………………………………
Preface
This
book is for African Americans interested in practicing Buddhist meditation. The
approach is based on a new kind of intentional community building plan. One
that banishes beliefs and practices historically used to corral, enslave, and
exploit the Black Mind. In fact, the pages ahead offer a Buddhist plan to end
the vestige of slavery in African American minds forever. The
goal is to cleanse the Black psyche with the same diligence one washes
chitterlings.[1]
The
non-African American reader is forewarned these pages are written in 21st
Century African American survival language. The discourse lacks obligatory
niceties for those whose heritage has never known the butt end of racism,
forced global isolation, and servitude under enslaving religions in Africa and
America.
I
promised this work to my African American friends a decade ago. It’s for them.
Some gave up hope it would be completed. I never did. So here it is.
A
similar promise was made to my Untouchable Buddhist friends in India. I’d promised
to establish a link between their human dignity movement and African America. The words
contained herein are humbly offered as fulfillment of my promise to both
communities.
.
Figure 1: Black Monk (left) with fly-wisp and Yogi (right)
wearing white robe. Ajanta Caves, India, 6th Century. © LCR
………………………………
Introduction
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. acknowledged the inevitable intersection
of America and India’s oppressed masses during his 1961 speech, The American Dream:
“The destiny of India and the destiny
of every other nation is tied up with the destiny of the United States and the
destiny of the United States is tied up with the destiny of India.[2]
Despite King’s insight, Buddhism was
never used to advance the social or spiritual condition of African America.
Why? Because the politic of America’s Christian Civil Rights Movement was bent on establishing its own legacy. Buddhism
and other alternative spiritual paths were suppressed.
Nonetheless, according to King’s 1961
statement, today’s African American School of
Buddhism stands on
his visionary ground. The school’s philosophy is a 21st century
follow-up to his foresight. A philosophy that, for the first time in human
history, offers Black America an opportunity to divest itself of beliefs used
to enslave them.
Today the enduring legacy of
slavery’s vestige,
Jim Crow, urban violence, misdeeds in the Black
pulpit, and death of aging Civil Rights
leaders mark the end of an era. Black America’s spiritual destiny is in the
wind. The opportunity for African American Buddhist Awakening rests on its
wings.
In order for Buddhism to land squarely in the mind of Black
America,
it must penetrate every nook and cranny of African American life. It must give
voice to the unmentionable, say the unthinkable, be willing to shock
sensibilities, and geld conventional wisdom. While pressing forward it must
also avoid forces that dragged Black America down in the first place. This is a
monumental task that will take millions of Awakened African Americans to accomplish.
An entire new language must emerge.
The glossary at the book’s end points out words that had to be invented,
interrogated, assaulted, and at times obliterated. Flogging words was necessary
to reveal Standard English is itself a hindrance to the Black Mind’s Awakening.
This work dares to confront the English language’s formidable obstacle to
excavating Black truth. It empowers the African American Buddhist to explore
taboo identities and beliefs, including the inalienable right to express a
Black and Buddhist opinion at the same time. If I’ve erred I did so in the name
of preserving my sanity, and that of the Black reader.
The phrase “enslaving religions” is used copiously. But
this work is not about them. Nor is it a competition with what they represent.
There’s no need to compete against other religions. The struggle is with words.
Words are the gatekeeping culprits of the Black Mind, not faiths. Besides,
unlike enslaving religions, Buddhism has never enslaved a single human being in
Africa or America. Why should it compete against those that have? Buddhism’s
lack of mass human enslavement makes it as pristine to the African American
mind as freshly fallen snow. Enslaving religions' misconduct toward ancient
humanity is their burden to bear. It has nothing to do with the Buddhist mind
or way of life. This is beyond dispute. Competition is nonsensical, or at the
very least a distraction.
There is no need to wage an argumentative war with Christians
in a nation founded by them on the tenets of their religion. Because of slavery
we, Black America, are forever bound to the Christian ideal. Even if
Christianity were put asunder it would not be good for our country. African America’s
body politic cannot win a battle against its Christianized spine. More to the
point, African American Buddhism is ruggedly self-sustaining on its own. It can
honor its community’s Christianized roots while simultaneously radiating a
productive influence in the world.
Everyone knows Buddhist peace is already
practiced in African America. What they may not know is Buddhism gained Black attention
a while ago. Admiration for Buddha surfaced significantly during the 1920's
Harlem Renaissance. You’ll read about that ahead. But
before delving into history, this work offers insight into translating
traditional Black convention into the cultural language of Buddhist Awakening.
Commingling Buddhist pragmatism with
everyday African American life is essential to the process. By pragmatism I
mean ‘keeping it real’ with grassroots African Americana. This includes but is
not limited to political necessity, academic rigor, addiction to materialistic
bling, stress of incarceration, quiet nights of pillow talk, mind numbing
poverty, social illiteracy, street corner debates, the paper-bagged
‘fouty’-ounce, “Yo Mama” battles, small talk at beauty salons, back rooms in
gangster mansions, Black religious activism, the “N” word, sports talk,
anti-Buddhist sentiments, HBCU mis-education on Buddhism, the pot of chitterlings next to
the neck bones at Juneteenth celebrations, before dinner talk at the soul food
restaurant, video game trash talkin’, bootyliciousness, Greek hazing, slappin’
down d’em bones, the cutting wit of the pimp cup, cuttin’-up at the barbershop,
rumblin’ the 808, the butt end of Black comic’s jokes, Black nerd conversations,
HaTeRzville, Ivy
League hissy fits, Black media punditry, Strait Outta Compton Buddhahood, sippin’ the smooth cool of Hennessy
and Cristal, soul desiccation of long-term unemployment, Black Buddhist Lives Matter, twerking and even while zombies
attack Black neighborhoods if necessary. In short, Buddhism in Black America
must move seamlessly among the people and express ideas worth listening to.
Understanding Buddhist pragmatism is
necessary for the sake of healing the injury of slavery. One way or another the mental
landscape of slavery’s vestige must be abandoned. If not, the Black Mind will
forever remain open to slavery-born foibles.[3]
A community warring against itself, religiously or otherwise, is futile. For
example, everyone knows anger is pathologically rampant throughout Black communities.
Anger that once fueled social change festers among us today like a centuries
old wound. People are sickened by it. Our children are killing and being killed
by it. Even though one may think anger is a predicament of poverty, the fact is
Black anger burns like hot coals in the belly of Black rich and poor alike.
Buddhist meditation on the other hand is
very new to African America. It’s cool and fresh, yet loaded with the wisdom of
ages. It’s seen civilizations, religious founders, and the nobility of their
doctrines come and go. Buddhism’s sanguinity is not derived from the babbling
brook of recent times. Its mighty river spans millennia hewn deeply into the
valley of human peace consciousness.
Buddhism is the symbol of a better way
because of what believers in its teachings have not done to the African
Continuum. Buddha’s eyes are soft with love and understanding. He sees the
suffering of all sentient beings. His heart is tender with mercy. A single palm
upraised through time cautions all who look his way to guard against
dehumanizing themselves and others. In the best of times, Buddha’s bounty
offers the highest human ideal. During challenging times he offers the same
high ideal rather than wrath or vengeance. This alone is worth contemplating
deeply.
For an African American, turning one's
mind to Buddhism is victory unto itself. For how can African America suffer
defeat by adopting a faith that’s never enslaved its people? Is not exiting
enslaving religions victory? Yes, of course it is. Especially if your
ancestors were enslaved by your birth religion’s believers. It’s no different
than exiting a burning building. Regardless of what one believes, the act of exiting
saves your life. For that reason African Americans Buddhism is a straightforward
survival plan.
Can African America benefit from
learning to survive the next twenty-five hundred years as Buddhism has already
done? Again, yes, of course it can. The details of acquiring such insight are
invaluable.
This book from cover to cover makes the
case. It’s written by an African American Buddhist teacher for his people.
Anyone who traverses these pages is wise to take what is read to heart. They
deal with liberating the Black Mind without need for racial invective.
Readers unfamiliar with the African American
experience may have to decode our culture along the way. Decoding African
America’s Buddhist complexity is necessary to grasp the totality of this book’s
meaning. That’s fair. African America, for sake of its survival, has spent
generations decoding conquest
culture. Fittingly, words
and perspectives Anglicized Buddhists would never allow on the published page lay ahead. The
concepts are audacious, inflammatory and sometimes painfully blunt to those
who’ve never considered what an enslaving religion is.
Prepare for a rousing read that’s rare
in Buddhist America. A new course is intentionally chartered here. A game
change to say the least. Right Speech henceforth is defined as the inclusion
of Black America in the global Buddhist experience, invited or not. Forces
that’ve excluded the African Continuum from global Buddhism’s annals deserve
the mental wake-up call this work delivers. It’s long overdue. For that reason
alone, Buddhists who thirst for alternative voices will find this work’s
departure from the norm refreshing.
The language is different. It riffs on the
symbiosis of 1) Western Buddhism’s ills, 2) Afro-Buddhist[4]
history in Asia, and 3) the history of Black America. Commingling these and
other themes is essential to slipping and sliding the Black Mind around the
tight corners of Buddhist Occidentalism.[5]
It doesn’t matter if African Americanized Buddhist
dialogue falls on the deaf ear of America’s Buddhist elite. They are not the
whole of humanity. Even the most privileged among them knows the freedom of
African American improvisation mentally enlivens the listener’s. In like order,
humanity will respond favorably to Buddhist innovation African American style.
Some will laugh, some will cry. Others will squirm uncomfortably with furrowed
brow. A few will be driven mad with celebratory joy. Despite it all one thing
is certain: If not for improvised African American cultural coding of the
Buddhist idiom, everything meaningful about it would be dismissed or
assimilated into oblivion by America’s dominant Buddhist culture.[6]
Readers who find kinship with the voice
of this work should expect bewilderment to arise from what has taken so long to
be said. The language of freeing Black minds demands the ‘language of
oppression’ be confounded. Everyone understands this. Make no mistake. An
African American turning to Buddhist meditation is doing so to rescue his or
her immortal soul. They realize the religious beliefs used to enslave human
beings in Africa and America are lodged deeply in their psyche. For them the
Underground Railroad of Buddhism is an idea whose time has come.
Revelations in this work were inspired
by a multitude of against the stream thinkers.
James Baldwin deserves credit for his masterful use of English as a weapon
against those who brought it to the fight. India’s Bhimrao Ambedkar’s[7]
fearless belligerence in the face of incalcitrant Casteism was also deeply
motivating. No less was the influence of Shakespeare’s dramatic flair for
revealing sinister plot through subtext. Kick-ass Gore Vidal inspired boggling
the mind of naysayers. Ram Das, Black Elk, and
Castaneda granted permission to reveal the visionary mystic experience. Belgian-French
female explorer Alexandra David Neel’s abandonment of convention kindled the
adventurous spirit. The rhapsodic poetic of Dylan Thomas gave permission to
write in streams of consciousness. Van Gogh’s Pointillism brought home the
importance of the period at sentence's end. Slave insurrectionists Turner and
Vesey contributed the rabble-rouse spirit of unmitigated gall. My Buddhist teachers,
and of course their teacher, Buddha, calmed my spirit enough to survive the
writing process. Complexity of these contrasting influences helped me to find
my voice. I alone am responsible for my fly-wisp’s swoosh at the pesky nuisance
of Western bias. Just as Trungpa acknowledged responsibility for his antics, I
am responsible for this tome’s impertinence.
The
subtext is a dialogue between worlds that know little of one another. The Indian[8] reader knows nothing of being taken downtown
in Bid Whist. The African
American reader knows
little of, “Panatipata Veramani Sikkhapadam Samadiyami.” Likewise, the Anglo Buddhist reader knows little of being shocked
senseless by the “N” word used in reference to their humanity. Their 'Buddhists of
Color' allies know little of working
exclusively for the uplift of Black America.
Many still have not come to grips with the fact Buddhism is an of color movement (See Figure 3). It doesn’t matter.
This book speaks forthrightly to African Americans within their ranks in a
familiar language. It must. Egalitarianism, having nothing to do with race or
the ugly side of racism, demands American Buddhism’s glass ceiling and limited
views be shattered. New meanings, recognitions, and pathways will arise from
the ensuing chaos. Let the debate begin.
Providence, not a lone author, beckons
this book to Awaken Black America. The work to be done is serious. No one
born into the mental or spiritual imprint of slavery need die there. The
survival-savvy Black Mind is intelligent enough to change the course of its
subjugated fate. All it needs is a constellation of ideas that inherently
thwart re-inscription of slavery’s vestige. Buddhism is the natural place to
evolve such ideas.
Ubiquitous meditation, The Buddhist
Solution, is African America’s liberative currency of the future. However, as an
agent of change, this book is limited. It can only offer the chapters ahead.
Its case for Buddhist liberation ends with the last word written. You, the
reader, are the jewel in African America’s lotus. Your mind, your heart, the
totality of your humanity and every moment between now and your death are the
vehicle of liberating generations to come. You must inspire yourself and others
despite slavery’s demons urging otherwise. This book is your trustworthy guide.
With it in hand, “Escape to Buddhism” becomes one of the most powerful phrases
ever uttered in African America.
Figure 3: Buddhists of Color, Ajanta Caves,
India 6th century A.D. © LCR
As descendants of slavery, our plan must
be to engage in a Black Buddhist meditation experience like no other. Have no
qualm about dealing with the issue of escaping what was done to your ancestors'
minds. They spent generations of harsh treatment under dehumanizing conditions.
They were worked to death in circumstances unbefitting human existence. Though
eventually freed physically, no one came to liberate them from mental,
emotional, or spiritual subjugation. The abuse they suffered should not
forgotten. Their story is the story of Black America.
As free-born descendents of African
American culture we meditators have a job to do. It’s our job to peacefully
prune today’s tree of Black spiritual life. When we face this truth, we have to
admit enslavers did the first pruning. Their institution of slavery
changed African religion into Christianity. Did they not? However hurtful and
shameful revisiting slavery’s wound may be, we can find solace in the fact our
ancestors survived. Did they
not? Yes, they did. Well then, who’s to say today’s African America cannot
survive meditative pruning of its own religious culture?
There’s no need to make a better case
than what slavery has already proven. Our very existence is proof profound change of Black religious
culture, en masse, is not terminal to the Black psyche. For that reason, in
essence, there’s nothing to be afraid of. Those who insist on living in fear
and frightening others should move to the back of the spiritual bus where fear
belongs. Whatever folks outside the African American community think, the use
of meditation to liberate the Black Mind is ours, not “theirs” to cultivate.
The premise of our work is found in a
simple anecdote about Buddha’s life:
Hindu prince, Shakyamuni, realized his
birth religion stood in the way of his Awakening. He sat by a tree, thought
about it, mentally escaped his birth religion, and thereby changed the world.
Every meditative action in Black America
need only be an expression of this simple approach.
If the heterogeneous mass of Black
America individually uses the young prince’s approach to Buddhist
Awakening, a 21st Century Age of Enlightenment Black America can call its own will arise. Its potential is
the likes of which humankind has never seen. If asked how can you possibly believe Black America
is capable of achieving its own Age of Enlightenment, respond, “How can you
not?”
Any man or woman interested in Buddha’s
approach is capable of Awakening. Africa American Readers of these pages are guaranteed to taste the fruit of yonder
shore—a place where the Negro
spiritual,[9] Buddhist Doha,[10] and Refuge Chant [11]
are one. Devoted African American Students
of meditation will sip the
nectar of self-emancipation as they study these pages in earnest. Practicing African American Buddhists will accomplish quiescent realization
as they ponder why so many Buddhas in Asia look like us. The meditative adept will dissolve into light having completed the practice of
profound openness to this work. Skeptics
quest to find fault in the Buddha will Awaken them without meditation. The Non-believer will Awaken through his or her determination to ensure
Buddhists live as they say they believe. And African America, having healed its
innermost injury from slavery, will inspire the world.
May all who read and practice what lay
ahead Awaken; each in their own way.
© LCR
[1] chitterlings - [pronounced chit-lins] Boiled hog guts
fed to slaves as a cheap food requiring meticulous cleaning of fecal matter; known
for their noxious in odor while cooking; today an African American culinary
tradition.
[2] The American Dream, Dr. Martin Luther King, Lincoln
University, June 6, 1961.
[3] foible – weakness in character, faults.
[4] The aspects and images
of Buddhism in Asia that reflect the African Continuum.
[5] Occidentalism: Characteristics
of Western European Countries, and Anglicized America.
[6] dominant culture – a
relatively small yet elite control group in society who establish norms as a
means of perpetuating their dominance; a subject of much discussion in the
following pages.
[7] Bhimrao Ambedkar - Untouchable Indian scholar, lawyer, political
leader, and orator noted for his blistering critique of Casteism. Chair of the Drafting
Committee for the Indian Constitution. Buddhist convert, 1956. Popularly
called: Babasaheb. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._R._Ambedkar
[8] Ambedkarite
– Buddhist of India who follows the philosophy of Ambedkar.
[9] Christian songs created
by enslaved Africans in America.
[10] Doha - Spontaneously
composed spiritual songs of awakening sung by male and female Buddhist adepts.
[11] Refuge chant – vow to
take safe haven in oneself, instead of a creator whose believers spent
centuries enslaving Black minds. “One truly is the protector of oneself, who
else could the protector be? With oneself fully controlled one gains a
awakening which is hard to gain.” Dhammapada
contact: LamaRangdrol at aol dot com