Monday, April 12, 2010

Difference and Me

I am so glad to be a part of this blog. I thought I'd do a first post on my experience as a Chicana within a mainly White convert Buddhist community. I also think framing my experience with the dharma in a geographical context is helpful in explaining my experience: I was raised mainly in East L.A. and the San Gabriel Valley (the "SGV" is in East Los Angeles County). I grew up in neighborhoods that were heavily Latino and Asian. I was born in Monterey Park, a city that has the largest community of Chinese-Americans in the country. The first Buddhists I ever knew were people in the neighborhoods I frequented and grew up in.

Much later in my mid-twenties when I decided to become a serious student of the dharma, my entryway into dharma study and meditative practices happened through White convert communities. I have found great support, insight and spiritual nourishment through my sangha, but I must admit, it has been interesting to witness the blind spots in regards to people of color within my sangha, and within other sanghas I have been a part of in the past.

My first weekend retreat was a jarring experience in terms of diversity - on the last day of the retreat a white woman raised her hand in discussion and said she had a problem "with the whiteness in the room." At first I literally didn't know what she was talking about, and then it dawned on my she was talking about the amount of White people in the room. The two meditation teachers, who were also White, began talking about the lack of diversity as being a big problem. I decided to speak up and said what was my truth at the time, which was as a Latina from the eastside, I did feel somewhat uncomfortable being the only one like me there. Later on during the break a women came up to me and said "I'm glad you are here." I didn't know this person so the compliment felt very strange, I felt a bit like a token. I knew she meant well so I was not angry with the comment - I just felt sort of odd, perhaps oddly exoticized.

Since that time, I have not been in a place where issues of diversity have been brought up as a topic of discussion or reflection amongst the largely White sanghas I have been a part of. However, I am extremely grateful to be co-facilitating a local L.A. People of Color group with Erica Shehane which is a part of Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society http://againstthestream.org/ My hope is that one day, we can discuss these issues not only amongst people of color (which is still needed, I firmly believe in a "safe space" for people of color to talk about diversity within the dharma) but also with the White people of our sangha. Such a discussion about diversity amongst all people within a mixed-race sangha, would hopefully be one about understanding, discussion and listening even when the discussion at hand is uncomfortable or difficult to have: this is my dream.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Eileen,

    That comment struck me funny too. Coming from a stranger, it seems like a failed attempt to connect. Was that all she said?

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  2. Hi Eileen, many thanks for your post here. As a white guy mostly living/practicing in very white places and groups, I'm pretty new to this. But on a recent retreat there was one Inuit man and someone said the exact same thing to him in a sharing group, "I'm glad you are here." In the context, it felt appropriate to me, he had been sharing his difficulties and was on his first retreat. But I thought of you and hoped he didn't take it as anything but support.

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