. And he is like a gift that keeps on giving, except that I really don’t care for this narishkeyt…
Buddhism in America is at the long end of the initial boom sparked in the 60’s among intellectuals and artists who craved that elite connection with the east.
With a single sentence, he dons the hat of a historical revisionist and wipes American Buddhist history clean of its Asian affliction. The author disregards the basic fact that Buddhism in America enjoys an unbroken history that stretches back over 100 years. For all those years, it is Asian Americans who have constituted the outright numerical majority of Buddhist Americans—even today, we are still the majority. Plain and simple, Buddhism in America wouldn’t be half of what it is without its Asian American members, and for Jerry Kolber to patently neglect our contributions with utter impunity smacks entirely of excessive hegemonic privilege.
Are Only Asians in the Pure Land?
So would a Jodo Shinshu sangha in a Japanese neighborhood alter their appearance or layout easily because a few White folk (or any person of color) don’t feel comfortable?
A general problem with rhetorical questions, such as the title of this post, is that in practice they are often more fatuous than illuminating. This homespun musing suffers from several questionable premises. For example, there is the tacit lumping of Japanese American cultural groups, regardless of the stark cultural differences, say, from issei all the way down through yonsei. This point is pertinent as the mores of yonsei+ are often characterized as more in tune with the average non-Japanese American. And exactly which hypothetical Japanese neighborhood are we talking about? Keep in mind I live in one of the most Japanese neighborhoods in North America, and there really aren’t that many Japanese here. As for what the Shin temples here would do—they have done what just about every Shin temple in America has done. They have brought up the issue of accepting more non-Japanese into their congregations and wrestled with what that entails. In fact, I’d love to know if there’s any American Shin temple that’s managed through the past ten years without confronting the issue of expanding membership diversity. I won’t deny that there are individuals who have resisted Shin Buddhism becoming less “Japanese”—but they still have taken on the issue of diversity, albeit reluctantly. And there aren’t just “a few” white folk involved or interested in Shin Buddhism. That’s a whole ’nother post. Underneath all my nitpicking with the terminological inexactitude, my real gripe is with an even more troubling premise: that the comparison between Asian and white American sanghas is even a fair one. I’m talking about white privilege. When we start making the claim that white sanghas and white Buddhist publications are no more segregated than Asian temples and Asian-language Buddhist newsletters, we are jumping straight into the camp of separate-but-equal. You might as well have your white Buddhist country club while you’re at it.
New Blog: Dharma Mirror
A friend emailed me a link to a brand new blog, Dharma Mirror.
This is the Blog of Dharma Realm Buddhist Young Adults (DRBY). DRBY consists of college students and young adults who are interested in applying Buddhist principles to their daily lives. DRBY is a community of young people who are searching for wisdom and are committed to helping others while advancing on their own spiritual path. This community provides support for each other’s spiritual cultivation and inquiry into life’s deeper meaning in a friendly and open atmosphere.
They offer some unique perspectives on practice and community. Yes, they also have Asian American Buddhist authors, which you might imagine brings a little smile to my face. Check out the most recent post: Buddhism + Young Adults = Possible ?
Say It Like It Is
A couple of recentposts talked about Western Buddhism without any reference to Asians… or did they? On Progressive Buddhism, Kyle discusses “urban white liberal converts”, “rural converts, who tend to be white or black” and the “traditional” Buddhists. Provided in context:
the traditional Buddhists, who have been somewhat marginalized in the mainstream community
the local traditional population, which obviously only offers its one tradition
Over on Sweep the dust, Push the dirt, Jack Daw remarks:
Western Convert Buddhists insist that they are not taken seriously by other culture-based traditions and those Culture-Based Buddhists (I have no better term) insist that they are not well-represented in the mainstream media.
The authors of both articles frame the terms traditional and culture-basedwith regard to representation within the mainstream. Perhaps coincidentally, I have only read complaints of a lack of representation within the mainstream Buddhist media specifically in terms of Asian (American) Buddhists. Indeed, I wrote most of them. Are Kyle and Jack Daw euphemistically avoiding using the word Asian to talk about Asians?
To be clear, not all Asians identify as “traditional” or “culture-based”—but how many of those “traditional” or “culture-based” Buddhists who “insist that they are not well-represented in the mainstream media” are not Asian? When it comes to the cultural affinities of their Asian writers, The BigThree prefer to publish those who are more “traditional” and “culture-based” (and dead). It is precisely the less “traditional” and “culture-based” of the Asian American Buddhist community who are speaking out on this issue.
I’m well aware that, ironically, when race is obvious, white people will go out of their way to avoid explicitly mentioning race so that they don’t appear to take race into account. This inanity only highlights their racialized judgment. Let me be explicit: I prefer to be identified as Asianthan by some inept euphemism for it.
Update: I deleted a comment I reposted here from Kyle on Progressive Buddhism. He explains more in his comments at the bottom of this post. Someone or some people have identified themselves as myself and another blogger, and harassed Kyle with personally abusive emails. His furious reaction is little different than I would have reacted in the same shoes (and probably even more restrained than I would have been). It is a very sad state when others stoop to this level of depravity—apparently some people enjoy nothing more than watching the world burn.
Faces of the Cultural Elites
I just spent four and a half hours on the phone talking with a Buddhist friend about race, status, privilege and—of course—Buddhism and meditation. I wish we’d taken notes. As people of color, we both hanker for more of our own communities to be represented in mainstream American Buddhist institutions, but my friend was quick to point out our different perspectives. The barriers that I discuss regarding Buddhist Asian Americans are different than the barriers for Buddhist African Americans. For one, Asian Americans comprise the outright majority of the American Buddhist community, while African Americans are a clear minority. Most African Americans also have deep cultural and emotional ties to Christianity and church than your average Asian American. Since many Asian Americans come to Buddhism as a cultural heritage—as a family tradition or otherwise—their interactions with the convert white Buddhists who dominate American meditation centers are different than those of African Americans, who are largely themselves converts. My friend stressed that broader socioeconomic factors play a huge role in why we see so few African Americans in, say, meditation centers. These centers cater to a cultural elite, those who have more experience shopping in Wild Oats than living in the projects. This description is nothing new, but my friend suggested that perhaps the “diversity” of American Buddhist meditation centers simply mirrors the faces of America’s cultural elites. Poor American Buddhism.
Raise the Profile
Amid my incessant complaining about the marginalization of Asian Americans in the mainstream Buddhist media, various bloggers will pepper me with questions along the lines of: “So what do you suggest?” It’s a valid question. There are a number of “structural” actions we can do to raise the profile of Asian American Buddhists, who are largely sidelined in the dominant media of the very community where we constitute the outright majority. I’ve already mentioned my favorite one: Educate yourself. I’m appalled by the Buddhist Americans who might freely discuss “Chinese Buddhism” and yet who couldn’t tell Teochew from Toisan or Hakka from Hokkien. But here’s the thought for today: include us in your vision of the Buddhist community. If you’re going to make a flier with faces of Buddhists, then maybe you’ll put in more Asian Americans. And while you’re at it, if you run a major Buddhist publication, you might want to set aside more bylines for Asian Americans too.
Buddhist Demographics of the Future
I’m taking off my P.C. gloves, so beware! This post at the New York Timesgot me thinking about the demographics of Buddhist America. It’s currently taken for granted that Asian Americans constitute the majority of Buddhist Americans. But there are some who quietly anticipate the scales tipping, when white Buddhists become a solid demographic majority. If this shift should occur, the increase will come almost exclusively from converts. White Buddhists generally don’t have that many kids. In two generations, Asian Americans will more than double their share of the national population – much of it not due to immigration – while the proportion of white Americans will steadily decrease. If we were to base the size of the Buddhist community solely on the kids of people who today identify as Buddhist, then the future numbers of white Buddhist Americans would likely halve before long. A future white majority would have a much larger contingent of second and third generation white Buddhists, but these “Dharma brats” would still be vastly outnumbered by white converts. Asian American Buddhists will ever increasingly consist of native-born Americans – for example, the kids of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese Buddhist refugees are getting married and raising their own kids right now, just to mention one group. Add to that the ranks of all the other Buddhists of color, parent and young alike. Will the future of Buddhist America be one where white converts dominate Buddhist minorities both culturally and numerically? If so, I wonder whether this white Buddhist majority (who come with white privilege) would have any greater urge for diversity (say, in TheBigThree) than they do now as a distinct minority.