Confronting Racism with Mindfulness

Karin Meyer (Buddhist Currents); Pete Griffin; Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

How to counter racism using SCIENCE (The Guardian)

(The Real Peter Griffin) RACISM GRINDS MY GEARS: A Conservative Buddhist need not be a racist.

Ven. Anālayo's article in the journal of Mindfulness

Bhikkhu (Buddhist monk) Analayo

The article “Confronting Racism with Mindfulness” (Mindfulness 11, 2283–2297, 2020) by Bhikkhu Anālayo, a scholar of early Buddhist literature, examines Buddhist teachings and modern scientific research on mindfulness.

It does this in order to recommend ways in which mindfulness may be relevant to anti-racist practice for Buddhists and non-Buddhists.

• ABSTRACT: Racial oppression is a longstanding and widespread problem with significant repercussions and consequences for the health of those impacted. The roots of racial prejudice reach far back into the history of European culture. A contribution to the much-needed change can be found in the cultivation of mindfulness, in particular in its external dimension. This emerges from considering the background provided by the early Buddhist dismissal of caste prerogatives in the ancient Indian setting, granting priority to ethical conduct over birth. Besides opening up a new dimension for mindfulness-related research, which has so far predominantly focused on the internal cultivation of mindfulness, exploring the early Buddhist perspective also shows that diversity-work can become an integral part of the Buddhist path of practice. This holds in particular for White Buddhists, who need to confront their superiority conceit as an obstruction to their own progress to liberation.

Summary

Who started fewer wars, Hitler or Trump?

Ven. Analayo suggests that while the scientific literature already recognizes mindfulness as having some benefit in regard to reducing the intensity of suffering experienced by victims of racial discrimination and helping people become aware of unconscious biases, a potentially fruitful avenue for research would be the application of mindfulness to systemic racism -- specifically, its potential for helping White people become aware of how their racial behaviors perpetuate harm.

He frames this as an application of “external mindfulness,” an aspect of mindfulness often overlooked in contemporary Buddhist practice as well as in scientific research, and concludes the article by suggesting that White Buddhist practitioners regard diversity work as central to their practice of the Path.

• [What follows is a brief summary of the article with a few bracketed contextual comments.]

The article begins by briefly examining historical precedents for racism in Europe. It next considers some definitions of racism then compares Indian concepts of caste with modern Euro-American concepts of race.

Vem/ Anālayo notes that while there are important differences between the concepts, there is enough similarity to make the Buddhist critique of India's caste system relevant to modern Euro-American racism.

He mentions that while the word for caste (varṇa) means “color,” ancient Indian attitudes towards skin color were ambivalent. Western scholars have often framed things in terms of racial discrimination on the part of a lighter-skinned invading population against a darker-skinned indigenous population.

• [There is a great deal of colorism (discrimination by skin tone) in India today, but it is not directly related to caste-based discrimination. Historians debate what role skin color may have played in the ancient Indian concept of caste and how it changed over time. Most agree that present-day colorism is strongly influenced by European ideas about race and the attitudes it promoted during the colonial period.]

Ven. Anālayo points out that at the time of the historical Buddha (thought to be 2,600 years ago), the caste system was in a process of formation and contestation; Brahmins were struggling to establish their superiority based on birth.

Ven. Anālayo cites passages from Buddhist sutras or discourses showing Brahmins asserting this birth-based superiority, particularly with regard to spiritual purity. Skin color is mentioned in a couple of these passages.

• [However, birth appears to be the primary concern even when color is mentioned.]

Ven. Anālayo demonstrates how the Buddha in various discourses uses a variety of arguments against the idea that superiority (with regard to spiritual qualities and other abilities) can be the result of birth.

For the Buddha it is conduct (present karma) that determines a person's spiritual (and other) qualities in subsequent rebirths. Ven. Anālayo underscores the fact that entry into the Buddhist monastic order of monks and nuns involved renunciation of caste identity and other markers of social status.

He holds up the Buddha’s outspokenness against the caste system as an invitation for contemporary Buddhists to confront racial oppression. Ven. Anālayo then discusses the Vāseṭṭha Sutra, one of the most important discourses for the Buddha’s teachings on caste, at greater length.

Among other things, he points out that the Buddha explains the class of Brahmins (priestly caste) as the result of social evolution rather than as part of a natural order (as in the Vedas).

Noting how the Buddha attends to the sutra’s namesake -- Vāseṭṭha and his friend Bhāradvāja’s experiences of caste based discrimination -- Ven. Anālayo turns to consider how mindfulness might be a tool to counter racial oppression.

The next section of the article (“Racial Oppression and Mindfulness”) cites scientific literature examining the ways mindfulness may protect victims of racial discrimination from further emotional suffering by:

• increasing resilience
• reducing duration and intensity of emotional experiences
• increasing personal agency
• reducing anxiety
• reducing suicidal ideation, and
• allowing separation of the experience of discrimination from concepts of self-worth
• thus mitigating symptoms of depression.

Ven. Anālayo notes that these researchers do not intend these findings to suggest that victims should bear the burden of racism by learning to cope better with discrimination.

The next section of the article focuses on the role that mindfulness might play in preventing racist behavior in the first place.

He considers how mindfulness may help [perpetrators of racism] in regard to becoming aware of racial bias and overcoming ignorance (or denial) of systemic racism.

Ven. Anālayo suggests that although it has not been a focus of mindfulness research, the concept of external mindfulness [mindfulness focused on external factors rather than one’s own mental-emotional-physical states] may be helpful here.

It “emerges naturally when teaching mindfulness to confront racial oppression.”

He suggests that external mindfulness can be applied to White privilege in order to enhance awareness in White people not only of how they relate to racial differences but of the harmful impact of actions informed by White privilege.

• [The idea seems to be that the two applications of mindfulness, to both internal states and the external social sphere, go hand in hand. As such awareness of the impact of our actions on others facilitates internal awareness of the biases and cognitive-emotional patterns that fuel such actions, and vice versa. Harmful social patterns can therefore be identified and relinquished.]

In the final section of the article, he examines how diversity-work figures into the Buddhist path.  Ven. Anālayo first notes how White supremacy can be understood in light of the Buddha’s teaching that conceit with regard to familial social position is an obstacle along the Path.

He then discusses how White supremacy relates to the cultivation of the Path. Here are some quotes about this discussion that seem most relevant:

“In early Buddhist thought, such progress requires cultivating the eightfold path, which can be adjusted to the present task. Out of the eight factors of this path, three are of particular relevance for cultivating the entire path. These are right view, right effort, and right mindfulness (MN 117, MĀ 189, Up 6080; Anālayo 2019b).

“Right view provides the overall orientation. For the present purpose, an aspect of particular relevance would be the need to recognize that good and bad deeds have results. Although the original import of this aspect of right view refers to karma, it can be taken to reflect ‘the need to take responsibility for one’s actions’ (Anālayo 2019a, p. 67).

“Based on such taking responsibility, right mindfulness continuously monitors to detect the impact of superiority conceit and the activation of racial bias. Such monitoring has right effort as its support, ensuring that action is taken on the spot to counter superiority conceit and bias.

“Equipped in this way, the right intention for the absence of harm can come to percolate all aspects of daily life in the form of communications, general activities, and being at work (corresponding to right speech, action, and livelihood), ensuring that none of these situations results in anything that people of color may experience as harmful or disrespectful.

“Diminishing harm and undermining conceit in this and other ways will facilitate mental collectedness, leading to right concentration. In this way, diversity-work, rather than being perhaps at times seen by some as an annoying duty to which White Buddhists have to assent in order to be politically correct, can come to be right at the heart of their path of practice.

“The chief tool to work against the grain of superiority conceit in this way is none other than mindfulness, in its internal and external dimensions.” More