In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Community of “Neighbors”:A Baptist-Buddhist Reflects on the Common Ground of LoveJan WillisToday we are all aware that the concept of “race” is a mere construction. There is only one “race”: the human race; to think otherwise is like still believing that the earth is flat. But “racism” is a different matter. It exists as a system of beliefs and prejudices that people differ along biological and genetic lines and (...) that one’s own group is superior to another group. When these beliefs and prejudices are coupled with power—especially the power to negatively affect the lives of those perceived to be inferior—we have a serious problem. And no one should downplay or underestimate the harm that such an ideology inflicts upon everyone who participates in it. According to one African American professor of social work, “America’s history is inextricably bound to this racist ideology. From the codifying of slavery, to the belief in ‘Manifest Destiny,’ to the treatment of ‘illegal immigrants,’ many of America’s actions continue to conflict with its creed that ‘All men are created equal.’”1Over the past decade or so, I have written a number of pieces that focus upon racism in America and racism in so-called American Buddhism.2 Being African American myself, my reasons for this focus may perhaps be clear though not necessarily inevitable. I have written on a number of other topics: Buddhist philosophical discourses and life stories of Buddhist “saints,” for example. In my writings on racism, I have tried to communicate something of the emotional and psychic toll it takes to live in this country as a person of color. In a number of these writings, I have called myself a “Baptist-Buddhist,” and thus this is also one of my “dual belongings,” one of my “multiple identities.”When I speak of racism, I am not concerned with garnering pity, or playing the “race card” of guilt, or telling you, from some assumed position of superiority on the matter, that there is simply no way for you to understand this toll. I certainly cannot speak for all African Americans, or even for most of them. Early on in the process of writing this paper, I emailed Jung and Paul to say that I found the title of the panel both much too broad and much too narrow. “Too broad” because one person cannot possibly channel and/or verbalize the countless instances of suffering endured by African Americans (and more broadly, by persons of color) throughout space and over centuries in this country owing to slavery and its aftermath. And “too narrow” [End Page 97] because, ultimately, we want to do more than just rehash our many sufferings. We don’t want to wallow in victimhood. We want to move on—from the recognition of that immense suffering, seen and unseen—and to go out into the world and act to bring about social, economic, and ecological justice. That’s what we are called upon to do: to form a new community wherein there is compassion and caring for one another, where there is love and peace, nonviolence, reconciliation, and justice.So, even though I am quite frankly tired—as are so many people of color—of being the “token” African American who can add visible “diversity” to a group in order to show that it is now more “inclusive” than before, nevertheless, in this so-called postracial society where we have a black president and the demographic of “person of color” now comprises an actual majority of the United States’ population, I must still rise to say that, sadly, racism is not dead in this country! Its painful vestiges exist, and those vestiges are far from being either innocent or unharmful.I truly believe that—for African Americans, in particular—it is the trauma and the legacy of slavery that haunts us in the deepest recesses of our souls. It is hard to imagine what having been bartered and sold as though mere property does to a human being, what being dehumanized, infanticized, and divested of all rights and liberties does to one’s sense of self-worth and well-being. As... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 23 (2003) 161-164 [Access article in PDF] Dakini's Warm Breath: The Feminine Principle in Tibetan Buddhism. By Judith Simmer-Brown. Boston: Shambhala, 2001. xxv + 404 pp. For more than a century, the dakini of Hindu and Buddhist tantric literature and practice lore has intrigued, fascinated, beguiled, and confounded Western scholars. First described by Austine Waddell in 1895 as "demonical furies" and "she-devils," S.C.Das's ATibetan-English Dictionary, published just (...) shortly afterward, defined mkha' 'gro ma (the Tibetan equivalent of the Sanskrit term dakini ) as "a class, mainly of female sprites, akin to our witches, but not necessarily ugly or deformed." More recently the dakini has been investigated by scholars as diverse as David Snellgrove, Rene Nebesky-Wojkowitz, Nathan Katz, Janet Gyatso, Miranda Shaw, and myself. Snellgrove suggested in his Buddhist Himalaya (1957) that "their [i.e., the dakinis' ] activities are generally so gruesome and obscene as to earn them quite properly the name witch," but he conceded that they entered Tibetan mythology "in a rather more gentle aspect." Even so, this ubiquitous, powerful, and yet ever-elusive figure —or symbol, image, motif, or principle—has remained, it seems, just beyond our reach. In a certain respect, this is exactly as it should be; for the dakini— at least within the systems of the Buddhist tantras—is the symbol of transcendent wisdom itself, direct and unmediated, hovering just outside the reach of all discursive language and reasoning.Today one scholar, Judith Simmer-Brown, has given us a thoughtful, well-informed, and well-researched treatment of the history and functioning of the dakini (which she prefers to refer to as a "symbol" or "principle") that seeks to present a balanced discussion and overview of this feminine principle and steers clear of the essentializing and reductionist pitfalls of either Jungian interpretations or contemporary feminist ones. It is timely that we take a careful look at Simmer-Brown's work, not only because it represents the most complete exploration to date of the dakini in a single volume, but also because this valuable study has just been reprinted in paperback.Though in the preface of her work Simmer-Brown characterizes her methodology as being "perhaps wildly messy," there is clearly both system and method in her [End Page 161] presentation. Her study begins with a careful delineation of what may be called the two extremes or poles of contemporary interpretations of the dakini: the one, influenced by Jungian psychology in which the dakini is seen as Jung's famed "shadow," and the other, influenced by feminist goddess theology, which has served either to see the dakini as a feminine savior or as the source of a critique of Tibetan Buddhism in which this feminine ideal reflects an objectified product of patriarchal fantasy. For Simmer-Brown, both poles of interpretation are inadequate; and in her first chapter, "Gender, Subjectivity, and the Feminine Principle," she argues powerfully and convincingly about why this is the case. Indeed, in many respects, this carefully argued opening chapter is the true centerpiece of the work.With respect to Jungian analysis, while Simmer-Brown sees "some real benefits in employing Jungian ideas in interpreting the dakini, " she notes the skewing and distorting complications introduced by Jung's emphasis on contrasexuality. Ultimately, Simmer-Brown declares, "the pervasiveness of the Jungian paradigm in examination of the dakini emphasizes contrasexuality, the ultimacy of gender imagery, and psychological interpretation. These emphases have precipitated a blizzard of feminist objections, and no wonder. However, that critique may be directed more toward Jungian tenets than toward Tibetan Buddhism, which has not been properly represented in Western interpretation" (17).Simmer-Brown's case is especially well made with regard to the second pole of interpretation. Here she notes that recent studies of the dakini that employ feminist considerations have generally taken two directions. Namely, "one identifies the dakini as a construct of patriarchy drawn by a primarily monastic Buddhism in Tibet into the service of the religious goals of male practitioners only. The second perspective identifies the dakini as a goddess figure in... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"Yes, We're Buddhists Too!"Jan WillisOn occasion, people have said to me, "Oh, I didn't know that there were African American Buddhists!" Mostly my reaction is demure, but I sometimes want to respond with the question, "Why shouldn't there be?" After all, African Americans are human beings who think and breathe and experience suffering just as other human beings do. More than 2,500 years ago, at the very end of (...) his life, the Buddha declared, "In all these years, I have taught only two things: suffering and its cessation." What a marvelous statement! And, given the end of the declaration, pretty good news.Who, having heard and reflected upon such teachings, would not wish to undertake and practice them? As the Dalai Lama often says today, "All beings wish to have happiness and to avoid suffering. In this regard, we are all exactly alike, exactly the same." It should come as no surprise, then, that at this historic time in Buddhist history— when almost all the world's traditions of Buddhism are found together in one geographic space, the United States—that African Americans too would find Buddhist teachings attractive.Many African Americans of my generation who later inclined toward Buddhism had already heard similar teachings in the words of Martin Luther King Jr. Striving to move this country closer to being a more just society, King and others had built the nonviolent Civil Rights Movement around the principles of love, forgiveness, and interdependence. Hearing these same principles and practices extolled in Buddhist teachings was like coming home.When we learned the details of the Buddha's life, he became even more of an inspiration. Here was a man who actually, in practice, rejected the systemic oppression of his country's people by denouncing the caste, or varna, system of the Aryans (originally founded on color discrimination) and allowing all castes and women to enter his community of practitioners. Both actions were extremely radical—even revolutionary— for his time. Because of the Buddha's teachings and because of his own life example, many African American children of the Civil Rights Movement have been finding their way to Buddhism.Yet, as has so often been the case, we have been doing this without much fanfare or even recognition, once again being made almost invisible. Why is this the case? And, why is it important? We should, it seems to me, explore these issues.According to a number of recent essays and reports, Buddhism is now one of the [End Page 39] fastest-growing religions in the United States. In terms of adherents, it is said to rank either third or fourth behind Christianity, Judaism, and the "nonreligious," and has grown at a rate of 170 percent since 2000. The Pew Forum U.S. Religious Landscape Survey1 published in 2008 said that people in the United States who say they are Buddhist account for about 0.7 percent of the total population (which translates into around two million followers), but a study by Wuthnow and Cadge suggests that at least 12 percent of the U.S. population—some 25 to 30 million people—have "been impacted or influenced in their spirituality by Buddhism or Buddhist ideas."2 Clearly, Buddhist ideas have affected many Americans, and some of them are African Americans.In many ways, the history of Buddhism in America is a distorted and racialized one, with one group of people being extolled while other groups are disparaged or ignored. When we trace the roots of Buddhism's introduction to the United States only to the 1893 World Parliament of Religions, we ignore the fact that there were Chinese and Japanese Buddhists in this country decades before that event. The first groups of Buddhists were actually the Chinese who came to the West Coast as menial laborers in the mines and on the railroads. In 1860, the California census showed that one in ten California residents was Chinese. Around this time Japanese also came to Hawai'i and other West Coast states, bringing with them their respective forms of Buddhism. While these different forms caught the attention of some Euro-Americans, the Chinese and Japanese Buddhists... (shrink)