Editor's Introduction: Symposium on Race and Buddhism

For many years, there were only a handful of works discussing race and Buddhism. One key text is Being Black by Rev. angel Kyodo williams (2002, a must-read along with williams's many other works). More recently, there has been a welcome proliferation of material on race by scholars, practitioners, and scholar–practitioners of Buddhism. These have included articles in popular magazines such as Tricycle and Lion's Roar, YouTube interviews and Zoom forums, and books for scholarly and lay audiences alike. These authors take a variety of approaches, from practitioners' guides on how to meditate on the generational trauma of slavery and racism, essays that call for an understanding of the ways that race shows up in our teaching and scholarship, and discussions of how to work toward anti-racism in Buddhist sanghas. The works reviewed here also illustrate this variety: they highlight the history of race and racialized concepts in Buddhist studies, demand that we attend to the complexity of Buddhism in the United States, and call for us to work toward inclusive and anti-racist scholarship, teaching, and Buddhist practices. Understanding the intersections of Buddhism and race is vital for anyone who wants to understand the complexities of Buddhism better. This is for a few reasons. First, race and racism are (unfortunately) major components of lived experience in the United States, so race is also a key component to understanding Buddhism in America. This is one of the questions driving Duncan Ryūken Williams's work in American Sutra (Williams 2019), where he asks, "Is America best defined as a fundamentally white and Christian nation? Or is it a land of multiple races and ethnicities and a haven for religious freedom? More pointedly, does the fact of being nonwhite and non-Christian make one less American?" (2). For Williams, Buddhist teachings on impermanence and interconnectedness provide the perfect metaphor for America as a constantly evolving nation, "transformed by migrations from many corners of the world" (14). In other words, if we want to understand the changing landscape of religion (and Buddhism) in America, we need to also contemplate race. Second, teaching and learning about race and Buddhism in the West can counter popular images of white meditators one might see in discussions of Buddhism in the West. As Chenxing Han discusses in Be the Refuge (Han 2021), Asian Buddhists make up a significant yet oft-overlooked and misunderstood population of American Buddhists. Additionally, as Pamela Ayo Yetunde reminds us in a recently edited article in Lion's Roar, Black Buddhists have played a significant, if hidden, role in the story of American Buddhism. She calls for us to pay "homage to these Black Buddhist ancestors" so we can "transgress the wave of ignorance and erasure" that aims to render Black Americans and Black Buddhists invisible (Yetunde 2024). These "hidden figures" include Rev. Dr. Leon Wright, Alvin Sykes, and Dr. Marlene Jone, who were activists and teachers from all Buddhist traditions from the 1950s to the 2000s. the racism that is internalized through social messages must be acknowledged and deconstructed. It is incumbent upon white practitioners of Socially Engaged Buddhism, as they embrace Buddhist teachings and practices, to acknowledge that the body matters, that there are particular forms of suffering that arise from racism, and that such racism is often perpetuated in sanghas that are established to provide support and community to practitioners. Thus, black Buddhist writers are challenging the parameters of Socially Engaged Buddhism in important ways. By articulating the experiences of practitioners who experience sustained racism, these writers critique the whiteness embedded in Western Buddhism and create a path for future practitioners who suffer the harms of racism. (2017, 8–9) Those who want to understand the ways that Black Buddhist teacher–practitioners have and continue to develop Buddhist ideas of liberation will want to check out Vesely-Flad's Black Buddhists and the Black Radical Tradition, reviewed here by Girim Jung. As Jung states, this work "explores how political and psychological liberation are entangled in the spiritual and political praxes of Black Buddhists and the Black Radical Tradition." Further understanding can be gained from the works by Ayo Pamela Yetunde (Casting Indra's Net), Lama Rod Owens (Love and Rage), and Larry Ward (America's Racial Karma), reviewed here by Jessica Xiaomin Zu. In her review essay, Zu draws connections between these three pieces, highlighting how the authors use Buddhism to alleviate racial suffering, terming their efforts "liberation Buddhology." Zu asks how Buddhist studies scholars can "make the best use of knowledge to ameliorate collective suffering and bring forth a better, more just future?" She states that one part of the answer is to teach with these works. Finally, our own teaching and scholarship in Buddhism often rests on racist assumptions and categories. At the same time, scholarship and teaching can challenge these assumptions: one example is Wakoh Shannon Hickey's (2010) spot-on critique of the two/three Buddhism's paradigm that had held sway over discussions of Buddhism in America, and Han's persuasive argument to replace those worn paradigms with an attempt to understand the complex intersectional identities of Buddhists in America. Another recent call to reexamine our own scholarly assumptions about Buddhism comes from Ryan Anningson's Theories of the Self, Race, and Essentialization in Buddhism. In this work, he analyzes the persuasive myth of Aryanism and how its racist assumptions have impacted Buddhism and Buddhist studies. Jinhui Wu provides a thorough review of Anningson's work here. These issues matter in the classroom, even as some would try to limit the ways we teach about race. As a white scholar of Buddhism, I try to model for my white students, in particular, how to engage with issues of positionality as we try to understand the ways that racism has and continues to affect Buddhists and how some attempt to whitewash the history and present of Buddhism in America. It is equally important to me that students of color see Buddhists who are like them discussing issues that affect their lives. The books reviewed here by Jung, Tsomo, Wu, and Zu provide a snapshot of the expanding number of works about race in Buddhism and/or by BIPOC scholars and practitioners. There are many more, some of which I have mentioned here, and many others that I have not had space to include. But, following the example of Zu, I would like to end with this: If we are not teaching about race and Buddhism, are we really teaching about Buddhism? If we are not considering the ways that race impacts our teaching, activism, scholarship, and practice, are we really following the Buddha's teachings? I hope that this introduction and the reviews below provide a place to start and ideas to consider as you approach the topic of Buddhism and race, whether you are a scholar, practitioner, teacher, or student (or some combination of the above).