Buddhism and Whiteness: Critical Reflections

Description

The motivation behind this important volume is to weave together two distinct, but we think complementary, traditions – the philosophical engagement with race/whiteness and Buddhist philosophy – in order to explore the ways in which these traditions can inform, correct, and improve each other. This exciting and critically informed volume will be the first of its kind to bring together essays that explicitly connect these two traditions and will mark a major step both in understanding race and whiteness (with the help of Buddhist philosophy) and in understanding Buddhist philosophy (with the help of philosophy of race and theorizations of whiteness). We expand upon a small, but growing, body of work that applies Buddhist philosophical analyses to whiteness and racial injustice in contemporary U.S. culture. Buddhist philosophy has much to contribute to furthering our understanding of whiteness and racial identity, the mechanisms that create and maintain white supremacy, and the possibility of dismantling white supremacy. We are interested both in the possible insights that Buddhist metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical analyses can bring to understanding race and whiteness, as well as the potential limitations of such Buddhist-inspired approaches. In their chapters, contributors draw on Buddhist philosophical and contemplative traditions to offer fresh, insightful, and powerful perspectives on issues regarding racial identity and whiteness, including such themes as cultural appropriation, mechanisms of racial injustice and racial justice, phenomenology of racial oppression, epistemologies of racial ignorance, liberatory practices with regard to racism, Womanism, and the intersections of gender-based, raced-based, and sexuality-based oppressions. Authors make use of both contemporary and ancient Buddhist philosophical and contemplative traditions. These include various Asian traditions, including Theravada, Mahayana, Tantra, and Zen, as well as comparatively new American Buddhist traditions. Review It is high time for a book like this. For too long the story of the transmission of Buddhism to the West has been told without attention to the ways that transmission is inflected by race and racism. This carefully curated collection of essays opens that question, and offers a rich set of perspectives on the complex interaction of Buddhist transmission, ideology, and practice with race and racism in the West. A must read for anyone interested in contemporary global Buddhism. (Jay Garfield, Smith College) It is impossible to read Buddhism and Whiteness and not experience an itch for action. This timely—and indeed, “futurely”— volume challenges all of us to reflect creatively and imaginatively about how we can best make a politics of the possible a constitutive contour of our religious lives, our efforts to learn about and from Buddhism, and especially our everyday lives, even as all of these are deeply conditioned and distorted by structural racism together with other oppressive and exclusionary structures. (Charles Hallisey, Harvard Divinity School) Buddhism and Whiteness instructs with the spirit of Thich Naht Hanh— “Freedom is not given to us by anyone, we have to cultivate it.” Composting ignorance and violence, this volume seeds peace for local and global care from US to Rohingya and Yemen communities. (Joy James, author of Seeking the Beloved Community) Cover......Page 1 Buddhism and Whiteness......Page 2 Series page......Page 3 Buddhism and Whiteness: Critical Reflections......Page 4 Copyright......Page 5 Contents......Page 6 Foreword......Page 8 Acknowledgments......Page 14 Introduction......Page 16 Notes......Page 21 “We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Programming to Bring You This Very Important Public Service Announcement . . .”......Page 24 “We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Programming to Bring You This Very Important Public Service Announcement . . .”: aka Business as Usual in the Academy......Page 28 “Taking Refuge: The POC Silent Retreat as Temporary Shelter and Sanctuary in Time”......Page 30 Bodies—Choice as an Essential Tool in My Buddhist killjoy Survival Kit......Page 35 Notes......Page 40 Undoing Whiteness in American Buddhist Modernism......Page 44 Buddhist Modernism in Asia......Page 46 Buddhist Modernism in North America: Meditation-Based Convert Buddhism......Page 48 POC Challenges to Whiteness in Meditation-Based Convert Buddhism......Page 49 Larry Yang: Dharma as Culture and Community......Page 51 Zenju Earthlyn Manuel: Dharma as Embodied Difference......Page 56 After Buddhist Modernism: Critical, Collective, and Contextual Turns......Page 61 Notes......Page 63 White Delusion and Avidyā......Page 66 White Ignorance......Page 68 Avidyā in Buddhist Philosophy......Page 70 Avidyā and White Ignorance......Page 72 Ways Out of White Delusion?......Page 73 Reflecting on Causation as an Antidote to Delusion......Page 74 Cultivating Equanimity......Page 77 Notes......Page 80 Whiteness and the Construction of Buddhist Philosophy in Meiji Japan......Page 84 Philosophy and Whiteness......Page 85 The Ambiguous Claims of “Whiteness” in Japan......Page 86 “Religion” in Japanese Discourse......Page 88 Inoue and the Construction of Buddhist Philosophy......Page 90 Whiteness and Buddhist Philosophy Today......Page 92 A Dharma-Philosophy of Liberation......Page 94 Conclusion: Buddhist Orthopraxy in the Temple of Philosophy......Page 96 Notes......Page 97 Racism and Anatta......Page 102 Non-Self and the Black Body......Page 107 Conclusion......Page 117 Notes......Page 119 “The Tranquil Meditator”1......Page 122 A Conundrum......Page 124 Turn Toward the Subject......Page 127 Who is the Subject?......Page 129 This is Not a Conclusion......Page 132 Notes......Page 134 “Beyond Vietnam”......Page 142 The African American Presence in the Vietnam War......Page 144 Martin Luther King, Jr., Beyond Vietnam......Page 146 Thích Nhất Hạnh, Engaged Buddhism, and Civil Rights......Page 151 Ralph Steele: Tending the Fire......Page 152 Conclusion: The Fire......Page 155 Notes......Page 157 The Unbearable Will to Whiteness......Page 166 Prophetic Praxis......Page 173 Beings are Numberless......Page 175 I Vow to Transform Them......Page 177 Sweet Honey in the Rock......Page 180 Notes......Page 181 Making Consciousness an Ethical Project......Page 184 Moral Phenomenology and the Ethical Ramifications of Experience......Page 185 Undoing the Habit of Self-Cherishing: Mahāyāna Buddhist Ethics......Page 186 Contesting Habits of Whiteness: Moral Phenomenology in White Anti-Racism......Page 189 The Moral-Phenomenological Value of Naming and De-Centering Our Orientation......Page 195 Notes......Page 198 “bell hooks Made Me a Buddhist”......Page 204 Approach and Methods......Page 205 How Did bell hooks Make Me a Buddhist?......Page 207 “True-True” Mindfulness and Buddhist Practice......Page 210 Non-Liberating Approaches to Buddhist and Other Mindfulness Practices......Page 213 “True-True” “Critical Consciousness”/Liberating Philosophies......Page 217 Non-Liberating Attempts at “Critical Consciousness”/Liberating Philosophies......Page 219 “True-True” Buddhist/Mindfulness Practice with Critical Consciousness......Page 220 Conclusion......Page 223 Notes......Page 224 Excoriating the Demon of Whiteness from Within......Page 230 The Complexities of Whiteness in Vajrayana: Intersecting Colonialisms......Page 232 Diagnosing and Understanding Whiteness from Within the Tradition: White Devils......Page 234 Whiteness as a Klesha......Page 241 New Directions and Avenues for Disrupting Whiteness......Page 243 Notes......Page 250 The Interdependence and Emptiness of Whiteness......Page 252 The Emptiness of Social Categories......Page 253 Process Nominalism and Apoha......Page 255 The Biological Fragility of Whiteness......Page 257 The Social Fragility of Whiteness......Page 259 Vāsanās, Learning, and Preparedness......Page 261 The Interdependence of Social Categories......Page 262 Shifting Karmic Flows......Page 266 Notes......Page 269 Taking and Making Refuge in Racial [Whiteness] Awareness and Racial Justice Work......Page 276 Part 1: Taking Refuge as a Pathway to Racial Awareness......Page 277 Part 2: Making Refuge as a Pathway to Racial Justice......Page 288 Notes......Page 296 A Buddhist Phenomenology of the White Mind......Page 300 Notes......Page 313 Meeting Rita: The Obstacle of Female Birth......Page 316 Man-made or Human-made?: Intersectionality and Blindspots......Page 319 Seeing into the Lived Realities of Others and Evolving Identities......Page 323 Notes......Page 328 Afterword......Page 332 Note......Page 336 Bibliography......Page 338 Index......Page 360 Contributor Notes......Page 376